This article originally appeared in the Winter 2026 edition of Independent School magazine, published by the NAIS. In it, Liza Garonzik explores The Other AI: Authentic Interaction and makes the case that discussion, listening, and real-time conversation are no longer optional in an AI-shaped world. They are essential.

Today’s students are growing up in a world that doesn’t ask them to have real live conversations. They can text instead of talk, ask a bot instead of a friend, swipe away something they don’t like, use self-checkout to avoid a cashier, or tune it all out with a pair of enormous, humanity-canceling headphones. 

And yet, human skills—like the ability to interact authentically in a face-to-face conversation—are more critical than ever. Young people need discussion skills to engage academically, build strong relationships, and participate in democracy. This much we know.

But what’s also suddenly clear is that students are going to need discussion skills to make sense of the increasingly AI-driven world around them. The digital infinity that surrounds them daily demands that they engage with peers and adults about very big questions: What is ethical, online and off? Where is the line between human and machine? Who is responsible for AI? Where does authenticity matter, and where is it inefficient? What do I do when I make a mistake with AI? 

To date, much of the discourse about AI in schools has focused on policy development, skill-building, and thoughtful curricular integration. These are all worthy, urgent goals. But creating systems to strengthen the uniquely human skills that are needed to navigate an AI-era must be on the agenda, too. 

Independent schools are uniquely positioned to embrace these human power skills alongside AI imperatives. Small class sizes, place-based cultures, and long-standing commitments to whole-child education create the perfect context to double down on human skills. 

But here’s the challenge: Schools often assume that they are already doing this work when, in reality, most aren’t doing this strategically or equitably. The skillset for discussion is often taught everywhere and nowhere, cropping up in advisory, in a civil discourse activity, or in the classrooms of humanities teachers. When students miscommunicate, incidents are handled on a one-off basis by empathetic deans. But what if schools actually defined strategies for systematically teaching, assessing, and celebrating these deeply human, mission-aligned skills? 

The Struggles Are Real

As both an educator and founder who has worked with more than 80 independent schools to build discussion skills programs, I’ve seen firsthand the power of proactively cultivating Authentic Interaction. Deliberate instruction in and assessment of face-to-face discussion skills is a pretty simple way to transform student engagement and create a human-first school culture in an AI world. 

Building effective discussion skills programs for Gen Z and Gen Alpha students must begin with a deep curiosity about their lived experiences. What does real-world discussion actually feel like? How do cultural trends and technological realities influence their experiences? What is hard, scary, uncomfortable, natural, boring, or “cringey”? Through a decade of surveys, interviews, and research, I have identified three major challenges today’s students face when it comes to live discussion. 

Challenge #1: Digital Overload

Technoference—a term coined in 2014 by researcher Brandon T. McDaniel—describes the subtle and constant intrusion of screens, devices, and digital distractions into our in-person interactions. It is the default setting for today’s kids. As they manage communication across multiple media simultaneously, they struggle to differentiate between what’s appropriate online and in person. As veteran educator and AI expert Eric Hudson explains, new technologies are introducing “wholly new categories of conversation,” and kids are understandably tangled up in what’s appropriate where.

On social media, for example, students can disengage without consequence. Don’t like what you see? Scroll. Bored? Double the speed. Don’t want to comment? Lurk. See someone you don’t like? Swipe. These options don’t exist in person. Authentic Interaction requires patience, active listening (even if you don’t like the idea), interpreting nonverbal cues, and then replying respectfully in real time. These skills may be perfectly teachable, but they no longer feel instinctive to students who spend hours a day on social media.

AI presents students with yet another set of “conversational” dynamics that differ markedly from what’s appropriate in person. Students talk to bots very differently from how they would speak to a human, often completely unconcerned about the impact of their tone or words and comically impatient, constantly redirecting the bot until they get exactly what they want with a random “please” or “thank you.” But real conversations aren’t transactional or teleological like AI prompts. They require give-and-take, emotional intelligence, disciplined attention, and trust. This gap, what some experts call “friction,” requires skill and stamina that today’s students do not have without practice. 

While technoference may feel ubiquitous, it doesn’t have to be. To fight it, we need more than guiding values like “empathy” or “curiosity.” We need to translate those values into skills. We need a common language, skill-building routines, and evidence-based assessment practices across a developmental trajectory that makes the traditionally “soft” human skills, like discussion, explicit. This is how they become truly teachable, not just aspirational. 

Challenge #2: Diminished Attention Span

If you ask an educator how kids have changed in the past five years, comments about diminished attention spans or executive function struggles are likely to top the list. A 2015 TIME magazine article is credited with popularizing the notion that people have shorter attention spans than goldfish. While that has been refuted as scientific fact, the focus on reduced attention span is real. Neurologically, attention is the gateway to listening. With such limited attentional ability, students struggle to track ideas over time, which makes it all but impossible to do much more than share-and-stare.

Meanwhile, “executive dysfunction” has emerged as a term to describe a general decline in students’ ability to self-manage. This includes everything from organizing thoughts to working memory and self-regulation. Research from MindPrint Learning also shows that today’s students are struggling with lesser-known executive function capacities such as cognitive shifting, or the ability to transition between ideas or viewpoints post-pandemic. Across ages and stages, teachers see these challenges daily in discussions—in students with official ADD/ADHD diagnoses, certainly, but also in those without. 

Then there’s an additional layer of complication: Neurologically, feelings of anxiety can further sabotage these already-diminished attention spans and executive function capacities. It’s no surprise that many students find discussion inherently anxiety-inducing: It’s public, social, and sometimes even graded. When students experience anxiety during a discussion, they block out everything else (a phenomenon known as amygdala hijacking), short-circuiting Authentic Interaction.

The good news is that executive function is buildable, and feelings of anxiety are usually manageable, as any cognitive behavioral therapy-trained therapist will tell you. But tackling these challenges requires intentionally designed scaffolds and deliberate practice—lessons built on purposeful, predictable, and skill-based routines and reflection opportunities. Independent school faculty are creative and committed, but most do not have this background; school leaders must ensure that faculty have the training and tools to effectively meet these emergent student needs.  

Challenge #3: The Morality of Everything

While “political polarization” has become shorthand for describing yet another challenge today’s students face in having real discussions, my observation is that kids seem to be scared to talk about more than just politics. In R.E.A.L. Discussion surveys of more than 12,000 middle and high school students in independent schools about their experience having class discussions, we often see words like “scared” and “anxious” show up alongside “disagreement” and “difference.” One ninth grader shared this transcendent revelation: “I am learning it is possible to disagree with someone’s idea, not their whole entire identity.”

While political polarization is certainly relevant to today’s students, it’s also worth considering a broader phenomenon called emotivism, a meta-ethical framework where people navigate the world believing that “if you feel it, it is morally correct.” Put differently, emotions, not reason, define right and wrong. This lens explains a lotabout our current political climate, but it also suggests that kids are living in a world where everything feels moral or immoral, right or wrong, and intrinsically tied to their “whole entire identity.” Those judgments are often spontaneous, made in mere seconds. No wonder students are scared to speak up.

For educational leaders in an era of emotivism, the challenge is to create school cultures that value intellectual humility and approach mind-changing and perspective-taking as a natural part of the learning process. This is an advanced discussion skill that builds on foundational competencies in speaking, reasoning, and listening. It’s also one that AI can help students practice. It’s so counterculturalin today’s world that it will require constant modeling by teachers and leaders, including normalizing disagreement without identity threat. 

An Authentic Future 

It sounds ridiculous: Why do we need a strategy for teaching skills that are theoretically innate to humans? In today’s tech-centric world, it’s not that far out; it’s reality. The sooner we embrace it, the better. 

The exciting thing is that human skills like Authentic Interaction are perfectly teachable—and already inherently valued by independent school communities. Independent schools have an opportunity to claim human skills development as part of their strategic advantage and to deliver on it, immediately. 

Any school that has already begun a journey toward skills-based learning has a template to follow. Just consider how human skills and AI fluency fit into your existing frameworks. For schools less familiar with skills-based approaches, leadership teams can start to articulate a vision statement for how both human skills and AI fluency relate to school mission and the existing academic program. From there, schools can design many different paths, but common next steps might include writing a skills scope and sequence; engaging in professional development; designing an impact assessment strategy; and celebrating when better discussion skills create a human-centered culture in an AI world.  

This kind of thoughtful initiative management takes time. So what to do at school tomorrow? Start asking Gen Z and Gen Alpha students to talk (and write) about their experiences with authentic human interaction. Listen closely—and don’t laugh. When they run out of things to say, ask them about AI: What do they hope, fear, and already know? These are the conversations that sustain our shared humanity. 

If your school is ready to design a strategy for Authentic Interaction and Human Skills in AI World, or simply begin this conversation in your community, learn more and let’s talk.

On The Purpose and Practice of K-12 Humanities Teaching in Today’s World, Co-written by Humanities Educators | 2026

Schools are moving quickly to adopt AI. New policies are being drafted. New tools are being piloted. Professional development is focused on integration and regulation. All of this work matters. But as the AI conversation accelerates, something is missing.

Humanities teachers have had little time to step back and interrogate the larger issues about pedagogy, childhood, and humanity in an AI world. What is the enduring purpose of reading, writing, and discussion? What must remain deeply human? What shifts in classroom practice, not just policy, are required and why?

R.E.A.L.® Discussion created space for that conversation, convening a collaborative of K–12 humanities educators and academic leaders to engage these foundational questions together. Over two months, participants read, wrote, reflected, and discussed what it means to teach the humanities at this pivotal moment.

The result is Humanities and Humanity in an AI World: An Educator’s Manifesto — a co-constructed declaration about reading, writing, discussion, and the lived experience of being a humanities teacher today.

“We cannot let the AI conversation stay only at the level of tools,” said Liza Garonzik, Founder of R.E.A.L.® Discussion. “The real question is not simply what AI can do, but what only humans can do. We are already living through a conversation crisis. Students are more screen-bound and less practiced in live dialogue. This manifesto reflects the shared belief that educators have the expertise and daily influence to cultivate uniquely human capacities. If we intentionally teach students to read deeply, write clearly, and engage in real discussion, we are not pushing back against the future; we are guiding it. This is our opportunity to lead a true Conversation Comeback.”

We offer this manifesto as an invitation. If your school is ready to move beyond tactical AI conversations and into foundational ones, we encourage you to read the document, share it with your team, and use the reflection questions on the final page to begin your own discussion.

At R.E.A.L.® Discussion, we help schools translate conversations like these into coherent, skills-based practice. If you are ready to build a deliberate approach to reading, writing, and discussion in an AI-shaped world, we would welcome the opportunity to partner with you. Find a time to chat here.

We hope you’ll join us on LinkedIn for the conversation about the Manifesto.

Hosted by Simon Noakes (Founder & CEO of Interactive Schools), the Inspiring Schools Podcast welcomes some of the world’s most influential educators to explore the future of education, leadership, innovation, AI in schools, evolving school structures, and more. Each episode offers fresh insight into the ideas shaping the education landscape.

In this episode, R.E.A.L. Discussion® founder & CEO Liza Garonzik joins Simon for a timely conversation about why teaching real-world communication skills is more urgent than ever—and how schools can do it with clarity, rigor, and purpose.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

• Why speaking and listening are academic skills, not just social ones
• How R.E.A.L. Discussion® helps students lead class discussions with structure and confidence
• What schools can do now to prepare students for the human future

Why It Matters

The skills students need most—empathy, clarity, confidence, nuance—come from real conversation. And those skills can’t just be hoped for. They must be taught, practiced, and measured.

At R.E.A.L. Discussion®, we help schools do just that by embedding human connection into academic life and giving teachers and students the tools to make it stick.

Listen to the Full Episode Now

Let’s Keep Talking

• Learn More About R.E.A.L. Discussion®
• Hop on Liza’s calendar for a 1:1
• Visit our LinkedIn page to continue the conversation

This is urgent work. But it cannot be the only work.

The AI Opportunity and Cost

As we accelerate toward an AI-integrated future, we risk ignoring the other half of the equation: Are we also preparing students to be fully human? To be relationally responsible and emotionally fluent, in and beyond school?

My take? We aren’t.

Why? Because in today’s world, real conversation is rare, even among adults. Yet conversation is how the most meaningful and deeply human parts of life happen. It can and must be explicitly taught in schools. And soon.

The consequences of declining communication skills are already showing up in classrooms (students disengage), in relationships (rates of loneliness, anxiety, depression, and addiction are rising), and in life readiness (Gen Z is struggling in the workplace, and younger kids find basic interactions—like ordering at a restaurant—intimidating).

Yes, AI can automate instruction and free up teachers to focus on what only humans can do. AI can personalize content, but it can’t build trust. It can analyze writing, but it can’t teach empathy. It can generate answers, but it can’t help a student find their voice. It can simulate dialogue, but it can’t replicate the shared human experience of a great group discussion.

That work belongs to teachers. And it always will.

We Say We Value Communication, but Rarely Teach It

The future of education depends on preparing students not just to absorb information, but to think critically, communicate effectively, and engage meaningfully with the world around them. R.E.A.L. Discussion® helps schools deliver on that promise by embedding explicit instruction in real-world communication skills into the academic core.

So often, schools treat communication as something that “just happens.” It’s everywhere and nowhere. Leaders name it in their Portraits of a Graduate or strategic plans, but they don’t teach it with intention or rigor. Real-world communication is relegated to hoped-for outcomes from a set of amorphous activities, not designed-for competencies rooted in research and practice. And in a world where many kids would rather text than talk, these skills will not emerge naturally.

We can’t leave foundational human skills to chance. That’s why I created R.E.A.L. Discussion®.

R.E.A.L. Makes Human Skills Teachable and Measurable

As a teacher, I watched students withdraw from real-world relationships because live communication felt hard. I read beautiful essays from students who were too scared to speak up in class. I spoke with colleagues who said the same thing in different ways: “I believe in student voice. But I don’t have the tools to make discussions rigorous or equitable.”

Then came the wave of EdTech “solutions” with platforms that moved discussions online, increasing written participation but bypassing the skills students need most: speaking, listening, and thinking in real-time.

More than a decade later, R.E.A.L. Discussion® is a research-informed, practice-proven program for schools ready to embed communication into the academic core.

R.E.A.L. was built in classrooms, alongside teachers. Every routine, tool, and assessment has been shaped through hands-on co-creation and cycles of feedback and refinement. By staying close to teachers and students, we identify what works, improve what doesn’t, and evolve in response to real-world needs.

Through teacher training, implementation guides, assessment tools, and strategic support, R.E.A.L. prepares students to engage—really engage—with content, peers, and the world around them. It’s authentic interaction made teachable and scalable.

R.E.A.L. positions discussion where it belongs: at the center of rigorous instruction and student growth, not just as a method, but as a measurable outcome. Students who learn R.E.A.L. say it builds confidence, deepens focus, and eases anxiety.

This isn’t theory. It works. And it’s working in classrooms across the country.

AI Can’t Replace the Human Advantage

If we are serious about preparing students for the future, we cannot prioritize technology over humanity. We need both. Artificial intelligence may shape the tools of the future, but authentic interaction shapes us.

Even as AI opens new doors for innovation, it cannot replace what makes us most human: our ability to connect through authentic, face-to-face conversation.

R.E.A.L. protects and cultivates this defining human advantage. We help students listen deeply, think critically, and speak with clarity and purpose in both real-time and real-life situations.

One academic leader recently reinforced that these are “not soft skills, but power skills for the future.” He’s right.

Listening is not a soft skill, and communication is not a byproduct of learning. It is learning.

If AI is the future, then authentic interaction must be the present.

The good news? At R.E.A.L., we already know how to teach it.

Join the Conversation

I’d love to hear about how your classroom, school, district, or organization is approaching this moment. Are you finding ways to build both AI fluency and human fluency into your programs? What’s working? What’s missing?

Let’s keep talking.

This article was originally posted on R.E.A.L. Discussion’s LinkedIn where we’d love to continue this conversation.

What can machines do better than humans? And what can humans do better than machines?

In the world of AI, this is a question on many people’s minds. And for those of us in education, it feels particularly relevant. Teaching has always been a fundamentally human endeavor, and the reason that most of us pursue teaching in the first place is to form relationships with the young people we serve. 

But teaching also feels harder now than ever before. Learning gaps have grown after COVID, teacher burnout is on the rise, and fewer college graduates pursue teaching every year. Might there be ways that technology can lighten our load, without compromising what we love about the profession?

Any technology can be used to enhance or impede human connection. Smartphones let us speak by video with friends and family around the world, but they also suck us into hours of mindless scrolling. This is true of online videos, AI, and anything else.

As a former teacher and the co-founder of an organization that helps teachers worldwide to use technology more effectively, I’ve seen classroom technology used in many different ways. I believe there are several ways in which the purposeful use of technology makes instruction more human.

#1: Digitizing Direct Instruction

When I was trained as a teacher, I learned to explain things to my students from the front of the room – and control their behavior while I did so. But this never really worked: my lectures were always too easy for some students, too hard for others, and inaccessible to students who missed class. Managing student behavior took a lot of time and effort too. My lectures dragged on, which just made the process worse.

Eventually, however, I learned how to record my explanations with simple videos. I simply started Zoom calls with myself, hit the record button, and explained something. Then I put the recording link in my Learning Management System and told students to watch it at their own paces, in school or at home.

This simple shift transformed my entire classroom. Once I made this switch, instead of lecturing and policing behavior from my whiteboard, I spent almost all of my time in class working closely with my students. Because they didn’t have to sit quietly and listen to me – and because my videos were usually only 5-8 minutes long – my students spent most of class working together to apply the skills they had gathered from the video. We all spent class simply helping each other learn. And it was magical.

#2: Efficient Data Analysis

Teachers are constantly collecting data. This data – attendance, completion of assignments, mastery of standards, student reflections, etc. – is helpful, but it can be hard to organize and analyze efficiently. There’s just so much of it! So we often end up making decisions based on our judgment or instincts, which can be subjective and therefore biased.

With tools like R.E.A.L ® Discussion’s Teacher Dashboard or the Modern Classrooms Project’s progress trackers, however, teachers can both collect data easily and analyze it to identify the supports that each individual student – and the class as a whole – may need on any given day. Then, teachers can act to provide those supports efficiently and effectively.

By providing accurate pictures of what students really need, without taking too much of a teacher’s time to create, data-analysis tools facilitate high-quality human connection.

#3: Immediate Differentiation

Say you’ve digitized direct instruction to free yourself up in class, then collected data that helps you identify what individual students actually need. What do you do then?

Finding activities that appropriately challenge and/or support students at different levels of understanding is easier said than done. Fortunately, there are a variety of tools – many leveraging AI – that help teachers create differentiated instructional resources with the click of a button. Tools like TeachFlows can help you create complete, fully editable, student-facing lessons on any topic in seconds. 

Once you can generate resources that are well-suited to individual learners’ needs, you can ensure that every student in your classroom is appropriately challenged – and supported – every day. All you need to do is encourage them! 

At the end of the day, tools like videos and data dashboards and TeachFlows are just that: tools. They can be used for good or for bad: to foster dynamic classrooms where students and teachers spend class working closely together face-to-face, or to create lifeless and siloed classrooms where students spend all day staring at screens. 

The choice, ultimately, is yours to make. But if you make it carefully, I’m confident that you can create a classroom that feels more lively, more personal, and ultimately more human than ever before.

I can’t wait to hear about it!

Robert Barnett is the co-founder of the Modern Classrooms Project and the author of Meet Every Learner’s Needs: Redesigning Instruction So All Students Can Succeed.

Much has, obviously, been written about the dawn of the AI era with all the wild speculations about how AI will change the face of education as we know it. Some predict it will not only revolutionize education, but eliminate some sectors of it; they may well be right and only time will tell. There have been many moments since the release of ChatGPT where the shades of the Korean teaching robots that were going to replace us all a few years ago seem to be haunting us, only now it’s “You won’t lose your job to AI; you will lose it to somebody who can use it well…”

Embracing – Not Fighting – AI

We have by now, I suspect, arrived at the point in time where we accept that AI-informed education is not only here, but here to stay. Even the College Board bent to its mighty power and came up with an acceptable use policy for the AP Seminar and Research courses (see the CED for Seminar here, pp. 36-39). The College Board recognizes that AI will become, if it is not already, students’ first stop in the research process. Rather than foolishly trying to hold back the tide (remember teachers trying to stop students using Wikipedia? Oh, no, wait, that’s still going on…), the College Board seeks to have instructors guide students as to how to use AI effectively to support inquiry and research rather than to replace those skills, which is an admittedly admirable and lofty ambition – and undoubtedly ultimately doomed. Per the College Board’s guidelines, using AI to explore ideas and find sources – or even to rephrase or repackage source material in ways that are more accessible to the student – are all fine; using AI to synthesize materials, write reports, form or frame arguments, though, crosses a line. AI can do those things, though, and do so in a way that detectors cannot reliably detect (for now), and students know it.

In the course of my work with my 7^th grade humanities class, I have tried to introduce AI as a tool and keep to the same guidelines they will eventually encounter in Seminar. We have quizzed ChatGPT on various aspects of the ancient world, for example. The girls in my class have learned that AI is pretty decent at understanding the big picture, but its responses’ general lack of detail and specificity would render it largely ineffective for cheating on the sort of assessments they take.

The Role of AI in R.E.A.L. ® Discussion Prep

At the same time, though, I showed them that AI can provide reasonably decent feedback on answers THEY write — but only if it is trained on our grading rubric. I taught the girls how to input not only rubrics but also course materials and past assessment questions; they are free to use AI to generate new questions to test their knowledge as a possible means of assessment preparation (I fully anticipate that later in their educational careers they will have teachers using AI to set the questions, so I may as well give them a leg-up, right?). In hindsight, it should have been clear that eventually one of them would want to use AI to practice for our R.E.A.L.® discussions.

I had never considered this eventuality. R.E.A.L.® is meant to be all about the in-person dynamic and making human connections through discussion, relating writ large. Because I am ancient analog-childhood old me, I am wired to think of in-person debate, dialog, and dialectic as paths to truth that can only be tested in the moment and face-to-face. Kids today, though, default to the digital for their solutions. If R.E.A.L.® is sometimes awkward if/because it is in person, it is surely only natural for digital natives to seek a digital way to circumvent that discomfort. Enter the ask about digital prep work.

Such prompted a range of questions for me that would, in themselves, make for great DQs. Would discussion quality suffer if my girls, say, asked the AI to identify the most likely responses to their opinion and evidence? What about prepping by asking AI the DQ itself? Is that fair use or too far? How long would it take students to go from using AI to prepare for various eventualities to using it to do the whole of the prep for a discussion? Could we end up in a situation where the girls were all sitting around a table reciting AI-formed opinions and evidence at each other? If so, would that mean that discussions would become as pointless as the dreadful parent-scribed oral report scripts of yesteryear?

In the end, I decided to allow my girls to use AI for whatever prep they would like to use it for when it comes to our R.E.A.L. ® discussions, largely because I have faith in human nature. Unlike in a putative ChatGPT-land, where every cyber-discussant would stay laser focused as well as grammatically correct, real life and real discussions have bumps, curves, and swerves that cannot be predicted purely due to the fact that other people are involved. In a real life R.E.A.L. ® discussion, somebody might pull the old debating trick of squirreling the DQ, defining something in it in an unexpected way that sets the discussion off on an unpredicted course. A non sequitur might appear. People can change their mind mid-sentence. That one student flexing on the Ask skill could ask a discussion-shifting question that either concretizes or eviscerates the evidence of the previous speaker. Because R.E.A.L. ® discussion is ex tempore, so too must students’ reactions be. If AI assistants can help students get better at reacting in the moment with actual other human beings, then, can they really be all that bad?

—

Dr Ralph Covino teaches Latin, History, and Geography and the Coordinator of the Humanities Department at the Girls Preparatory School in Chattanooga, TN. He has been recognized by the University of Tennessee Alumni Association, Tennessee Geographic Alliance, and National Geographic as an outstanding educator. A previous teacher fellow of the Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development at the University of Iowa and of the American Geographical Society, he is currently a Fellow of the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools’ Global Action Research Collaborative on Girls’ Education. 

The Pros: What AI Can Do for Class Discussions

We know that individualized attention and a sense of mattering are critical first steps in building a school culture where all students thrive. AI-powered tools like ChatGPT can help level the proverbial playing field by serving as brainstorm buddy, coach, and more – and by offering one-on-one support at a scale impossible for individual teachers to match. When it comes to discussion, students armed with AI can expedite discussion prep — especially when teachers pose simple, context-less questions that are easy for chatbots to understand and answer (eg: “GPT, give me three quotes about the theme of ambition on Macbeth”). 

AI can help students prepare for class discussions by gathering ideas, extracting excellent quotes, reinforcing details, and testing out ideas with a one-on-one conversation in the comfort of their own homes. 

Although the voice recognition technology isn’t there yet, it’s also not hard to imagine a world in which AI records and analyzes the class discussion itself: providing a feedback loop, assisting teachers with evidence-based grading, and positioning the class to reflect together – and with real data! — about the dynamics of the last discussion. Early tools like TeachFX (which records teacher vs. student voices and analyzes teacher speech patterns) and Class (which analyzes live discussions in virtual classrooms) have begun experimenting in this direction. In order to make the most of this kind of technology, however, teachers will need new training and tools: this level of specificity and analysis is far beyond how most teachers assess (Did you talk? How many times?) and debrief (How did discussion feel today, class?) discussion today.

The Cons: What AI Can’t Do for Class Discussion

Today’s AI can parse quotes and analyze themes, and tomorrow’s AI will provide discussion transcripts and analytics, but a bot can never replace the deeply human experience — and uniquely human skill — of great discussion.

AI can help students prepare for class discussion by identifying facts: this series of events happened, and something else happened as a result. It can draw parallels between events in disparate texts. It can highlight textual evidence to support a theme.

But here’s what it can’t do: Make students care. Help students find personal meaning in the literature and history they study. Build intellectual and emotional relationships among students in a classroom. Help kids practice reading body language and space, so they can learn to disagree and debate with respect and care for each other. Let a child see when their comment lands the wrong way — and apologize for it. Feel the pride and joy that comes with a live and socially-recognized “lightbulb” moment. Experience the trepidation — and ultimately, the satisfaction — of asking a genuine question of peers that reveals vulnerability and leads to the feeling of being seen and supported. Learn how to truly listen to each other. Control your attention long enough to stay focused on a point — even one with which you disagree. 

Tools like ChatGPT can answer students’ “how” questions easily. They can answer many discussion questions teachers pose in advance of in-class conversations. They can identify who said what quote in which book. They can even, to a certain extent, identify why certain discussion questions are important. But they simply cannot answer the pivotal, existential questions that characterize really good discussions. Only students themselves, in the company of peers and teachers, can do that.

The question for educators is: in a world dominated by AI, how can we use class time to experience what it means to be human together — and build uniquely human skills? 

In our whitepaper on the future of discussion skills in an AI world, we dive into the three purposes of class discussion in an AI world — and we offer our insights on how educators can take advantage of critical class time to build skills that will help students survive and thrive in this brave new world. Check out our whitepaper to learn more, and let us know what you think!

Our short answer: yes! Especially in a world dominated by machines that serve individual needs, discussion skills are a critical force for social good. Students can — and must! — learn these skills, and recognize their power, in school.

What follows is an excerpt from our whitepaper on the future of discussion skills in an AI world. As you head back to school this fall, we hope you’ll keep in mind these three purposes of class discussion — and remember that these skills can (and must) be taught.

The genesis of AI may have tweaked the rules of class discussion, but it hasn’t changed the game itself. Class discussion becomes about more than checking whether students have done the reading. It becomes about teaching the art of live communication and
ultimately preparing kids to connect with other humans within and beyond school. When AI is a given, class discussion becomes about communication skills, not content: it’s about process and reflection, not checking a box. In an AI world, there are three clear
purposes of class discussion.

Purpose #1: Class Discussion Can Teach Students Communication Skills and Intellectual Resilience

Teachers, researchers, and kids themselves have made it clear: for today’s students, in-person conversation is difficult, stressful, and even frightening. In-person conversations require a certain release of control, thanks to the real, live people who share unexpected thoughts, tell unexpected jokes, make unexpected gaffes, and pull unexpected facial expressions. Preparing for and reacting appropriately to the many layers of in-person conversation, then, is challenging — much more challenging, of course, than conversing with a chatbot using prompts teens themselves choose.

Today’s students know an important truth: AI will not wince, yell, cry, block, or cancel them based on what they say. Chatbots, thus, are perhaps a more comfortable conversation partner — but they don’t do the hard work of preparing students for the intimacy and art of conversations that define real life.

Interestingly, though, there is value in doing the hard work of learning how to communicate in person because it is hard — and because the payoff of the challenge is not just a workplace skill but the emotional satisfaction of human connection. As
educator Eric Hudson writes in his Substack Learning on Purpose, “If we look at Lev Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development or Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of Flow, students learn when they take on challenging tasks that are emotionally satisfying and involve the guidance of a skilled partner like a teacher, tutor, or peer. Designing learning experiences for challenge is different than simply making things hard.”’

Class discussion can be such an experience, thoughtfully designed to challenge students in a safe space, guided and prompted by a trained practitioner. The result, for students, can be overwhelmingly positive. Hudson explains: “Camille Farrington’s research (among many other examples) shows belonging, relevance, and confidence in success all contribute to deeper learning because they are factors in 1) the student’s trust in the teacher and in the value of the task and 2) their motivation to try something new or hard.”

Trust is the operative word here. Done well, class discussion is an exercise in trust-building: students trust the teacher to assess them fairly, to intervene appropriately, and to provide feedback they need to grow. Students learn to trust each other to listen, to show up authentically, to ask questions, and to build something together that none of them could by themselves.

Purpose #2: Class Discussion Shows Students the Power of Off-Screen Connection in a Screen-Bound World

Although experts debate exactly which social skills can be developed through a screen, it is clear that in-person, screen-free time is essential for wellbeing. Screen-free interactions build both the self-awareness and awareness of others that kids need to truly connect with each other.

There’s simple biology at play here. As a 2013 Scientific American article reported: “[a]cross many studies of mammals, from the smallest rodents all the way to us humans, the data suggests that we suffer greatly when our social bonds are threatened or severed…We may not like the fact that we are wired such that our well-being depends on our connections with others, but the facts are the facts.”

The human need to connect is, thus, not something people can choose to turn on or off. It’s a fundamental, foundational part of our humanity. The Social Baseline Theory (SBT), first discussed by psychologists James Coan and David Sbarra, posits that the human brain treats social connection as a resource, which, like food, water, and shelter, promotes safety. To put it bluntly: humans need to connect — physically and emotionally — in order to survive.

K-12 school is an excellent crucible for these very positive relationships. As technology becomes more omnipresent, these places and the adults who lead them become even more critical in helping children develop skills that aren’t just helpful for their education and careers — they’re essential for their future well-being.

“The skills that you need to live a healthy life right now I just think are very different than they were even 15 or 20 years ago,” says NAIS President Debra Wilson on a summer 2023 episode of the New View EDU podcast. “You look at the number of people who are in hybrid work things, or they’re always teleworking. We know that human connection is actually really important for people. It’s hard to do that if you’re working at your computer on a desk in your house 8-12 hours a day. And frankly, it’s not great for
communities if we lose these connections with each other.”

School, then, increasingly needs to become the place that prepares children for real life — and to succeed and connect in real life, even as technology erects more and more barriers to connection. “Everyone is concerned that AI is the education Armageddon,”
says Wilson. “I actually don’t think it is. I think it allows teachers to double-down on the relationships piece and to really demonstrate the kind of outcomes that we’re looking for in terms of people.”

Peter Nilsson, former Head of School at King’s Academy and current editor of The Educator’s Notebook, foresees a similar shift in the role and purpose of in-class education. “Class time is for social and relational learning, for personal and collective
meaning-making,” he says. Let chatbots help, guide, and quiz students at home – school is now for something more important, more foundational, and — yes — more human.

To make class discussion a true exercise in social and relational learning, it needs to be interactive, collective, and personal. It’s not enough for students to sit on their computers, taking notes in a Google doc while their classmates speak. When this happens, it indicates that children think the overarching purpose of discussion is the content of the conversation, not the actual act of discussing. Rather, teachers
need to emphasize the importance of uniquely human discussion skills – and they need to be endowed with the tools necessary to teach these discussion skills to their students.

Purpose #3: Class Discussion Cultivates Interdependence – and Ultimately Teaches Kids That They ‘Matter’

Class discussion teaches kids the skills they need to connect, which is essential for their health and the health of their broader communities. Class discussion does something more personal, too: it teaches kids that they matter.

Interdependence — the experience of mattering to each other — is a prerequisite for healthy relationships. An over-emphasis on individual achievement — the only kind of achievement that can be gleaned from interacting solely with AI — can undermine
relationships and create pressure to achieve alone.

In her book Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic and What We Can Do About It, Jennifer Breheny Wallace connects the idea of interdependence to the psychological concept of mattering. She footnotes psychologists Morris Rosenberg and Adam Flett in studying the correlation behind mattering and high self-esteem in adolescents and articulates seven ingredients to feeling like you matter: Attention (feeling that you are noticed by others), Importance (feeling like you are significant), Dependence (feeling like you are important because others rely on you), Ego Extension (recognizing that others are emotionally invested in you and care what happen to you), Noted absence (feeling like you are missed if you aren’t there), Appreciation (feeling like
you and your actions were valued), Individuation (being made to feel unique, special, and known for your true self) (Wallace: 53-54).

AI cannot spark these seven components. Chatbots can do little more than tell students they matter — if, that is, they receive prompts that ask them to do so. Beyond making students feel good — a valuable and valid goal in and of itself — the mattering mindset
fosters success well beyond class discussion. Matthew Barzun, former US Ambassador, Tech Entrepreneur, and Media Leader, argues in The Power of Giving Away Power that interdependence has been an unconventional and winning leadership strategy in politics, business, medicine, law, religious leadership, and community life for over a century. He argues that great leadership comes from giving away power — essentially, from showing others they matter and cultivating independence on any team you lead.

One framework Barzun surfaces comes from Mary Parker Follett, an early 20th century business guru who coached business leaders to adopt the following norms for every
discussion (Barzun, 62):

• Expect to need others: you are making something together that you couldn’t do alone.
• Expect to be needed: you are there for a reason, so show up with your whole self.
• Expect to be changed: expect to leave the meeting not quite the same person as when you entered.

Barzun makes a compelling case for how these principles unlock innovative business thinking. As educators, though, we see how clearly they reinforce the necessity of mattering, independence, and class discussion. Learning how to share and receive ideas in real life, in real-time, helps children understand their power and truth. That creates foundational confidence that lasts in school, in their careers, in their personal relationships, and in their communities.

Learn more about how to teach students critical in-person conversation skills by reading our whitepaper or reaching out to our team.

Desperate to redeem the day, I decided to ask everyone to put their phones away: we were going to talk to each other for as long as it took food to come. The kids looked at me, incredulous – Now?! After today?! About what?! I offered basic instructions in how-to-start-a-conversation: someone ask a question, then let’s talk about it. I reminded them we were doing this to reconnect as a team after a disappointing day, and that everyone’s voice should be heard.

The team captain rolled her eyes but piped up: “Ok, so if you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?” 

At first, silence. Then – three kids at once, with different answers. The loudest voice kept talking and didn’t really acknowledge she’d run over the others. After that, a few other kids chipped in — some repeating each other’s answers and rationales without acknowledging that they were doing so. Less than five minutes later, sullen silence. 

We tried again with another question. Different voices chimed in, but the result was the same: this conversation just didn’t take flight.  I realized the kids were talking, but they weren’t actually engaging with each other. I decided to stop and ask them what was so hard. 

One girl offered an insight: “Well, I think it’s hard because on phones, you get to respond with what you think without waiting for everyone else. Or, if you aren’t ready to respond, you aren’t on the spot …you can just wait and see what everyone else says before you add.”

BINGO. Neither she nor I had the language at the time to describe these dynamics, but this is an example of technoference: a new-ish term used to describe the phenomenon of electronic devices impeding in-person relationships. 

That night, I resolved to never again make fun of Gen-Z kids for not knowing how to talk to each other. I decided instead to adopt a lens of curiosity: by understanding their experiences, I hypothesized, could help solve the conversational challenges they faced. For the past five years, R.E.A.L.® has been doing exactly that.

R.E.A.L.® is a program that teaches, measures, and celebrates discussion skills. My particular area of interest is how, exactly, on-screen communication norms undercut the skills and norms we know are foundational for any great, face-to-face discussion.

We’ve surveyed and interviewed kids across the country and studied tech design and communication science. Here are a few examples of what we’ve observed:

• On-screen, if you disagree with or dislike something, you can disengage invisibly: just swipe, open a new tab, put it on 2x speed. In-person, you have to keep paying attention — and then, you also need to be able to respond respectfully. 

• On-screen, you choose when and how to contribute to a conversation (like? comment? ghost?): in-person, you’re expected to read body language and practice “live” conversational turn-taking. 

• On-screen, you have 108 emojis that are “sentence starters” for self-expression; in-person, you have to identify, name, and share your feelings—quickly and publicly.

Kids today are spending unprecedented amounts of time on screens – and we can’t expect students to let go of these on-screen communication norms the second they put down their phones. When you consider that for many students there is additional fear around being judged for what they are saying – not just how to engage – it’s not surprising that students struggle mightily to have authentic conversations with each other. As adults, it’s easy to mock, pity, or get frustrated by what I often call “the conversation crisis” among teens. 

By building R.E.A.L.®, my goal is to empower adults to respond differently – to proactively and explicitly teach the face-to-face communication skills kids need for real discussions in school and life. Our research-based programs teach, measure, and celebrate the skills students need to have effective, respectful, and authentic conversations off-screen. This work usually starts in an English or History classroom but the skills transfer naturally and quickly beyond third period. To quote a ninth grader: “I have skills for discussion in class but honestly these feel like life skills, like for jobs and relationships.” 

These skills are teachable. We’re teaching them. If you’re interested in learning more about how, please reach out – perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s little we love more than a conversation!

The below post was originally published on Pete’s blog Sense and Sensation, and it explores some of the themes most central to the work we’re doing at R.E.A.L.® Read on for Pete’s thoughts on why you need to talk to your students about AI.

It’s time to have “the talk.” You’ve been avoiding it. It’s a little awkward because you’re not really sure how to go about it. Students are getting anxious for lack of clear information and they don’t know who to go to for advice. Some teachers really want to dive right in, but others don’t think it has any place in school. Parents are asking questions about how to navigate this important moment in their children’s education…

It’s time to talk with kids about AI.

Education has three purposes: to prepare students for the workforce, to prepare students for participation in civil and democratic society, and to prepare students for a fulfilling life. AI is already propelling significant changes in each of these areas. So great is the impact on each of these areas that failing to talk with students about the role of AI in their (and our) lives amounts to a level of professional negligence. As educators and citizens, we failed to prepare young people for social media, so kids and technology companies figured it out on their own — with disastrous results for mental health worldwide. We can’t fail like this again.

Here are three reasons why you need to have conversations with kids about AI, and then several suggestions for how to go about it:

1. AI and Workforce Preparation

This is the most obvious of the three. The workplace is changing. Study after study  is showing that AI’s capabilities are having a significant impact on who does what kind of work and with what tools. Low performing employees are seeing huge productivity gains with AI, and high performing employees are seeing improvement, too. Employees using AI are happier at work. In the schools I’ve been working with, the overwhelming majority of faculty, even if they are opposed to using AI in their classrooms, recognize how important AI literacy will be for their students in the future. Failing to provide foundational AI competency for students fails to prepare them for the workforce.

2. AI and Civic Engagement

Less obvious, but perhaps more important is that the political and legal landscapes are shifting in the age of AI. On the surface, AI first poses risks. Already, it is being misused to deceive citizens in the electoral process. AI generated robocalls are audio deepfaking political candidates to spread misinformation. Political campaigns have already used deepfaked images depicting false representations of other candidates’ actions. Foreign governments have created AI-generated false news reports to influence public perceptions of government. Students/citizens must have strong media literacy skills informed by knowledge of AI to be discerning consumers of political media.

One level deeper, however, is that legislation about the use and abuse of AI is only just emerging and will grow increasingly complex. If being a responsible citizen means voting with an understanding of different positions on important issues, then part of our role as educators is to prepare students to be able to critically examine different stances. For example: should AI technology be open source for anyone to have access to it, like library books, or should AI development be confined to highly regulated corporations, just as high-grade military weapons are? Also: who should be responsible for a crime committed using AI: the individual perpetrator, the company that made the AI, or both?  While we may not need to study all these questions with students, we nonetheless have a responsibility to help students understand how AI works so they can reach informed conclusions on different political positions that emerge — and vote accordingly as they might for any other issue.

One step even deeper: as artificial intelligence further suffuses society’s inner workings — employers already use it to filter job applications, corporations use it to inform decisions in boardrooms, government offices use it to streamline workflows — what protections need to be set up in order to prevent bias embedded in AI from unfairly treating citizens? Citizens — students — need to be able to make discerning decisions not only at the ballot box but also on juries and in other public contexts about how laws about AI should be written and interpreted. 

Failing to prepare students to critically engage in these civic contexts fails to prepare them for life as good citizens in a digitally saturated world.

3. AI and Personal Fulfillment

Perhaps most important of all — depending on how you see the purpose of school — is that we want to prepare students to live the most personally fulfilling lives possible.  One doesn’t need social media to have a robust social life, and one doesn’t need AI to have a happy and fulfilling personal life.  But intentional use of social media can immeasurably enrich one’s social life, and intentional use of AI can immeasurably enrich one’s personal life. Fulfillment looks different to different people. 

For many readers, the prospect of AI serving an important role in one’s personal fulfillment may seem laughable, but this is not the trend in today’s society.  Today’s emerging AI technologies are not only creativity tools and productivity workhorses, but also philosophical and spiritual guides, personal thought partners, and conversation buddy. With AI, anyone can make extraordinary art, can develop complex plans for starting a business, plan a trip, try a new recipe, and more. Recent AI tools have provided valuable counseling services, even reducing suicidal ideation. In today’s age, whether through enabling new forms of creativity, providing individualized counseling services, or simply helping achieve a goal or complete a plan, generative AI has become a personal assistant for people everywhere. 

Failing to prepare students to engage with AI personally may not harm students in their personal endeavors, but it may keep them from opportunities to pursue their dreams.

How (When?) do we talk with kids about AI?

So when and how do we have these conversations? Cramming a new unit into the curriculum isn’t sustainable. Instead, integrating discussions into what we already teach both adds relevance to what we already teach and ensures learning is recursive. Opportunities for this kind of integration abound. The interdisciplinary nature of artificial intelligence invites discussion in humanities classes about the social and ethical risks of AI models, in STEM classes about mathematical or technical constructions of the software, in any class about how to use the technology for writing, and even in extracurricular activities for understanding the role of artificial intelligence in journalism, entrepreneurship, government, and more.

Included below is a starting point: discussion prompts for humanities classes.