{"id":212561,"date":"2026-02-12T05:02:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/12\/what-200-students-taught-me-about-ai-in-schools\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T05:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:35:11","slug":"what-200-students-taught-me-about-ai-in-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/12\/what-200-students-taught-me-about-ai-in-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"What 200 Students Taught Me About AI In Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.civilbeat.org\/2026\/02\/what-200-students-taught-me-about-ai-in-schools\/\">What 200 Students Taught Me About AI In Schools<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.civilbeat.org\/2026\/02\/what-200-students-taught-me-about-ai-in-schools\/\">https:\/\/www.civilbeat.org\/2026\/02\/what-200-students-taught-me-about-ai-in-schools\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-12 05:02:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.civilbeat.org\">www.civilbeat.org<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"lede-content hide\">The consensus was not that artificial intelligence should be banned forever or embraced, but rather critically understood.<\/p>\n<p>In December, I sat in a crowded ballroom in Houston with over 200 students from 39 schools across 19 states. We had been brought together by the Close Up Foundation and Stanford University\u2019s Deliberative Democracy Lab to do something different: discuss, as peers, about the future of artificial intelligence in schools and society.<\/p>\n<p>I was interested in this program because I am someone who values the human voice, history, ethics, and the humanities. We heard from experts in education, technology, ethics, and public policy.<\/p>\n<p>Through this process, we talked and disagreed, though ultimately, we worked toward a consensus.<\/p>\n<p>Ideas showcases stories, opinion and analysis about Hawai\u02bbi, from the state\u2019s sharpest thinkers, to stretch our collective thinking about a problem or an issue. Email news@civilbeat.org to submit an idea or an essay.<\/p>\n<p>I walked in thinking AI was mostly used for academic dishonesty and students shortcutting the education process. I walked out understanding it as something far more complex. It was a question about cognitive development, educational equity, and what we actually want schools to accomplish.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the most surprising thing is that the students in that room, from various different schools and states, all arrived at surprisingly similar conclusions. The consensus was not that AI should be banned forever or embraced unilaterally. It was the realization that most schools are skipping an important step.<\/p>\n<p>They are handing students powerful AI tools, like ChatGPT and Gemini, before those students have built the foundational critical thinking skills that make AI an accelerant to learning rather than a hindrance.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"640\" src=\"https:\/\/d1l18ops95qbzp.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/2026\/02\/10123735\/Dall-e_3_jan_24_artificial_intelligence_icon.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1760182\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d1l18ops95qbzp.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/2026\/02\/10123735\/Dall-e_3_jan_24_artificial_intelligence_icon.png 640w, https:\/\/d1l18ops95qbzp.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/2026\/02\/10123735\/Dall-e_3_jan_24_artificial_intelligence_icon-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/d1l18ops95qbzp.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/2026\/02\/10123735\/Dall-e_3_jan_24_artificial_intelligence_icon-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/d1l18ops95qbzp.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/2026\/02\/10123735\/Dall-e_3_jan_24_artificial_intelligence_icon-500x500.png 500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\"\/>(Wikimedia\/Dall-e 3\/2024)<\/p>\n<p>This is a real concern for me, and many other students with whom I discussed. Students\u2019 brains are still developing. I have watched students (and I&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.civilbeat.org\/2026\/02\/what-200-students-taught-me-about-ai-in-schools\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What 200 Students Taught Me About AI In Schools https:\/\/www.civilbeat.org\/2026\/02\/what-200-students-taught-me-about-ai-in-schools\/ Publish Date: 2026-02-12 05:02:00 Source&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":212562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/d1l18ops95qbzp.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/2026\/02\/10124100\/ai_in_education_-_hs_deliberation_0.png.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212563,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212561\/revisions\/212563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}