When I see arguments like this one, it’s so easy to think, “This is an old problem garbed in a fresh set of clothes.” That is, the problem of becoming critical thinkers and learners vs people to whom learning is done for them. Or put more simply, how to avoid a domesticating education.

Those who cannot claim computers as their own tool for exploring the world never grasp the power of technology… They are controlled by technology as adults–just [they were]…controlled [by] them as students.

Source: Toward Digital Equity: Bridging the Divide in Education; Editors: Gwen Solomon, Nancy J. Allen, and Paul Resta as cited

What I find so ironic is, we’ve seen this all before…I wrote this in 2014 (parenthetical comments are my 2025 commentary)

1. Spend countless thousands (or millions) on the program (Gen AI in this case)
2. Provide minimal training for teachers because the program is just that awesome! (You can use free Gen AI tools and save so much time, effort! Just watch a few videos, ask Gen AI to come up with a course of professional development for you)
3. Place children in front of a technology and let it do all the hard work. (Isn’t this exactly what Gen AI does for high school students (college students, too) whose lamentations we now read in every news source?)
4. Wait for the student achievement points to go up (they are not, but that’s not stopping the flood of venture capitalist funding of schools)
5. Watch the equipment, software gather real and/or virtual dust when the next tech-based instructional intervention catches the eye of top-down administrators seeking a quick boost. (It’s hard now to imagine the next wave of hype, but agentic AI in schools or some version of that)

What made think of that old quote and excerpt from my 2014 blog entry from Gwen Solomon? It was something I read over at LinkedIn.

The Dichotomy Rides Again

Over at LinkedIn, Dr. Nick Potkalitsky highlighted the challenges that educators and schools face with Gen AI. He put it this way in his short piece on LinkedIn:

We’re seeing two completely different tiers of AI use, and the choice between them will shape an entire generation’s relationship with these technologies.

Tier 1: AI as Content Delivery System Most schools are deploying AI interactive spaces (MagicSchool, SchoolAI) to teach math, history, writing—using AI as a more efficient way to deliver disciplinary content. Students get instant explanations, 24/7 tutoring, personalized feedback. It’s compelling and convenient.

Tier 2: AI as Object of Study for Digital Literacy A smaller group is using AI interactions to teach about AI itself—how it works, its limitations, biases, and appropriate uses. Students learn to evaluate AI responses, understand algorithmic decision-making, and develop critical thinking about these systems.

Here’s the problem: Most schools think they’re doing both when they’re really only doing the first. Students are learning to use AI efficiently but not to evaluate it critically. They’re becoming skilled prompters but not informed citizens.

The hidden curriculum is concerning. When students prefer AI tutors because they’re “easier” than human teachers, they’re learning that intellectual struggle is a problem to eliminate rather than essential for growth.

The key question: Are we using AI to make learning more efficient, or to help students understand the AI-integrated world they’re entering?

The choice we make now—content delivery or critical literacy—will determine whether we raise a generation of AI consumers or AI-informed decision makers.

Dr. Nick’s framing of this problem (read his complete article) is not new. Hand in hand with these ideas is Patrick J. Finn’s Literacy with an Attitude:

First, there is empowering education, which leads to powerful literacy, the kind of literacy that leads to positions of power and authority. Second, there is domesticating education, which leads to functional literacy, literacy that makes a person productive and dependable, not troublesome.

I suppose there aren’t any problems that human beings encounter again and again that is entirely new. But is this really a problem? I know, some point to the state of learning in K-16 schools as evidence of the problem. Some argue that it’s all the technology access, such as Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation.

Pawns or Players

Chess is my least favorite game. That’s because a frontal assault is ineffective. You have to think, reflect, learn, apply…you have to be a critical thinker. Chess is not a game, it’s a metaphor for life. For me, it’s not a game to get away from stress, it’s a game to prepare you for life’s struggles. My problem with it was that I imagined chess as a game of poker, checkers, or pick up sticks…a way to pass the time with a family member or friend. Instead, chess is more about strategy and a battle of wits. I have always been unarmed in such. But why?

Raised to Follow

Schools have been struggling with this idea of educating pawns to play their self-sacrificing role (whether they want to or not), or to raise them up to be players to move the pieces on the board. It seems impossible. Eventually, the lesson learned is that without struggle, there is no learning.

Without struggle, there is no value to what you obtain. You learn that the long, hard path that presents you with unanticipated challenges is more welcome than the easy shortcut. That the 40 days in the desert is better than the two days next to the oasis. The taste of salt is more welcome when hard sought (as is sugar). In great quantities, both are bad for you.

But how do you learn self-regulation, to control the urge for the easy? You learn some of that at home, but what about in classrooms? It’s slow, arduous, journey to find the right words and string them together to make sense.

Rise of the Co-Intelligences

Listening to a Smarter Campus yesterday (the podcast episodes flooded my podcatcher, blurring together), I found myself captivated by the choice of words to describe Gen AI. That description? “Co-intelligence.”

I like this approach Patrick Dempsey suggests…in this activity for students interviewing someone and writing a profile, there’s a bit of the opportunity to engage with content at a deeper level without Gen AI. Then, to use Gen AI to flesh out the thinking. In the first step, it’s about learning what makes a key moment. In step 2, it’s about seeing what others (including co-intelligences like Gen AI that brings to you the aggregation of human approaches to interviews and writing profiles). In step 3, your sense of the interview is enhanced by what you’ve learned from other people and people’s ideas distilled/filtered through Gen AI. At the end of the process, you get to see if you engaged in enough productive struggle to learn the process and apply it to a new situation. This is fantastic approach.

🎯 Step 1:
Listen to the interview. Take notes. Capture 3 key moments (human only)

🔧 Step 2:
Build a “training pack” with/for AI about what a good profile requires (human prompting + AI outputs + external sources)

🎧 Step 3:
Listen to the interview again with this framework, notice what you missed, update the profile and training pack (human + AI collaboration)

⚡ Step 4:
Run perspective exercises to engage with the profile in new ways: persona shifts, counterfactuals, lens switches (AI helps break assumptions)

✍️ Step 5:
Draft the profile using your preparation (Human provides angle and insights, AI helps structure)

🏆 Step 6:
Midterm challenge: bring notes, profile, and training pack: adapt the profile to a new scenario (tests if you internalized the thinking)

Students know exactly what each step accomplishes and why AI helps or doesn’t help at each stage

As wonderful as this approach is, there is time and space given to focus on a single assignment. To go in-depth. But in the helter-skelter of K-12 classrooms, how do you carve out time like for each student amidst the condemnation of legislators, parents, and others who want you to do something? And, where is critical thinking and analysis of your sources addressed? I suppose, Patrick may do a special unit on that or work it right into Step 2 (seems like a natural place to do that to me).

There is Always a Hidden Curriculum

There are always multiple motives for doing something. I’m writing a blog because it gives me time to process new ideas and share what I’m learning as I do so. But I also enjoy looking to see how many people tuned in and read something, thought it was popular. It’s not the primary reason (I got over that quite a few years ago), yet that doesn’t stop me from taking a peek at the blog stats page.

In schools, there is a hidden curriculum. In Gen AI, there is all sorts of bias (e.g. algorithmic). Why? Human beings have limited resources (e.g. time, energy, money). We don’t do something for pure whatever. We always have other motives, more than one reason.

Maybe the problem isn’t that there is a hidden curriculum, but that we pretend there isn’t. Let’s leverage all of the technologies, all the critical thinking frameworks, and use them to learn with that in mind. Sure, you can use Gen AI to do all your work for you, but in 12 years of schooling, you’ll be doing menial work in several jobs that fail to pay a living wage.

The Poverty Line

When I reflect on my time teaching third grade to bilingual students in East Texas, I remember one conversation. I don’t know what occasioned the conversation, but I remember describing where the poverty line was in America. Why it would be necessary to explain that to third graders, looking back, I’m not sure. But I do remember how they all paid rapt attention at this bit of adult insight I’d picked up in a book or a reading.

My hope is that the glimpse into what their future might be without an education would spur them to learn. That by confronting them with the reality of life, they might see, “I need to put more effort into learning.”

Dr. Nick says the question is…

“whether we’ll use this moment to build student capacity for critical thinking, authentic relationship, and human-centered decision making, or whether we’ll accept efficiency and convenience as sufficient goals for education.”

This has always been the choice. Those who do decide, who have the power to decide for others, will make the choice. The rest of us are pawns in an economy where the drowning stand on our heads to survive.

Disclaimer: All errors are mine. I wasn’t trying to write a rebuttal of Dr. Nick’s work, but rather seeing where his original piece inspired me to go. Thanks for coming along on this experimental journey. Some times, dead ends or cul-de-sacs are fun to explore as well as open roads. 😉

A Comment

Kyle Brumbaugh was kind enough to reply when this blog entry appeared on LinkedIn. I share his remarks below:

AI isn’t content delivery, it is content alteration. You talk about new clothes, when we buy a suit, we get it altered to fit us. To me, that is what AI does for content and our students. AI allows us to alter, stitch, hem and all of the modifications we need to make in the content to allow it to meet the needs of our students.