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.