AI or human?

When I talk with teachers who have started using AI as a tool in their work, I notice the same thing again and again: it's not the technology itself that makes the difference, but what they do with the time it frees up. Letting AI take the first draft of a piece of feedback, a parent letter, or a lesson explanation saves minutes — but it's what happens in those minutes afterwards that decides whether students get more of the teacher. Those who use the freed-up time to meet the student where they are see clear effects. Those who just forward the AI's first draft do not. Professional judgment is still what carries the quality — not the model. And perhaps that is also where the real win with AI lies, when used right: the teacher gets time to be a teacher again.

Every year that goes by, school operations get more efficient. From one year to the next, that can be solved. But when we look at a longer time horizon it becomes very problematic in all sectors that work with people. In schools it's hard to be efficient, because student learning happens at a predetermined pace. So efficiency usually means cutting the number of people at a school, since salaries are the largest cost and therefore the largest saving. That means those who stay are forced to do more. Looking at how AI can make teachers' work more efficient becomes a must if those who work as teachers are going to handle ever-increasing demands with fewer and fewer resources.

School has always been more than a place where children learn things. It is society's way of shaping the next generation — what questions they ask, what decisions they have the courage to make, what kind of people they become. When we discuss school today we too often stop at results, rankings, and resources. That matters, but it is not everything. A school that only produces students with the right answers on the right tests has forgotten half its mission. The other half is about preparing young people for a world we cannot ourselves predict. That requires teachers who dare to think big, leaders who take responsibility, and a public conversation that treats schools with the seriousness the question deserves. But it is not enough to talk about the mission in abstract terms. Change actually happens when individual teachers in individual classrooms decide to lift their gaze. And that is where we as a society need to show that we stand behind them — not just with words, but with the space and resources required.

In a society that changes over time, it's important to be clear about what role we want school to play. Much of what school does today is left over from when school was primarily meant to educate people for jobs in manufacturing. In many countries those jobs have disappeared as technology has made huge leaps forward. That doesn't mean everything we do in school is bad, but when technology develops some things go up in value and others go down. That's nothing new, but today's technology development happens exponentially, so these increases and decreases in value are bigger and happen faster than before. For the students' sake we need to talk about what has gone up in value and what students need to take with them, and what has gone down in value and is no longer as important as it used to be. A student's time in school doesn't run on replay. No one has the answer, but together we can find the best way forward.