Winning the Peace
AI, education, and the case for thinking before clicking
For the last couple of months I’ve been exploring one argument: AI didn’t break education. It has revealed what was already broken. Or, if not ‘broken’, perhaps ‘functioning sub-optimally’. The Proxy War is over. Now comes the hard part.
Diagnosis isn’t treatment and there’s a danger that if you go around looking for problems then problems are all that you will find.
So, I’m shifting my emphasis. The next phase of my writing starts from a different premise. AI offers us the opportunity to transform education for the better but it has to be used strategically and with a clear purpose informed by sound pedagogical principles. There’s a meaningful difference between a student, or a teacher, who reaches for AI because it’s there and one who reaches for it because they have thought carefully about what they want it to do and what they want to keep for themselves. The distinction is, I think, where the most important conversations in education are about to happen.
I want to write about those conversations. And before I do, I want to know where you are. Not in the abstract. In reality. In your classroom, or boardroom or organisation or just in your thinking.
And I know that my readership spans teachers and tutors, school leaders, people working in EdTech and adjacent industries, and parents trying to make sense of it all. Drop a line in the comments telling me who you are and where you’re coming from — that context will help me to shape what I write next.
Two questions to get you started:
If neither poll quite captures what’s on your mind, go straight to the comments. The next series will be shaped by what comes back.
Connect With Me
Beyond my writing and tutoring, I work directly with schools, educators, and organisations navigating AI integration. Take a look at my website and please get in touch - I’d love to hear what you’re working on.
This distinction feels essential.
AI did not break education.
It exposed where learning, assessment, feedback, and institutional habits were already fragile.
The next phase cannot just be “more AI use.”
It has to be more intentional AI use.
What should AI support? What should remain student-owned? Where does AI improve feedback, access, and practice? Where does it weaken judgment, attention, or durable understanding?
That is where the real work begins.
Education needs to move from reacting to AI toward designing learning systems where AI has a clear purpose, clear boundaries, and a clear relationship to human thinking.
Hello, Mark. First, I want to thank you for your thoughtful posts. I teach English language and academic skills to internarional students on track to matriculatw to the university with which we are affiliated.
My own considerations and efforts seem to be running parallel to yours. Right now, I'm on a mini-crusade to engage my students in thinking more consciously about how they work with AI and, necessarily and at least as importantly, how they learn at all in the first place.
If you might offer insights into how I can engage the students in either topic, I would be enormously appreciative.