This post is called Backwards. I am on my usual walk, but I have turned it around. I went into the field first, not by the street. And I started wondering, how many things could we do backwards this year?
In school, we repeat the same pattern again and again. Information, delivery, synthesis, test. Over and over. We give them the information, then we check they know it. We give more, and check again. Another piece, another check. But do we return a week later, or two, not to test, but to talk?
Some universities are doing it differently. No test. Just you and me, in a room. No paper. No AI. Just conversation. Just listening. Just curiosity. What have you absorbed? What have you been turning over in your mind? What can you tell me in your own words? It is simple, really. It is human.
It is a lovely thought. In a world so preoccupied with what AI might do for students, and after decades of testing them into forgetfulness, we still have not fully grasped that it will only ever be the human relationship that moves us forward.
But how do we build that? Have we broken the trust between teacher and child?
I know that is not true everywhere. Many educators have done a brilliant job of building relationship with their children. But then the pantomime begins. We say: "We have to do this test. We will get through it the best we can. Here are the answers." We go through the motions. But we whisper: "I love you. Our relationship is strong."
And yet still, we do the test. Because they say so. They, meaning the school board, the administration, the government agencies. We are told, this is how it must go. These are the rules. So the teacher says, “I want the connection, but they will not let me have it.”
And then, in private, we find our way around. We circumvent the rules. We keep the relationship intact, quietly. But the cost is this: we are dishonest to someone. Dishonest to the school, or to the child. We do not or cannot stand up and say: this is not working. This is not fair. This is not how children learn.
If we did, we would have to confront what happens when the teacher gives a test, and then, one week later, asks the child: “What did you think of that? What did you learn? What stayed with you?” And the child says: “I do not know. I cannot remember.” Then we would know. We would know that information never reached the soul. It never took root.
It was stored just long enough to pass. Then gone.
We are not teaching learning. We are teaching compliance. And we all know it.
But I am watching something else happen. I am watching the relationship between the child and the immediate authority figure, the teacher. The one who says, “We have to do this.” The teacher who says, “We have to be sneaky. We have to find a workaround.” What does a child learn from that?
The child learns that there is an ultimate authority, one that will not listen, one that is not flexible, one that is not here for our well-being, or even for learning. That authority is distant, unchangeable, and faceless. And the teacher, the one we love, the one who means well, has no power to challenge it. So now, what am I, the child, to think?
I see the adult in front of me, who I admire, who I love. But they are powerless. They have been made powerless. And that shows me how the world works. There is a system that is not for us. And those closest to us are bound by it, even when they know better.
So I learn the game. I learn to perform compliance. I learn to smile, to jump through the hoops, to look like I am doing the right thing. But inside, I do my own thing. I find my way around. I become sneaky. I become invisible. I play the role.
And for the child who refuses? For the one who says, “This is not okay”? That child is punished. That child is labeled. That child is “the difficult one.” But at least they have the courage to say no. At least they push.
The rest of us, the watchers, we absorb the message. We wire our brains to survive it. We become the understory. We become silent rebels. And it is in that soil that AI has bloomed.
There are now over 39,485.00 AI programs that ask, “What do you want?” They say, “I will help you. Just ask.” They do not require memorization. They do not demand obedience. They offer possibilities. All possibilities.
You want a poem? Here it is. You want an essay? Of course. A rap song, long or short? A letter to your mother? A business plan? A logo? A user interface? A model of how you want the world to see you, feel you, interact with you? Ask. It will create.
The scale of potential is almost unfathomable.
Even now, you can hold up your camera and take a picture of a flower. You can ask: What is this? ChatGPT will tell you. It will give you taxonomy. Geography. Culture. Symbolism. History. Usefulness. Healing properties. Indigenous knowledge.
You can ask what it means. What it has meant. What it might mean for you.
You can ask about quantum theory, about dark matter, about the Fibonacci sequence. You can ask what it means to be a self. To be “I am.” What does that even mean? What does it mean if we are all one? How can we be separate and also whole?
And if matter is not real, if everything is just vibration and energy and space, then why does it hurt when I hit a rock? Why does it feel so real?
These are the questions in the mind of a child. Of a ten-year-old. Swirling. Alive.
And then we ask them to take a test. Again. On the Constitution. Again. To bump their score from 80 to 85. Because the system needs better data.
Meanwhile, that child is wondering: Can I quantum jump? Can I invent an AI that teaches love? One that walks through landscapes with people and shows them the plants that heal, the ones that matter, the ones our ancestors used?
We have never really cared what is inside the child’s mind. Not in public education. We have been so terrified of poor results, we have not made space for the actual soul of a child.
And what is funniest of all? In middle school classrooms across the country, we are presenting our “amazing” PowerPoints. The cell. The mitochondria. The Golgi body. And we believe the child is following along. Engaged. Awed.
But the child is wondering: Do I look fat in these jeans? Did that person look at me weird? What will I do at lunch? I do not want to sit with them again. Who likes me? Who do I like? How do I not be alone?
And we think we are teaching something meaningful because we added emojis or gamified the quiz. Because there is a digital badge. But the child is just trying to survive. Fight, or flight, or freeze.
There is no learning without safety. No learning without love.
So let us do it backwards. Let us start with the child. Let us start with love.
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