The Future of Human Driven Learning

From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams and this is The Daily The school year ending Educators and parents all over the country are taking stock of the earthquake that is AI in the classroom Today, my colleague Natasha Singer talks about the year that reshaped American classrooms and how one dedicated teacher helped his students chart their own path into an uncertain future It's Wednesday, june seventeenth N'matasha Singer, welcome to the Daily Thanks for having me, Rachel schoolchool year is done for most students across the country, and it's been a really contentious year when it comes to one topic in particular, which is AI in the classroom, something that you have been covering Can you summarize for us what the fight is over specifically? and when did it really get started? You know, Rachel I've been covering tech in schools and tech industry, influencing schools for the New York Times for more than a decade, and I've never seen the kind of parent backlash about school tech that we're seeing and particularly as you pointed out, AI becoming the new flashpoint. And I think that it's partly because of the context First of all, there are massive concerns about cheating Students tell me they're sitting in the front row of class and the kids in the back row have got their chromebooks open And whenever a teacher asks a question, the kids in the back are looking up the answers on Gemini or Chat GPT. and if they get called on, they're just reading the AI answers. Wow. And so there are all these concerns that these AI tools could pose serious risk to kids learning, to kids critical thinking. And so that's part of what the fight is about And at the same time, you're getting this massive push from tech companies like Google and Microsoft and openp AI to get their chatbots into schools. And you're also seeing the White House pushing for AI education. This next executive order relates to artificial intelligence education, S. The White House issued this executive order on AI education toward the end of the last school year, and it was called Advancing AI Education for American Youth. Al That's a big deal because AI is where it seems to be at We have Literally trillions of dollars being invested invested in AI The Trump White House was saying, if America wants to remain on the cutting edge, Then we need kids to learn how to use these AI tools. AI is the way of the future. I don't know if that's right or not, but certainly Very smart people are investing in it heavily It was a call to action, but it didn't have a lot of direction on what to do And so that left a great opportunity for tech companies to come in and shape what was happening. At Microsoft, we believe delivering at Google VCAI is the most profound way. It's called the AWS education. And so the next thing that happens is you have dozens of companies signing up. Today we are making new commitments by providing K through twelve students, teachers and staff Broader access than ever before. And those companies are like Anthropic and Amazon and NVidia and Meta and Microsoft and Oracle and openpen AI, like all the companies who are invested in tech step up and say, we have the technology and the expertise and the funds to drive AI education. And the goal really is to give away up to one hundred million dollars in technology one hundred fifty million dollars will go towards grants to support AI education. There's nothing more important than education. Focusing on education is the center of where we need to go because it is all of these young people They literally have to embrace it AI education is so new Nobody really knows what it is, and everybody has different definitions So basically in the absence of very specific guidance from the White House, that leaves a vacuum for all these other stakeholders, if you will, to come in and try to shape how AI is being used in the classroom. one hundred percent. Okay, so these big tech companies want to get their technology into schools, which we know they have done before. probably one of many people who remembers being a kid and suddenly seeing these big colorful IMacs that just appeared in classrooms. So on some level, this is not totally new phenomena. This is a really important point because we see these tech hype cycles in school driven by companies who have products And they want to get their products in front of kids because kids are the next generation of consumers. If you can train a second grader on your tool, you have them for life as a customer. And we should look at these because when schools got laptops in the beginning, there was a big push for what they called computer literacy, like leararn how to use a computer. And then as social media was taking off, we got social media literacy in schools And then there was this brief moment after Meta changed its name, where there was a campaign for metaverse literacy And now we have this huge push for AI literacy when we have sparse evidence that many of these past tech literacies had educational benefits for kids talk about what that rollout of AI in schools actually looks like. What are we actually seeing happening with students So that's a really important question. It's also difficult to answer because each school district is doing its own thing The most prominent example is Miami Dade County Public Schs, which is the third largest U S. school district And they were very careful. They spent months having their own technology experts test tech tools to see what they thought had the best guardrails for students And then they spent months training teachers how to use these tools, and I sat in on some of those trainings. And so you have a district that basically geared up for a year before they decided to introduce Gemini Googles chatot. for more than one hundred thousand high school students. So that was a very careful rollout. They started very, very slowly. And then I think in contrast, you have the Los Angeles Unified District, which is the second largest school district. And they in twenty twenty four announced with huge fanfare. Lentrers Unified will never waver from putting our students needs first. That they had signed a deal with a startup to make an AI chop up for students. newew day is dawning in technology and public education as Los An LA had said we're going to be a model for the nation in AIUs. And it was going to be called Ed. It was really friendly. Hi everybody. I'm Ed.at Soet Barv Bolorin that would talk to students and students could ask for help if they were struggling with a math problem. It could give them emotional support. they could check their grades, they could check their test scores, their parents would be able to use this AI toolation platform. We have one of the brightest entities in the universe. A And so it was billed as this magical thing, right? And the superintendent said it would democratize access to information, a panacea, it sounds like. Right. But very quickly within a few months, federal prosecutors came in and charged the founder of this startup that was making the AI tool for Los Angeles schools with defrauding investors. Derauding investors And then the Startup went bankrupt. And so you know that's the end of this tool that LA had chosen as its kind of demonstration product.. And so you have this contrast between Miami, which went methodically and tested many AI tools before settling on one. An LA that went with a small startup that had never made anything of this scale So obviously, this rollout of AI and schools has been chaotic. Los Angeles shows the risks of rushing into something quickly. Chaosos does seem a bit predictable, right? Because if we're talking about technology that we were only beginning to understand what it is, how to use it, what the risks are parents reacted to all of this I have to go back to Los Angeles because soon after this whole fiasco with the chatbot Los Angeles parents started a petition called off students desks. is the big tobacco of our time Is it safe Is it legal And is it effective? Oh And the district was my child and that you had his best interest at heart And it wasn't long before he started to come home from kindergarten singing the first songs he learned Grammarly ads Make cursive and typing educational standards and remove all generative AI and AI chat bots immediately And more than a thousand people signed this petition. and one of the things that the parents were asking for in their petition is to get the school district to audit all its recent tech contracts. LAUSD must undertake a review of all existing technology products and policies to ensure they are safe, effective, and legal So this concern over AI is part of this wave that we're seeing around the country of parents pushing back on school tech The AI backlash kind of gets rolled into a broader backlash. With AI, though, what is a specific complaint about AI So I think the concerns about these generative AI tools, right, which can produce texts and images are multiple. You've used Gat GPT and other tools. They regularly make stuff up. Right. And so one of the things is are they going to misinform students and are students not going to know The second thing is that you're basically offloading human tasks T a vot And if you are a child or a student who doesn't know how to think critically yet or who doesn't know how to use research or doesn't know how to analyze a text passage then it's like both hindering the development of your own Human skills also creating this Result that seems human ish. It's human esque. And we've seen a series of reports and studies cauthing against using AI in education and the problems it could cause. And one of the biggest was a report from Brookings earlier this year. in which you know, they looked at hundreds of studies and they spoke with hundreds of students and teachers and researchers and parents and technologists across the world Brookings report said that at least for now the risk of using generative AI in kids education far overshadows the benefits pause briefly here and talk a little bit more about some of those risks that you articulated because What you are describing as the concern is fundamentally about critical thinking, right If the assignment is to read athello and explain what it means or look at a piece of civil rights law and try to explain how it might apply in a different situation Theoretically what students are being offered is a machine that can do all of that for you. And just to use an imperfect metaphor, if you think of the brain as a muscle that you exercise by learning to think critically in schools, this is a tool that basically takes away that exercise. Absolutely. It's completely different to read a play like Othello. or study primary source documents on the history of the Civil rightights movevement or even listen to a podcast. versus getting an AI to synthesize that for you, to summarize that for you, to explain it to you And parents are saying they want to see more research and more studies about the impact of these tools in schools. And so one of the things we saw right after the LA chat bot fiasco was the Los Angeles schoolchool Board just voted to put in restrictions. in schools, including like No laptops or tablets for kids in kindergarten and first grade In New York, we've seen a groundswell of concerns specifically around AI and a huge push to get the school district to put a moratorium on using student facing AI tools. and asking for an immediate pause on I YN schools One of the things that's remarkable about this polarizing debate is that the folks that are actually in the middle of this, the teachers and the students are largely left out of the discussion And so this year I spent a lot of time going to schools and asking. teachers and students what they think. Okay, so Natasha, what have you learned from talking to the people that we have not been hearing from in all of this, teachers and students You know, I spend a lot of time in schools this year and it's Absolutely fascinating I found that more and more teachers and students buying the popular polarizing narratives that like AI is magically going to transform education or AI is going to tragically doom education, you see some students who have deep concerns about AI And you have teachers who are trying to stake out a middle ground and chart a new path for what AI education could look like for their students And what does that path mean? What does it look like Well, a great example is a teacher that I started talking with earlier this year. Can you just tell me a little bit about your class and the school, yourre in new work I'm in Newk,ew Jersey Yorth Star Academy, which is a charter school. I've been there for a long time. so His name is Scott Kern teaches addvanced placement US history. It's passion for sure It's hard for me to imagine doing anything else You just see he's the kind of dedicated, engaging teacher that you wish you had or that you would want for your kids. helping them become good writers, good thinkers good people And you know, like many of us, Scott started experimenting with AI chatbots. My kids and I were using it to make silly stories And then he signed on and did this fellowship program for teachers, where he learned to build his own customized AI tools tailored to the history courses that he was teaching And he's the head of the history department. I thought, wow, this could be so helpful for me as a curriculum planner. And so he's using it for his own work to develop and update course materials, and you can see that that's really useful Lesson planning lesson design As he's using these AI bots more and more, I thought, I think there's opportunity here It occurs to him that The AI might also be able to help engage his students in learning AP US history. So hopefully deepen their thinking and m for like a richer discussion very limited doses when teachers know when the moments of accademic friction and critical thinking are happening. they can choose that AI will not enter the picture of those moments And if we do that, then AI, I think can augment learning this in really powerful ways. and so Educators know. that the thing that makes students learn is friction, right? The fancy term for it is productive struggle. If something is easy, you might not retain it But if you think through something yourself ask questions and maybe you make mistakes or maybe you correct it, or maybe know you have this epiphany about how to synthesize information from different time periods or whatever, it's going to stick in your head And so Scott decides to develop some AI tools to see if he can help that productive struggle, that friction with students. And one of the things he does, remember, he's an AP US history teacher, is he creates a debate bot. And in the middle of class, students stop for ten minutes. And they start talking with the AI tool that's got made. And it's saying to them, what do you think was the primary cause of the Chicago race riots And students say, here's what I think the reason is. And you've got the bot saying, Okay, what evidence do you have for them? What's the primary source for your argument? And what about what else is happening around the rest of the country? Maybe it's not isolated to Chicago. The bot is designed to try to push their thinking further and help them hone a deeper argument. Right. It's not trying to think for them. But also, after about ten minutes,cott's like, okay, close your computers and now we're going to talk about ourselves. He wants to make sure that his kids are still exercising their brain muscles, so to speak. Right And it's working inside the classroom oututside the classroom Scott and one of his teacher colleagues, Mike Tauin are getting worried because they're noticing that a lot of students are turning to AI tools more frequently and I have been seeing this a lot in my reporting this year Yeah, there are plenty of kids using AI to cheat or to take shortcuts But I'm also talking to teens around the country who are using chatbots to like create fitness routines or look up recipes, or envision their prom dresses or make animated selfie videos. No, it's every time you do a Google search, it is integrated into dating apps, It's everywhere. Right. And at the same time, we're seeing kids like adults get into these very risky, intimate relationships with AI chatbots. and sometimes they're really tragic outcomes recently spoke with a twelfth grader in San Francisco, and he told me like he'd accidentally stabbed himself in the middle of the night with a samurai sword. W. And instead of waking up his mom in the middle of the night to tell her that he had this deep bleeding gash in his leg, instead he asked a chatbot about what to do about it He asked to Chapa what to do about a samurai sword injury to his leg Yes, he did And eventually he woke up his mom and she took him to the emergency room. it seems like the right call. Right. But the first line for many teens is Chat Tell me what to do about this, right? Right. And so Scott and his teacher, Mike were like just growing concerned about their students. Who knows what's going to be out there in six or seven years Imagine that they get there And we have done nothing to prepare them to think critically about AI If we're helping kids to figure out the world and their futures. then we have to help them figure this out too So the teachers decide Generative AI is actually a crucial new subject that teens need to be fluent in. And the way they're going to deal with this is they're going to create a new course And they're going to call it drivers's education for AI So our goal in all of this by the end of the class that we're having is for you all to think of yourselves as drivers of the technology So I actually went to the first class of the semester earlier this year in February Sixteen students had signed up. It's an elective class. And most of them were seniors preparing to graduate. Okay, so what do they talk about in the first class You control the wheel, you control where things are going. You are not a passenger who's just sitting there letting AI happen to you You're in control. They focused on Having students think about agency So to kind of think about this in your own lives, we're going to do what we're call a twenty four hour audit. To look at this, the teachers asked the kids to think about When were the times that they actively asked a chatbot to do something for them specific And the cases in which you're like on Instagram and there's an algorithm and it's just feeding you content and you're like just scrolling through They're being asked to think critically about whether they're thinking critically, right M seem obvious But of course, most of us just mindlessly are using these AI tools all day long. Sure You know, and in addition to this exercise where they thought about whether they were AI passengers or AI drivers, The students had this fascinating conversation about creativity L That clip of the building falling. wasn ant AI generated Now you would think like what's the big deal? less than a second, but it caus they looked at a scene from a movie where a director had used AI to generate an explosion And they talked about like Is that film director still the creative force behind this part of the movie? Or should the AI also get a cod directing credit? And when we talk to students from the class They weren't naive about the potential impacts of the technology, and you hear their really sophisticated thinking when we ask them about it Okay, so I'm Anna, by the way. I work on the daily, which is, you know So our daily producer Anna Foley, sppoke with a few students. I'll start. My name is Brianna Perez and I'm currently a senior and' eighteen. My name is Nicholas Wtham. I'm currently a senior and I'm eighteen. My name is Adria Ferreu. I'm a senior and I'm eighteen And Anna asked them broadly about what they had hoped to get out of the AI litiversy class and how they thought about AI now I decided to sign up for this class because I actually did an internship last year and I saw how there was a lot of AI co pilots that hooked in like business databases. So I felt like AI isn't gonna go nowhere, so it's better for me to learn it now so I will be more like aware and know how to work AI in my future So I just wanted a better understanding of how I can help me in my thinking. Like going throughout this class, it kind of made me realize that I have to approach AI with a certain purpose in mind instead of just mindlessly asking a general question because then AI will kind of drive me and I won't drive it What did you think about AI before you started this class U too me, I think the misconception that I had is AI kind of has the answers to everything ' I had some very specific tasks that I was working on. And if I wasn't specific, giving the AI context or like being straightforward with what I needed it for It wasn't as accurate or efficient as I hoped it was going to be. and it just showed me that I had to put a lot more effort into my own personal thinking and taking the initiative on my own versus solely relying on AI and places that I probably shouldn't have solely been relying on it for. When you look back on this course, do you have favorite lessons, any memories that you know, you had a light bulb moment or like were funny or Silly. I would say probably the first class. We had an example chart of like how are you a driver and how are you a passenger? And I was like, I really sat back and realized I was like Spotify has an AI like DJ and I'm always listening to the AI DJ. It plays all of my favorite music and I was like, that's AI unconsciously driving me because I'm not picking the music. I'm just Listening to whatever it generates. And I it was funny because I was just like, I feel like I have a good understanding of AI, but this idea of like being a driver wasn't really something that I ever thought of. Did you change how you listen to music? like do you still use AID drive? Yes, Okay. I try to like be more specific. L, if I don't like this song, I'll skip it now before I just let it used to go on and on and on, but know, I'm trying to get better. Yeah, you're trying to say like If it's going to pick music for me, it should be straight heads. Yeah. Yeah I'm kind of curious like before this class, like I feel like I see a lot of people in my life using AI, including my parents. Have your parents used AI? And like what is that like U yes. So recently I went on vacation with my mom and our whole itinerary when we were in Puerto Rico was completely chat GT generated. But my mom was like, this saved her so much time and most of the places we went to were actually pretty good. But I would say the issue with both of my parents is they cannot tell when something's AI generated. And even they' say at the bottom like may contain AI generated media. and they're just like, well, how can you turn it? I'm just like, yeah, this is gonnaiv be a problem I feel like in the future. Yeah. it's here to stay, so you might as well start learning it kind of like what you were saying You too, anything with your parents So my dad is mostly a call type of person, like he'll call me instead of text me. But recently he's been texting me and using ChiGBT. How How can you tell? I can tell because that is not the way he talks at all. The times he does text me It's only like one word short answers. and now all of a sudden I'm getting this long paragraph of like Advance words Not to say he doesn't know them, but that's not him. He just doesn't typically write. Yeah. He does notite like that at all U and it really caught me off guard and I asked him about it And he said, yeah, ChadGBT really helps me formulate my grammar And I was telling him that I want to hear what you have to say not ChatBC. So we talked about it for a bit and he kind of understood what I was going big task as your family ambassador for AAI Well, they say it themselves like, I'm growing up in this time of AI. So I feel like it's kind of up to me. So these students have taken on the roles of teachers. They're teaching their parents about AI and how to use AI responsibly Thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it. and thank you for letting me sit out on class. I enjoyed it. Yeah yeah But Natasha, given just how fast All this AI technology is evolving. I mean, they're coming out with like new versions of Chat GBT, it feels like every few weeks at this point. What are the chances that whatever these kids learn this semester would be outdated by the next school year That's a really good question, but I think what's fascinating about these teachers is They're trying to get students to think deeply about its implications for society notot just how to use it, and the questioning skills that they're learning can be applied to any technology, whether it's social media or like upcoming quantum technology. And so I think of this not so much as AI literacy as AI civics. It's a civics class. And so as a final project, the students got up And they presented a kind of declaration of independence about this technology I don't think It' so evident that artificial intelligence is a tool created to expand human potential. AI is meant to be a tool to help people instead of replacing human thinking. To foster personal harmony, we seek a personal connection with technology that serves to enhance the human experience without replacing it That creativity is lost whenever convenience becomes more important than growth And that true learning still demands strugg of reflection and creativity And that AI should be viewed as a extension for humanity designed to unlock solutions for critical challenges. Whenever AI begins to diminish honesty or human connection, we have the responsibility to limit its use and to question its influence because they Educational institutions may authorize the usage of artificial intelligence provroided it remains a tool of support and never a surrogate for the educator In conclusion, we stand firm against the surrender of our autonomy We assert our role as the architects of the future Thank you for a great semester. We had never taught this class before, it never existed before at the school. And thanks to you, I think it's become a part of the future here in elsewherebe When you think of what parents are concerned about, that there's so much tech in schools, that it is roting kids' brains and bamboozling them and they won't be able to think critically, like here you have twelfth graders who arrived at a place where They're excited about AI. They want to use the tools in ways that will benefit them. They have specific ideas about what uses that might be But they also know that they are dealing with a product and they don't want to have a product driven future. They want to have a human driven future. And I think that that's like an amazing outcome for parents who were concerned about the overuse of tech in schools Well, to your point, Natasha people are worried about with technology is so existential, right? Like it's really important how we educate kids is the world that we are educating them for? because what this one teacher is doing, even if it does work and it gets students to think critically and use these tools better, That feels very out of scale with the advances this technology is making in basically every other sector of our lives This feels a little bit like a David and Goliath story. So I think you're picking up something that's really important We all know there's a massive, massive power imbalance. between trillion dollar tech giants pushing schools to train kids on their AI tools and the durable critical thinking skills that teachers like Scott and Mike believe are in the best interests of kids. I think It's part of a much bigger thing that's happening where we're questioning what we want the world to look like I'm visiting schools all the time and I think this grassroots teacher movement for AI Civics is much bigger than the one classroom and the one school we visited Teachers around the country want to help students learn to ask deep questions about whether they want a technology driven future, how they want AI tools to fit into their lives or maybe they don't want to use AI at all is a reflection of this broader questioning of the role of big tech power in society students are not buying the idea AI driven future is inevitable Natasha Singer, thank you so much Rachel, thank you for having me We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today The Trump administration announced plans to move two major functions of the Education Department to other parts of the government The White House's most aggressive moves yet to dismantle an agency that it has pledged to dissolve The changes moveved programs for disabled students into the Department of Health and Human Services and the enforcement of civil rights laws and schools to the Justice Department The moves are expected to be immediately challenged in court And Federal prosecutors on Tuesday unsealed conspiracy, assault and other charges against fifteen people accused of violently impeding immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis during an immigration crackdown this year. Minnesota's top federal prosecutor Daniel Rosen. So the defendants were members of two Minneapolis based groups connected with the far left movement, AntifA Since the immigration crackdown began late last year Prosecutors have struggled to sustain similar criminal charges against IC protesters, with judges often questioning the government's underlying evidence. Today's episode was produced by Diana Wyin, Lexi Dio, Adrianne Hearst, and Anna Foley It was edited by Michael Benois with help from Liz O'Balon. and contains music by Marian Lzano, Dan Powell, and Chelsea Daniel. Our theme music is by Wondery Special thanks to Juan Adondo That's it for the Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.