The Fight For Human Learning in the AI Age

I was with a group of teachers in Chicago this week, and we were talking about how AI is creeping into everything we do in life. We laughed about the Terminator, but secretly many of us (including me) were wondering if that future wasn’t too far off.

The thing that we said was going to make us more connected (social media) has often made us feel more disconnected than ever.

The thing that has all the world’s knowledge (internet) has left many less knowledgeable. 

What is going to be AI’s sentence? (Yes, that is a pun!)

Fight? What Fight?

I’ve been going back and forth about the subtitle to my new book, Learning 3.0. I’ve had conversations with plenty of folks I really respect, my editors, family members etc.

Last week I finally landed on a subtitle. It wasn’t an easy choice. Not everyone agreed with it. But I believe it is the right focus at the right time.

The full title is now Learning 3.0: The Fight for Human Learning in the AI Age.

The biggest word change was adding “fight”.

So, what are we fighting for? And why is it worth fighting?

For that, a quick story.

I had been exposed to computers, used them at my house to play games, go online, AOL instant message, and even browse what we call the world wide web at the time.

In school I’d moved past the Oregon Trail and Carmen San Diego uses, to writing papers on WordPerfect, and doing some research.

But, it wasn’t until my 11th grade year that I first co-created with a computer.

Mr. Flynn was one of my favorite teachers, who just happened to teach one of my least favorite subjects: Math. Math had never come easily to me the way many English and Social Studies classes had, and so I often retreated from trying and just did enough to get by. By all accounts, Mr. Flynn should never have taken an interest in my learning journey. I spent most of his Pre-Calculus class passing notes or laughing at others goofing around.

Then one day we came into class and Mr. Flynn was lying down on the back table. It seemed like a joke, but eventually we found out he had seriously hurt his back. He taught the rest of that class period lying on the back table, pointing to the chalkboard and using a yard stick to make changes.

Everyone thought he would be gone the next day, resting up at home, but sure enough, when we walked into class, Mr. Flynn was lying on the table again, ready to teach. There are certain moments in life where your mindset switches. I still didn’t “like” Pre-calculus class, but I wasn’t going to goof around anymore while this teacher in obvious pain was coming in every day to teach, instead of staying at home like so many of us would have done.

This lasted for over a month before Mr. Flynn was back up again teaching us from a standing position. One day he came over and asked me if I’d like to take computer programming next year. He had been teaching it for a few years, but enrollment was low and wasn’t sure the class would run again. He said, “I think you’d be great at it. You are a deep thinker”.

I didn’t know what to say. I was shocked that he thought I would like this class but told him I’d think about it. A few days later, I signed up, thinking I’d at least have a great teacher even if I didn’t like the class.

I took computer programming class during my junior year. It was so different. I’ve never been a math or numbers person, but this gave numbers and formulas power. Instead of getting a “right answer” on a test for getting a formula correct, this set things in motion. We learned Pascal and Basic programming languages. It wasn’t that hard, but it was challenging enough that I had to focus and pay attention during class, and could spend some extra time at night or during study hall to get better.

As a semester course, time was also limited so we had to hurry through the beginning curriculum in order to create our own projects. This (in my mind) is always a plus. It calls for urgency in the learning process, which makes learners and teachers more effective if they are on the same page. My final project was using this programming language to build a “football” game that looked and functioned similarly to the famous Nintendo Tecmo Bowl. I spent a lot of time on this (so much that I did not realize how much time I spent). In the end, my football game was not fully functional (there was no end of the game, let alone a halftime or quarter), but had many of the same features and abilities as Tecmo Bowl. My classmates and I were able to play it. 

It was awesome. One of my best learning experiences ever, and it changed the trajectory of my life.

It never would have happened without the human involved.

Humans Still Needed

I feel the same way today. I see how fast AI and emerging technologies are progressing. I understand that the world is changing at exponential speeds.

But I have five kids of my own. They interact with technology, even use it to create sometimes. Nothing they’ve ever used has come close to a human that cares about them and wants to push them to succeed in learning and life.

If we just focus on making learning more efficient, if we lean too heavily into the act of knowledge acquisition, then we might miss the whole point.

Artificial Intelligence is like any other technology. It can be used for good and used for bad, and often there is a nuance between the two.

If we don’t fight to keep humans as part of the learning process, then we are headed towards a future that looks like Neo downloading skills into his brain in The Matrix. Yet, the skills he really needed were human.

If we don’t fight to keep learning a HUMAN experience, we might lose the very social, communal, and meaningful purpose that makes us human after all.

I don’t think we’ll ever ban artificial intelligence. We may try, but it seems almost impossible.

What does seem possible and worth fighting for is a future where our learners use AI with purpose, have discernment about when/why to use AI, and believe that being a learner is as much a human process as anything else.

That’s the future I’m fighting for, and the one I hope you’ll join alongside me.