who owns the wind?

I’ve got quite a few teacher friends. Hi if any of you are reading.

And some of us seem to get into philosophical disagreements from time to time about how children are using AI at school. I get it - you need to assess etc - but to my thinking if an AI can complete an assessment perfectly, the assessment was probably measuring recall, not understanding.

So you talk about preventative measures:
- How do we stop children using AI?
- How do we detect AI use?
- How do we prevent cheating?

And then I get all quiet and have a bit of a ponder.

I wonder whether the more important question is whether we are designing learning experiences that require genuine thought in the first place.

From a psychological perspective, struggle, uncertainty and the slow satisfaction of working something out are not inefficiencies to be removed. They are part of how children develop judgement, resilience and confidence in their own thinking.

If every task can be completed by retrieving an answer, whether from Google, ChatGPT or a textbook, then we shouldn’t be surprised when children optimise for answer retrieval. (After all - who my age hasn’t looked at the answer sheet for a puzzle they’ve been working on from time to time!)

The challenge for educators is not simply allowing or not allowing children how to use AI, after all who owns the wind?

It’s teaching them to remember that good old country song when they are:
... know when to hold em (or trust it);
... know when to fold em (when to question it);
... know when to walk away (identify where it may be biased);
...know when to run (and occasionally recognise that despite sounding very confident, it has absolutely no idea what it’s talking about.)

Perhaps the answer isn’t testing how well they’ve learned more information.
I believe it’s helping children become adaptable learners who can think, question, evaluate and continue learning long after today’s technology has changed.

Maybe it's just me. I’d be interested to hear how others are approaching this in schools, universities and at home.

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