As a college professor, I see how AI is stripping away the humanity in education
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.
A recent Brookings report found that only one in three students is actively engaged in school. That tracks with what I have seen myself as a former high school teacher and current professor.
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 AI can't complete.
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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.
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.
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 work with peers to solve problems.
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 an important role in shaping this type of education, which would lead to a healthier and more robust democracy for call.
More: From GPS gaffes to fabricated facts: AI still needs a human co-pilot
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 may 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, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies. His opinion does not represent that of the University for which he works.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: AI is transforming education. We're struggling to keep up | Opinion
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