Our education and training system has largely been focused on “answers”. You get a right answer you get a point, a prize, a certificate. But in the AI era, this needs to be flipped 180 to focus on “questions”. That’s a complete overhaul and requires massive change, and in particular, a lot of imagination & ambition. Another thing I’ve found, is that asking questions is a lot harder than finding answers!
Rachael, I believe our education system has always been better at measuring what students can produce than what they have actually understood. Which makes me wonder: is AI creating a new problem, or exacerbating an existing one? Perhaps AI is simply making a weakness in our education system much harder to ignore.
Some thoughts. You remain my queen. Love Phil and feel like we could be great friends despite never having met him. Call me crazy, but I feel like encouraging kids to think and challenge and argue and persuade (as excruciating as it can sometimes be) and engaging with them in that very pursuit (almost always incidentally) is the best investment you can make in their future. Reciting information perfectly is meaningless. Arguing with me about why their hot take is the right one (on everything from pop culture to what makes a great matcha) is everything. Maybe I’m lucky that my kids are now young adults so I got a bit of a free pass in relation to some of the problems with AI (and I do feel for parents with young kids because they’re juggling a lot of difficult shit). But hearing my youngest daughter tell her father that he really needed to use AI less and think more was music to my ears.
Ahahah you make me laugh Nicole. I agree entirely with this. I also think that not every family has the resources or the internal culture to do it one on one with their own kids so an education system that can build these skills and reinforce it is a public necessity. But surely reciting things from rote or practicing a single essay over and over until its perfect in the exam is not the answer.
And you’re right to remind me of that. My circumstances enable me to have those conversations for a whole range of reasons. So of course the education system needs to do its best to replicate that as well as possible so that all kids get that some experience of challenging and engaging and arguing and persuading. Every day is a school day.
Completely. I think it actually relates back to the issue I wrote about a couple of weeks ago — people are so time-poor. Relationality is time-intensive; we have essentially priced ourselves out of the market.
I think that’s why schools have been asked to teach more and more things that used to be the the province of family.
Our education and training system has largely been focused on “answers”. You get a right answer you get a point, a prize, a certificate. But in the AI era, this needs to be flipped 180 to focus on “questions”. That’s a complete overhaul and requires massive change, and in particular, a lot of imagination & ambition. Another thing I’ve found, is that asking questions is a lot harder than finding answers!
100% David.
Rachael, I believe our education system has always been better at measuring what students can produce than what they have actually understood. Which makes me wonder: is AI creating a new problem, or exacerbating an existing one? Perhaps AI is simply making a weakness in our education system much harder to ignore.
This is exactly right. I think AI is exposing a lot of systemic issues in education and in work that long pre-date the technology.
Some thoughts. You remain my queen. Love Phil and feel like we could be great friends despite never having met him. Call me crazy, but I feel like encouraging kids to think and challenge and argue and persuade (as excruciating as it can sometimes be) and engaging with them in that very pursuit (almost always incidentally) is the best investment you can make in their future. Reciting information perfectly is meaningless. Arguing with me about why their hot take is the right one (on everything from pop culture to what makes a great matcha) is everything. Maybe I’m lucky that my kids are now young adults so I got a bit of a free pass in relation to some of the problems with AI (and I do feel for parents with young kids because they’re juggling a lot of difficult shit). But hearing my youngest daughter tell her father that he really needed to use AI less and think more was music to my ears.
Ahahah you make me laugh Nicole. I agree entirely with this. I also think that not every family has the resources or the internal culture to do it one on one with their own kids so an education system that can build these skills and reinforce it is a public necessity. But surely reciting things from rote or practicing a single essay over and over until its perfect in the exam is not the answer.
And you’re right to remind me of that. My circumstances enable me to have those conversations for a whole range of reasons. So of course the education system needs to do its best to replicate that as well as possible so that all kids get that some experience of challenging and engaging and arguing and persuading. Every day is a school day.
Completely. I think it actually relates back to the issue I wrote about a couple of weeks ago — people are so time-poor. Relationality is time-intensive; we have essentially priced ourselves out of the market.
I think that’s why schools have been asked to teach more and more things that used to be the the province of family.