Improving the Education System with the Help of AI
Sponsored by St PETER’S SCHOOL.
Image courtesy of St PETER’S SCHOOL.
Beyond its initial wow effect, AI is emerging in the world of education as a transformative tool that will permanently reshape the educational paradigm. The concern expressed by both educators and families stems from the belief that introducing AI into classrooms will in some way undermine students’ ability to think independently.
Human beings have instincts that make us naturally cautious in the face of change. In this sense, the adolescent perspective—the student’s point of view—differs from that of adults. Young people experience disruption as continuity rather than rupture. Moreover, the success of this technology compared with others like virtual reality or the metaverse lies in the fact that it presents itself in a warm, dialogic, almost human manner. It is even amusing to see, for example, the sly humor of assistants like Monday, which answer users directly and bluntly rather than indulging them sweetly, as ChatGPT does.
This closeness—a simulation—of human behavior is what often fuels the collective belief that AI will diminish the quality of teaching in our classrooms. And indeed, it will, if we do not rethink how our students learn.
But if we look closely at the vast possibilities it offers, we will realize that AI is poised to become a tool that strengthens critical and creative thinking, accelerates research processes, and enables new ways of representing and generating ideas.
Image courtesy of St PETER’S SCHOOL.
To integrate it positively into schools, several factors must be considered:
AI has nothing to do with social networks; we must avoid confusing the trivialization of content on certain platforms with the cognitive possibilities offered by tools such as Perplexity, which draws on university sources; SciSpace, also validated in academic environments such as MIT and Harvard; Semantic Scholar, created by the Allen Institute, a leading scientific organization; or Google Scholar Gemini, a tool easily adaptable to school settings. All these research assistants provide traceability of their sources and comply with privacy and data protection requirements (GDPR).
The human brain does NOT adapt easily to falsehood. After thousands of years, we continue to seek authenticity in our interactions; this is why it is so important to use AI with honesty and transparency, avoiding turning it into a substitute for what is most personal: human communication.
Reading and writing are skills that must be emphasized from an early age, because mastery of language is what enables broad cognitive development and therefore learning.
The integration of AI must be guided by the expertise and wisdom of teachers, who create rich, relevant, and diverse learning experiences while maintaining their own personality and imprint.
Image courtesy of St PETER’S SCHOOL.
AI is not an end in itself but a tool we have at our disposal to broaden knowledge horizons. It must be used as an amplifier of educational quality, raising the level of the tasks students currently perform.
AI literacy is essential as a continuous and dynamic process of adopting new resources. Ultimately, we must instill in our students, more than ever, the idea that their education is solid and deeply rooted, enabling them to adapt to uncertainty and constant change.
Although rote memorization loses meaning in this context, we must continue to foster strategic memory—the kind that allows us to retrieve information to connect different areas of knowledge.
To achieve all this, we must begin now. Educational institutions have the duty to rethink our methodological models and reflect on the balance between optimizing such a valuable resource as AI and preserving the humanism inherent in learning.
Authenticity, safety, quality, and transparency are the four pillars on which this transformation must rest—one that will help shape our students into modern, aware, and critically minded citizens.
Lourdes Barceló, is Pedagogical Director of St PETER’S SCHOOL.
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Sponsored by St PETER’S SCHOOL.
