28-05-2025
As a college professor, I see how AI is stripping away the humanity in education
Dustin Hornbeck
Guest Columnist
As the 2025 school year ends, one thing teachers, parents and the broader public know for sure is that artificial intelligence is here, and it is taking on more responsibilities that used to be left to the human brain.
AI can now tutor students at their own pace, deliver custom content and even ace exams, including one I made for my own course. While a bit frightening, that part doesn't bother me. Of course, machines can process information faster than we can.
What bothers me is that we seem ready to let the machines and political discontent define the purpose of education.
Kids are disengaged at school; AI doesn't help
A recent Brookings report found that only 1 in 3 students are actively engaged in school. That tracks with what I have seen myself as a former high school teacher and current professor.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
Many students are checked out, quietly drifting through the motions while teachers juggle multiple crises. They try to pull some students up to grade level and just hope the others don't slide backward. It's more triage than teaching.
I tested one of my own final exams in ChatGPT. It scored a 90% the first time and 100% the next. Colleagues tell me their students are submitting AI-written essays. One professor I know gave up and went back to in-class handwritten essays for his final exam. It's 2025 and we're back to blue books.
I recently surveyed and interviewed high school social studies teachers across the country for a study about democratic education. Every one of them said they're struggling to design assignments that AI can't complete. These aren't multiple-choice quizzes or five-paragraph summaries. They're book analyses, historical critiques and policy arguments ‒ real cognitive work that used to demand original thought. Now? A chatbot can mimic it well enough to get by.
So what do we do? Double down on job training? That's what I fear. A lot of today's education policy seems geared toward producing workers for an economy that's already in flux.
But AI is going to reshape the labor market whether we like it or not. Pretending we can out-credential our way through it is wishful thinking.
School should teach kids how to live in the world, not just work in it
John Dewey, the early 20th century pragmatist, had the answer over 100 years ago. He reminded us that school is never just a pipeline to employment. It is a place to learn how to live in a democracy. Not just memorize facts about it, but participate in it. Build it. Challenge it.
Schools are not about the world; they are the world ‒ just with guidance by adults and peers, and more chances to fail safely … hopefully.
That's not something AI can do. And frankly, it's not something our current test-driven, job-metric-obsessed education system is doing, either.
Parents and community members also play a crucial role in shaping this type of education, which can lead to a healthier and more robust democracy for all.
In Dewey's model, teachers aren't content deliverers. They are guides and facilitators of meaning. They are people who help students figure out how to live together, how to argue without tearing each other apart, how to make sense of the world and their place in it, how to find their purpose, and how to work with peers to solve problems.
If we let AI define the boundaries of teaching, we'll hollow it out. Sure, students may learn more efficient ways to take in content. But they'll miss out on the messy, human work of collaboration, curiosity, disagreement and creation. And in a world increasingly shaped by machines, that could be the most important thing we can teach.
The challenge isn't to beat AI at its own game. It's to make sure school stays human enough that students learn how to be human together.
Dustin Hornbeck, PhD, is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies. His opinion does not represent that of the university for which he works. This column originally appeared in The Tennessean.
