Critical thinking isn't a skill you can install later.
Blog post description.
FUTURE OF LEARNING (AI & ED-TECH)
8/11/20261 min read
Today I was thinking about my daughter's fifth birthday.
The toy sat untouched after the happy squeals at the point of opening. Got to love her - she played with the box until she went to bed. The box slept at the foot of her bed. (Don't judge - we convinced her the tricycle couldn't sleep under her pillow the previous Christmas by saying nothing bigger than a dinner plate was allowed under the pillow)
Anyway, the box required something the Does Everything Doll didn't. It needed her to decide what it was. To imagine. To build something that didn't exist yet.
She already knew what the doll was. That story was done.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Because I think AI is becoming The Toy.
It already knows the answer, and is confident about it.
And children are growing up in a world where the answer arrives before they've had the chance to ponder on the question, or even to feel something about it.
I think AI is removing these beautiful, magical boxes.
That unstructured space where cognitive friction (struggle, ambiguity, uncertainty) builds the thinking muscles that no amount of correct answers can develop.
This is why I started building Acorn Studio Press. Because critical thinking isn't a skill you can install later. It grows in the box.
And this week, something happened that made me feel like we might be onto something. Acorn Studio Press was selected for the UCL Centre for Digital Innovation Pre-Accelerator. Eek!
Because the best thinking doesn't download. It grows. Slowly. Messily. In the box.
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