Where is the How?

What is lacking in the AI transformation plan and what it says about the disconnect between Ed-Tech and Schools

Change needs to happen in order for it to, well, happen. That’s the dumbest sentence I’ve written in a while, so let me explain.

The AI in Education conversation is all about how immediately transformational these tools can be. Just a little beep here and a little boop there and bam, teaching redefined! As if it were all that simple.

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The What

Teaching in and of itself is a dynamic built upon trust and relationships, both of which involve nuance and context. A unit in October unfolds much differently than a unit in April; a lesson on Tuesday morning unfolds very differently than one on Friday afternoon. More so, the people in schools behave very differently in each of those contexts.

Adrian Neibauer

’s recent newsletter about changing his math instruction in March is worth the read, most notably because the change came in March. If you understand how immensely hard it is to try something new in the homestretch of the year, you understand schools.

Try to get a 5th grader to do something they don’t want to do. Try to get a high schooler to really understand a concept in a subject they’re not really interested in. Teaching is relational. Learning is relational. And those relationships change depending on what time it is or whether his crush came to school today (or if he’s even aware he has a crush on her) or whether there’s a test tomorrow or a break next week. Context is everything, and accounting for it, which is integral to great teaching, takes a lot of time and energy.

Actual image of what May looks like in schools. Weeks are months long and everyday gives off Friday energy. Not in a fun way.

That’s where this vision of transformation becomes a bit blurry.

Time is the most obvious limited resource in schools. It’s what everyone craves more of, and it’s also what AI helps buy back the most of. Suggesting, though, that transforming teaching is as easy as buying back more time through some prompts is outright disrespectful to the craft, and it also shows how far away ed-tech companies are from how schools operate. There are definitely some products out there that have their mind right (I see you InkWire and PlayLab), but in general, the disconnect is huge.

Are there things to change in education? Of course. Is that new? Definitely not.

Schools are complex places filled with complex people who have complex feelings about the complex process of change. We haven’t been waiting for AI to come save the day as it relates to shifting teaching and learning in schools. We’ve been trying for a long time. And, we’ve been succeeding in many places.

It’s easy to get sucked into the everything is broken headline bonanza, but in doing so, the effort of so many educators goes unnoticed. Lost in the conversation is the part where we celebrate all the good that is happening in schools day in and day out. To revisit a line from above:

Are there things to change? Of course. Do we need to change everything? Definitely not.

Teachers and administrators have been working their asses off day in and day out for years, and along the way they have adjusted, tweaked, edited their way into some pretty magical experiences for students and adults within some very limiting constraints. That deserves to be celebrated. It’s not perfect, but nothing is. And, those successes are what we need to build upon in whatever new age we’re calling this thing.

Big changes need to happen to better prepare students for this world no one can keep up with. AI will be a part of that, but it can’t happen by refreshing your browser. It’ll happen through the hard work of teachers who understand their students, administrators who understand the intersection of personalities and systems, and entire teams committed to the messy middle of educational change.

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The How

Putting aside for a moment what, exactly, these tools will be replacing in the current paradigm, the one question that companies have not answered is How? Maybe I missed it, but nowhere in the LinkedIn post or press release does it mention an implementation plan.

Professional development? Sure. Maybe. Someone coming in and showing you how the beeps boop and how the boops beep.

Systemic implementation, including identifying what vestigial elements of the school structure will be surgically removed and replaced with this AI thing? Nope. That’s left to the teachers and administrators to discuss in meetings. But first it has to get on the agenda of those meetings (and likely the meetings about the meetings). In order to do that, something else has to get booted from the agenda. Figuring out what that vanishing item is likely involves some personality math—who am I going to piss off by again delaying this conversation?

ChatGPT Prompt: an image of a classroom with teachers and administrators. Everyone is confused, frustrated, worried--a full range of emotions. There is a whiteboard in the background. Written on it is "Change." The scene depicts the complex emotions involved in educational change.

That’s the biggest impediment to any lasting change, big or small, in a school. How do we get this to action and how do we make it stick? Those are two very different questions. Introducing something new is years different from making it a part of the everyday. Figuring that out takes time, and that’s the one thing…you get it.

Yes, it’s an administrator’s job. The thing is, that job is already full. Let’s lend a hand if we’re asking them to sign a big contract.

Ask anyone who works in schools, and they are yearning for things to be different, to be better. The want for change is there. The fact that it takes so long reflects not a lack of desire but the web of systems, people, emotions, and politics that intersect any one school, let alone a district. Initiative after initiative have been launched and then quietly set aside because change takes so much—you guessed it—time to take root.

It also takes getting used to. Even simple shifts are complicated in schools and come with a lot of pushback. The more ed-tech companies package a product as a quick fix, the more disconnected from schools they sound.

I want the AI tool that promises the change will be slow, intentional, and a bit bumpy. I want the AI tool that acknowledges all the good that is already happening in schools; the one that promises another shift in the right direction rather than a holistic pivot in a completely new one. I want the AI tool that says we’re going to take two steps forward and maybe even three steps back before we move forward again.

Then maybe I’ll believe that you understand the indirect road of innovation we’ve all been traveling on for the longest—say it with me—time.

Salvador Dalí, “The Persistence of Memory,” but a runner-up title was also “Clocks in a School in April and May”

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