AI Doesn’t Know Your Students, You Do

There’s a lot of noise right now about AI in education. Some of it sounds exciting. Some of it sounds alarming.

Most of it misses the point.

AI doesn’t know your students. You do.

It doesn’t know who didn’t sleep last night. It doesn’t know the student who shuts down when work feels public. It doesn’t know that small win you saw yesterday that no data point could fully capture.

Teachers hold context. Relationships. Judgment. Care. AI never will.

That doesn’t mean AI doesn’t belong in schools, we believe it does. But only when we’re clear about its role.

AI should support decision-making, not replace it.

Used well, AI can:

• Surface patterns we don’t have time to notice

• Summarize complex information into something usable

• Reduce cognitive load so teachers can think more clearly

Used poorly, AI tries to decide instead of inform. And that’s where we run into trouble.

The goal isn’t to hand over professional judgment to a system. The goal is to give educators better visibility so they can make the call.

Think of AI as a thought partner. A lens. A translator.

Not the teacher. Not the decision-maker. Not the authority.

The most effective classrooms will always be led by humans, supported by tools that make their thinking clearer, not quieter.

If this is a conversation you’re wrestling with (or just curious about), we’re digging into it more deeply on our Data in Education panel this weekend.

🗓 Saturday, 2/15
⏰ 4:00 PM EST

We’ll be talking about what responsible, human-centered AI use actually looks like in schools, and where the guardrails need to be.

Because the future of education isn’t automated.

It’s supported.