AI in Education: should schools be using it to build better thinkers… or trying to ban it?
Hey everyone,
I just watched a really interesting IBM Technology video with Jeff Crume talking about generative AI in education, and it got me thinking.
His basic point was pretty simple: schools can keep trying to fight AI, or they can accept that it’s here and start teaching students how to use it properly.
What I liked is that the argument wasn’t “let AI do everything.” It was more that education should focus less on outdated rote tasks and more on the skills people will actually need going forward, things like critical thinking, adaptability, creativity, judgment, and knowing when AI is wrong.
A few parts stood out to me:
One was the historical angle. He pointed out that education has already changed many times around new tools. People used to spend a lot more time on things like cursive, memorising huge amounts of information, doing long division by hand, or reading paper maps. A lot of that became less central once better tools existed. His argument is basically that AI is the next version of that shift.
He also made the case that AI could genuinely help in some big ways:
- personalised tutoring that adjusts to each student
- instant feedback on writing, grammar, and explanations
- Better accessibility support for students with disabilities
- less admin and lesson-planning pressure on teachers
- and potentially giving under-resourced schools access to better support tools through cloud-based systems
One idea I actually liked was moving away from standard essay tasks and toward activities like AI-assisted debates, where students still have to think, argue, defend, and explain their own position rather than just producing polished text.
That said, the concerns are obviously real too.
**The main ones mentioned were:**
- Students becoming too dependent on AI
- losing foundational knowledge too early
- ethical issues around when AI should or shouldn’t be used
- and the risk of students outsourcing the thinking instead of strengthening it
The overall message was that banning AI might feel safer in the short term, but it could end up preparing students for a world that no longer exists.
Full video here if anyone wants to watch it:\
I’d be really interested to hear from **teachers, parents, students, tutors,** or anyone working in education:
- Are students at your school actually allowed to use AI right now, or is it mostly banned?
- Which benefit seems most real to you, tutoring, teacher workload relief, accessibility, or better critical-thinking activities?
- What worries you most, overdependence, cheating, weaker fundamentals, or unequal access?
- If you were redesigning a normal school assignment for the AI era, what would you change?
- And which tools are actually proving useful in education so far?
Feels like this is one of those areas where pretending AI doesn’t exist probably isn’t a real strategy anymore.
Curious what people here think.