Classroom teachers in the US are becoming increasingly worried about the impact of AI on their students – specifically their critical thinking skills (which, ironically, are the very skills that are most needed in an age of AI).
Christa Corricelli, a special education teacher at Saugus Middle/High School outside Boston, says AI could be a valuable technology for learning, but too often students are using it as an answer machine – not a tool to bolster their thinking. “I think students who aren’t already intrinsically self-motivated to be critical thinkers, like that top 1% of the class … I think people who are not already that personality type, we’re going to see those critical thinking skills atrophy over time,” Corricelli says.
We likely won’t know how the use of AI, both on the teacher and student side, will impact our children’s mental and social development, nor what this will mean for the world at large – but it is surely something we might want to try to get right before it’s too late.
