Education and Artificial Intelligence: Technology Changes to Meet Student Needs
Conversations about artificial intelligence (AI) are everywhere. For those of us who take a long view of history and its impact on people, there is much we should already know. History does not give us predictions, but it does give us patterns—especially when it comes to workforce change, education, and human well-being. While this is necessarily an oversimplification, a brief look at prior moments of technological disruption can help clarify what we should expect—and what we risk repeating—today.
In the late 19th century, the rise of mechanized production replaced skilled trades with industrial manufacturing. Work was broken into repetitive tasks requiring little training, allowing businesses to control labor costs and increase profit. In that process, many skilled workers lost not only their livelihoods but also the dignity that came from mastering a craft valued by their communities. Formal education remained largely inaccessible, and even basic literacy and numeracy became less relevant in many of these new roles. Efficiency increased, but at significant human cost.
During World War II, the United States again reshaped education to meet workforce needs. In 1942, the American Council on Education introduced the General Educational Development (GED) test to assess the academic skills of recruits and returning veterans and place them into roles they could reliably perform. Preparing a workforce for emerging jobs was essential to both economic growth and national success. Education was leveraged as a tool for increasing productivity.
Since then, we have seen successive waves of technological change—the internet, cell phones, smartphones, and now AI—each reshaping jobs and the education required to fill them. What we consistently fail to recognize, however, is that while technology changes rapidly, humans do not. We have increasingly shifted our focus to a belief that students’ mastery of technology is important to do in the race for global economic advancement. When do we pause to consider the social and developmental consequences? As Jonathan Haidt argues in The Anxious Generation*, today’s technologies intensify four foundational harms: social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction. AI may very well exacerbate these harms rather than resolve them. His proposed solutions—phone-free schools and increased free play may point us in the right direction. He challenges us to ask the question: What does the pursuit of happiness really mean?
AI may increase efficiency in better achieving routine and skilled tasks. What will be the impact of AI on our educational system? How will it impact the minds of our students? When AI replaces foundational skill building in classrooms, such as basic reading, writing, and mathematics, it undermines access to higher-level thinking rather than enabling it. Even today, I watch as students are unable to read a map or calculate a subtraction problem with money because technology has replaced learning. Maybe that’s okay, but how do we expect students to develop advanced skills—critical thinking, problem-solving, empathy, collaboration, and design—without the educational foundations that support them. These are the very skills required for meaningful, skilled work; yet, for me, our current approach risks students' ability to perform academically at higher levels without first developing the learning processes necessary to get there.
The opportunity is now to slow down and reflect about how learning happens - the biology, the cognitive developmental stages, and the necessary conditions. Together, let us drive the intentional multi-disciplinary discussion about the process for learning that centers on students’needs, dignity, purpose, and joy in learning and in the true pursuit of lifelong happiness.
Learn more at www.stemeducatorinitiative.org
* Haidt, J. (2024). The anxious generation: How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness. Penguin Press.