The 21st Century Principal

In Your Work, Your Leadership, Are You an Exploiter or Nurturer? Your Life, Livelihood Makes It Clear

2026-07-01T10:27:20.556-04:00

When it comes to your leadership, your livelihood activity, are you an “exploiter” or a “nurturer”?

In his essay “The Unsettling of America” Wendell Berry writes about these two “kinds of mind” and thinking about them in terms of our current culture of technological and economic obsession is interesting. According to Berry:

Exploiters are specialists, experts. The nurturer is not. They acknowledge their limited knowing.

The exploiter’s standard is efficiency. The nurturer’s standard is care.

The exploiter’s goal is money, profit. The nurturer’s goal is health—the land’s, his own, his family’s, his community’s, his country’s.

Exploiters ask how quickly and how much can the land be made to produce; nurturers ask what is the land’s capacity? How much can it be asked to do without diminishing it?

Exploiters want to earn as much as possible by as little work as possible; the nurturer wants to work as well as possible. For them, efficiency can be sacrificed for good.

The exploiter believes in organization, establishment; the nurturer has faith in human order.

The exploiter serves institutions, organization; the nurturer serves the land, household, community, place.

The exploiter thinks of numbers, quantities, hard facts; the nurturer in terms of character, condition, quality, kind.

Which describes the current EdTech industry and consulting industry? Which captures Big Tech today?

I think it is clear where the AI industry falls here, especially in light of their Data Center projects and the obsession with efficiency. Big tech is more exploiter than nurturer.

Exploiters care more about things and worship efficiency at all costs. Sound familiar? Nurturers care more about life, humanity, people, and well-being.

Your “kind of mind” is betrayed by you you engage in your livelihood and that which you do and advocate for.

School Leadership Mistake in the 2000s? Evaluating Teachers in Teaching with Technology

2026-06-30T13:49:27.290-04:00

The mistake made in 2000s was a school leadership-driven imposition of technology on teachers.

The mistake was requiring teachers to “demonstrate that they were teaching with technology” in the doctrinally-dictated manner prescribed by EdTech and their so-called experts.

Technology should never have been imposed upon teachers.

It should have never appeared any where in standards for teacher evaluations.

School administrators should have never engaged in so-called policing operations called “classroom walk-throughs” in order to ensure compliance with so-called “teaching with technology.”

This is because technology is simply a tool. The teacher and students should be in charge of whether or not that tool is used.

Technology use by teachers or students should never be a standard or an outcome; it simply should be there if the teacher chooses to use it, and if it is needed.

By imposing technology on teachers and students, perhaps that is why we are now in the era of screen-bans. This is because the emphasis in the 2000s was not teaching and learning or even curriculum, even though the EdTech boosters said it was. It was technology.

The emphasis in the 2000s by EdTech and over-enthusiastic school leaders was THE TECHNOLOGY. It was placed central to learning, and now we know that was the mistake. That’s why there are pressures to take away the tech toys.

Now, AI boosters and educators trying to make a living and careers on a new technology are making the EXACT SAME MISTAKE.

They are putting their shiny new toy, artificial intelligence, ahead of students, ahead of teachers, ahead of curriculum.

These individuals are dumping curriculum and sacrificing everything just to get this new technology an exalted place in the educational institutions.

The end result will be that in 10 to 20 years, we once again will have sacrificed everything in education to exalt another technology.

The sensible thing for school leaders at this point is not to jump on the AI bandwagon fad with both feet. The sensible thing is demand all these individuals to back off.

There is no place in teaching standards, learning standards, or any educational standards for anything AI. Teaching AI is shortsighted and plain educational malpractice.

It is just a tool, that’s it. If it has a legitimate use in education, educators will use it.

If we impose AI on educators, on students, and on curriculum, it will simply be a checkbox, a hoop to jump through, and any use of the technology will be inauthentic and bizarre.

For school leaders, there’s no need to elevate a technology to a place beyond an item in the teaching and learning tool list.

Students Form Luddite Clubs in Opposition to "Screen-Centered Lives": Signs of Students Critical Thinking

2026-06-26T14:20:16.102-04:00

Interesting. According to the podcast below, students form "Luddite Clubs" in opposition to "screen-centered" lives. I like it.

Time will tell whether this is something that catches on, but there is some important truths to think about.

We have allowed "screens" central places in our lives. We have placed them as indispensable and at the center of our educational institutions. We have even come to allow them now to act as companions, partners, and advice-givers in the age of AI.

It's actions like the forming of these Clubs that should make all of us question the central place we have granted these technologies in our lives, and I would add our undying and misplaced faith in what they can do for us.

The question all this makes us ask: "Are we being used by our tools or are we actually using our tools?" The answer is fairly clear without being said.

As educators do we dare support these kinds of clubs? I think we must, for this shows the promise that students are capable of critically thinking for themselves.

https://www.thenation.com/podcast/archive/twsu-022526/

Beyond the AI Hype and AI Boosterism in Education: Teaching Students How Live with Technologies Instead of Being Passive Users

2026-06-25T11:58:58.486-04:00

There is one important notion to include in digital literacy and efforts to teach students responsibility with new technologies?

Not how to be consumers of that technology, but how to critically examine it and the consequences of its use. To know what it does to the environment; what it possibly does to people, the economy, and possibly the mind

That flies in the face of the AI Hype and AI boosterism, which wants to jump right in and have students become users. Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes! to use an old cliche.

Historically, the use of all new technologies has consequences. Have we not learned anything from our uncritical act of shoving screens in front of students and pushing their engagement with social media platforms? Now, after the damage, we are now learning that there are consequences.

In his book, "Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI," Yuval Noah Harari writes:

"Unfortunately, a closer look at history reveals that the Luddites were not entirely wrong and that we actually have very good reasons to fear powerful new technologies. Even if in the end the positives of these technologies outweigh their negatives, getting to that happy ending usually involves a lot of trials and tribulations. Novel technology often leads to historical disasters, not because the technology is inherently bad, but BECAUSE IT TAKES TIME FOR HUMANS TO LEARN HOW TO USE IT WISELY."

And we have AI educational boosters and consultants declaring that the happy ending has been reached: "AI is transforming education" they say. It is a "gamechanger."

But correct me if I am wrong, generative AI and LLMs have only been widely available for what, four years, if one is generous? How can technology be declared a success when it has only been around such a short time? I even heard one AI booster use the words “longitudinal study” in justification for AI. How in the world can one claim a “longitudinal” study has been done in less than four years?

The problem with all this AI boosterism from companies and consultants is that they are not in it for the long term. They want to make their money and careers and get out, or move on to the next new thing. And we are to trust these people with an eye only on the short term with entire lives of students?

Sadly, digital literacy is often not about teaching students how to be discerning and critical users of technology; instead, its about the simple manufacture of users for the benefit of industry. Who cares what the long term impacts on the lives of students? Get them using it now, is the thinking.

The aspect that is often missing in all digital literacy efforts is clear. If you are going to teach students to be "literate" about technologies, then you need to wholly equip them, not turn them into passive users and consumers. Teach them ALL about the technologies and let them make the choices.

The success of a technology is not dependent on some inherent “inevitability” or even the fact that “everybody uses it.” The success of living, as users of technologies, is based entirely on thoughtful, discerning, and critical use of all tools.

Education has no business being in the AI booster business, nor do educational leaders have any responsibilities for making sure such technologies are successful.

Educators need to regain the long-term view of educating children they once had, beyond the current fads of whatever technology or device is being hyped today.

Educational Leaders Need to Learn Locally First, There's No Consultant and App for That

2026-06-23T11:05:46.658-04:00

Wait! Before you spend that money on an educational consultant or “expert” consider these thoughts first.

Wendell Berry, essayist, novelist, poet, and farmer, once wrote about a problem he experienced on his property. He had wooded hillside where he wanted to pasture livestock, but there was no water source available.

He consulted an expert, then set about clearing land of trees and grading it to create a small pond on a “narrow bench.” It successfully filled with water and seemed to resolve the problem.

That fall and winter, it was extremely wet, so the hillside collapsed into the pond, completely filling it. In spite of the expert advice, he was back to square one. He says:

“The trouble was the familiar one: too much power, too little knowledge. The fault was mine.”

In other words, he did not know enough about the local, and just acted, and the result was his fault alone.

He said he got “expert” advice at the project’s outset, but he forgot something he already knew to be true:

“No expert knows everything about every place, not even everything about any place. If one’s knowledge of one’s whereabouts is insufficient, if one’s judgment is unsound, then expert advice is of little use.”

Berry hits on some very important points that educators and school leaders often forget: Experts and consultants do not know everything about your school or district no matter how many “success stories” they tell or “testimonial tales of salvation” they offer. They lack complete contextual knowledge.

They do not know your schools, your classrooms, your students, your communities, your parents, and not all of these are the same. Schools are complex places, and an “expert” or consultant bearing a formulaic solution will not always provide a solution to the problems you face.

You have no choice but work hard and get know everything locally, and that takes effort and time, sometimes months and years. And you have to be willing to learn and listen instead of acting like a physician and prescribing medicine about an illness that looks like something seen elsewhere, but is really a unique, local problem.

Once you know locally, you can then make sounder judgments regarding solutions. There is no expert that is going to be able to provide instantly successful solutions so set aside the marketing and sales hype from the thunderous consultant crowd, and listen and learn locally perpetually.

This is the hard work of education; no shortcuts allowed.

Learn locally first as much as possible before calling in the experts, and once you have called them in, know your schools, your districts, your people and your community. Then you will have the knowledge to make sound judgments about solutions and their “expert” advice.

Before Signing That New Technology Contract, Be Sure to Consider Technical Debt: It's Always There and the Salesperson Isn't Going to Tell You About It

2026-06-22T13:28:31.562-04:00

I recently heard the term “technical debt” used in a conversation about the use of AI in software coding. It refers to “the future costs associated with relying on shortcuts or suboptimal decisions made during software development.”

I suggest that educators and educational leaders experience a kind of “technical debt” when they adopt technologies in their classrooms and schools, and that these debts are not always considered, especially in the glitter and glow of devices that are being marketed to them.

These educators and educational leaders can’t envision the future costs of these technologies because they suffer from the eyeglaze that accompanies these devices.

But technical debt is a real future cost when selecting ANY NEW TECHNOLOGY and educational AI solutions are no different.

What’s particularly frightening with AI, it is so novel that all of these technical debts are not known yet.

In other words, schools don’t really know how the adoption of these technologies will impact future budgets if it is to be maintained. This is especially true since companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have not yet figured out how to profit from their products. This alone, makes all future costs of GenAI to schools unknown.

School leaders would do well to be aware that any adoption of a technology on offer from an Ed Tech company as well as any other tech solutions comes with these Technical debts.

This means being vigilant and skeptical and asking questions about possible technical debt is important, even if it is currently unforeseen.

For example, asking about the profitability of a company can be important as is the current health of that company. Will this company be around 5 years, 10 years?

Educators need technical solutions that are not going to saddle them with technical debts that will consumer even more of the already scarce budgets.

A complete investigation into the solution and the company offering it is vital, otherwise, schools and school districts will find themselves saddled with technical debts impossible to resolve.

Is It Me, Or Are Some AI Advocates and Trainers Sounding Like Revival Preachers? Its a Tool Not the Foundation for a Ed Tech Religion!

2026-06-17T11:10:30.932-04:00

Has anyone else noticed how the educational AI promotional movement has become like a religious revival movement? And, that it is being heavily promoted by those like AI companies, Ed Tech consultants, and even educators who stand to gain billions of dollars and professional recognition because of it?

I recently saw a LinkedIn post, “the official AI Promo Echo Chamber,” where an ISTE AI trainer and consultant actually boasted like he was in a old time tent revival meeting: “I have set out to train EVERY K-12 TEACHER AND COLLEGE FACULTY MEMBER IN THE COUNTRY ON USING AI TO TRANSFORM TEACHING AND LEARNING.”

Pardon my thoughts here, but that sounds like a “fanatic on a mission” not some individual who is thoughtful and measured about AI and its uses. His mission is not to thoughtfully explore the possibilities of AI; it appears his mission is to ram down the throats of educators everywhere his beliefs in the transformative powers of AI technology.

We’ve been here before where Ed Tech advocates boasted about the so-called “transformative power” of technologies, but usually the only thing that gets transformed are the wallets of those selling and consulting for these technologies and the slim budgets of schools scrambling for ways to pay for them.

This ISTE AI trainer and promotional evangelist also boasted about “standing on the stage at Google’s headquarters” training the first cohort of new converts. I can’t even begin to suggest how nefarious this is, for you have a Big Tech company poised to siphon billions more from K-12 to college education than they have already done with their Google Apps and Chromebooks. At the heart, this seems like an AI fundamentalist, evangelistic effort. That is the Ed Tech way in the 21st century.

The problem with AI efforts in education right now is that it is being promoted as “transformative” when Generative AI in its currrent form has only been around for around 4 years. It hasn’t been around long enough to even determine what its long-term consequences might be much less transform anything.

The AI implementation efforts right now, which is clear from the ISTE AI revivalist preacher, is not a thoughtful, careful, and critical examination of AI as a tool; it is “a gospel of salvation wrought through the technological marvels of artificial intelligence.”

These evangelists aren’t interested in training criticial users. Instead, they seem to want to convert the entire educational establishment on behalf of AI companies who are bankrolling the entire movement.

These AI movements have the slight flavor of totalitarian, fundamentalist movements, and “AI zealots” are set out to convert the masses on its saving possibilities even before there is any established research.

And what’s worse, they are engaging in misformation like the notion that AI has been around for years, as stated by one AI promoter, which is not entirely the truth. AI has been around at the edges of our applications, but generative AI is only a more recent development. Those preaching for conversion even sometimes use half truths and even false statements all in the service of gaining converts.

It’s time for educators everywhere to be thoughtful and critical of those who are leading this AI movement. Instead of allowing them to make boasts about the “transformative” possibilities of their favorite technology, its time to question them. During their “training” sessions, when they make claims, ask them to support those claims. Question their evidence. You might even question their affiliations with tech companies and organizations and their sponsors. That certainly can explain their presence.

When a movement like this gains some religious flavors, concerned educators should be skeptical. They should question everything. They should be concerned about what this technology might do to students and even our society years down the road. Most of all, they need to call out this inevitability narrative.

After all, as historian Yuval Noah Harari writes in his book Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI: “Technology only creates new opportunities; it is up to us to decide which ones to pursue.”

It is up to us, all educators, parents, school leaders to decide on which AI opportunities we should pursue. We should not leave that choice to those like Google and their paid consultants and revivialist preachers to make that decision for us.

An Important Component of AI Literacy and Digital Literacy: Teaching Students to Be Critical Users and Not Just How to Work With Technology

2026-06-16T14:53:40.622-04:00

Are you educating students to use AI or are you educating students to work with AI? How you approach AI and all technology with your students in the classroom matters.

Educating students to use AI places the technology in “tool” or “utilitarian” status. The tool is subordinate to the user. The user is in control. She decides when, where, why, and how to use the technology. The user controls the technology entirely.

In opposition, educating students to “work with AI” places the technology in equal or dominate status. It is not placed in tool status at all. Instead, the technology enjoys the status of co-worker and sometimes even supervisor or manager. The student is placed in a partnership relationship or an subordinate relationship to the technology. The student does not have full control of the when, where, why, and how of the technology’s use. He must accept the presence of the technology as an inevitable part of life and even possibly submit to its decision-making and direction. (Is it any wonder why Big Tech wants us to teach this relationship?)

When Ed Tech uses the phrase “Educate students to use AI” or “Educate students to work with AI” it defines the students’ relationships to the technology, so deliberate thought is needed in the way the technology can be empowering to the student, or it can enslave the student. Educators must be deliberate and vigilant in their approaches.

We should be educating students to be potential and critical users of AI, with special emphasis on the critical. We should never teach students to be co-workers or submissive to the technology. Students should be taught that AI and technology has political and other consequences when it is used, not passive acceptance of its use. There are times when AI should not be used, and that should be part of the instruction.

If we want students to be free users of AI we should place students in total control of the technology, not teach them to be passive, submissive users, and this is done by educating them to be critical users not simply users.

Screen Time Bans and Limits Are Really A Search for a Healthy Relationship to Technology

2026-06-12T11:04:26.405-04:00

Those who are asking for screen-time limits are people who seek to relieve children from what writer Paul Kingsnorth calls "the eye-glaze of screen burn."

It is a quest for a healthy relationship to technology instead of the almost worshipful stance currently held by so many in Ed Tech.

A healthy relationship to technology is one where all the world, digital to analog, is in the toolbox.

A healthy relationship to technology is not an endless quest to elevate it to the "go-to solution."

A health relationship to technology is the recognition and acknowledgment that even though technology might be used, sometimes it does not have to be nor should it.

A healthy relationship to technology is valuing the human over the Machine always.

Finally, a healthy relationship to technology is one where devices are not a constant intrusion and distraction; they are simply a toaster sitting in the background and used when needed and not a device constantly beeping like a little child, demanding our attention.

Screen time limits and bans have arisen because of the excesses of a Ed Tech discipline and industry agenda that so desperately wants devices on every desk, in every hand and used during every lesson.

It is time to remove the glitter, gleam and dazzle from devices and treat them as we have microwaves, clocks, watches and power saws: as simply tools.

A New EdTech Definition of a Chatbot

2026-06-10T14:16:22.516-04:00

Definition of a Chatbot:

A cheap way for a company to pretend to care for their customers without really caring at all.

Can also be utilized to replace human tutors when humans are too cheap to pay a real person who cares to tutor.

Also, still another way for EdTech companies to squeeze even more money out of already scarce education budgets.

The Arrogance of Silicon Valley and Big Tech Is Harming Us All

2026-06-08T12:57:08.402-04:00

I had my Google Search set up to avoid using the "AI Overview" and after the browser updated it eliminated that option.

This is clearly how Big Tech and Silicon Valley are going to make "AI Inevitable."

They are going to force it down users' throats.

The AI Overview in Google can't be trusted to be correct and it does not provide access to the sources it uses.

For now, I will simply switch my default search to another search engine.

We are now in an era when Silicon Valley CEOs and Tech Companies think they know better than we do what we want in our tech products.

Tech companies want to dictate our products. A consumer backlash is starting, and it will be more powerful that simple "Boos at Graduations" too.

When AI Is Said to Be "Here to Stay" It is Perfectly Right to Question the Fictional Narrative

2026-06-08T10:51:13.257-04:00

“AI is here and not going away,” is repeated by every Ed Tech and AI consultant as if it were gospel when speaking about AI’s inevitability. But is it?

That statement is a prediction and not a fact. It can’t be proven. Those who present it as fact have no evidence to point to. They might point to some data that says many students or teachers are using it now, but present use is not evidence of future use, not can it be. To say that “all students are using it” or even “many teachers are using it” is already false, because that is most certainly not possible.

This “prediction” is actually an convenient fiction employed by individuals who have a selfish interest in making it true. Their status, both financial and professional is dependent upon it.

The purpose of this inevitability fictional narrative is to immediately disarm any objections and criticism that an educator, parent, student and educational leader might have about AI and its claimed promises. AI consultants and marketers want to immediately remove any room for criticism, so they use inevitability fiction to counter any criticism.

The second purpose of this “inevitability story” is to absolve their own conscience of any moral questions about its use. Afterall, if it is inevitable, you can’t do anything about it, so accept it. This is the power play here. If an educator has concerns or objections about its use, these are placed out of bounds by the fictional story of inevitability. Just use it!

This inevitability story also absolves AI peddlers’ conscience of any ethical and morality questions about AI. For example, the fact that AI was developed from the theft and use of copyrighted works is ignored. The fact that the infrastructure needed to operate AI is consuming mass amounts of scarce resources and competing with individuals for those resources is dismissed by this inevitability fiction. The fact that AI companies exploited labor in foreign countries badly in training their language models is immediately dismissed.

Every time an educational technologist or AI consultant makes the inevitability tactical move, it immediately needs to be called out for its fictionality. At conferences, during PD, and in writing, thoughtful educators and school leaders need to immediately question these statements and ask for proof, along with proof of any other broad sweeping fictional statements about AI. When a claim is made about AI, ask for proof, and don’t accept as proof a study done by a company or organization that has a self-interest in making AI successful.

AI Detectors Are as Morally Wrong as the Cheating Done by Students Who Submit AI-Generated Work as Their Own

2026-06-07T10:27:40.378-04:00

For me, using AI detectors to determine whether a student forged an assignment using Generative AI tools is morally wrong.

I agree with Carissa Veliz, who writes in her book “Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI”:

“A predictive approach to ethics is likewise inadequate for matters of justice, inside and outside the courtroom. In criminal contexts, merely statistical evidence isn’t enough.”

Because AI detectors use statistics and probability to predict whether a student’s work is AI generated or not, it alone should never be used as the sole evidence for making the determination on whether the student cheated and turned in AI work as their own. This probability of having AI generated material has room for error, and when it comes to dispensing justice, it is inadequate for me. I would not use it alone for detecting whether a student engaged in this unethical behavior.

In some ways it would seem to me to be akin to the lie detector, which attempts to detect patterns of truthfulness and untruthfulness but can’t tell you whether a person is being deceptive about a specific instance.

Do we then just accept the student’s work as is? Unless we can find some causal evidence, not probable evidence, I think we have little choice, but we can devise ways to ask the student to defend their work and ensure they have invested their experience fully in the learning.

Still, to me the greater problem is that the student chose to cheat to begin with. It is a moral and a trust issue. It is a symptom of a character concern in that student that they would resort to such action, and from a societal standpoint, that should be of equal concern, that a student would choose that course of action to begin with.

What seems like a better course of action rather than simply accusing the student of cheating based on a technology, would be to devise a way that the student must defend their work, without assistance.

For example, it could be a panel of teachers asking questions designed to ensure that the student was knowledgeable about their work. Criteria could be determined ahead of time that outlines what a successful defense of the work looks like, and the final assessment on the student’s work would be based on that alone.

Ultimately though, we still should acknowledge the moral problem underlying this, which is the same problem that has been beneath cheating since students have been subjected to instruction, which is that a student would deceptively choose to cheat to begin with. AI cheating is in some ways just another high tech cheating tactic.

The solution in this case, is not more technology, though educators, being the tech-solutionists they are, always seem to turn to tech for answers.

Tech companies love it, because they can sell us a tech that causes a problem, then turn around and sell us another technology to solve that problem, and then another tech to solve that tech’s problem and so on.

AI detectors are not the answer.

Instead, the answer lies in working toward the goal of helping students become ethically averse to cheating to begin with through moral instruction and character development, educating them to be better than that.

Also, the answer lies in making sure the teaching and learning experience requires the student to demonstrate their learning in ways that can’t be fabricated through AI. This is not a technology problem, but an old educational problem of, “How do I ensure that students have learned?”

It's the Teacher That Matters Most in Teaching and Learning, Not Screens, Not AI...That's The Lesson Needed for School Leaders in All These Screen Ban Efforts

2026-06-05T11:30:39.774-04:00

How can I transform teaching and learning to accommodate or integrate AI? THAT is the WRONG question.

The correct question is, if it follows that AI is actually another tool to be used in education should be: How can AI (or any tool) help teachers engage in better teaching and students engage in better learning?

The history of Ed Tech says we asked the wrong questions when the PC, Web 2.0., and social media came along. Then, we asked how can I use these tools to transform and revolutionize, rather than how can these tools be used to facilitate? To equip?

Perhaps that's why Ed Tech and the technology cheerleaders are desperately trying to defend all the technologies it has introduced in education.

Educators are susceptible to the “glimmer of gadgets” and have been for some time. Instead of asking the facilitating question, they sometimes look to the technologies for salvation, and the result is the present. Now, with little evidence to support a dramatic revolution in teaching and learning, important critical questions are being asked about the rightful place of technologies—screens if you want to call them—in the classroom.

We know how students learn and we have a repetoire of teaching methods at our disposal, and much of the research shows that what makes learning happen is WHAT A GOOD TEACHER DOES WITH THE STUDENTS DURING THE TIME THEY ARE IN HER/HIS CLASSROOM. It is really that simple.

Yet, instead of looking to the one single individual who has the potential impact on learning the most, we get tangled in our devices, or fanciful technologies if you will, and we forget the teacher.

I remember the minor debate in my schooling as a student when calculators appeared, (Yes I am that old.), but I don’t recall the raging enthusiasm to transform teaching and learning through the magical powers of the Texas Instrument calculator. It was seen as simply a machine, not a mechanistic path to save education, and we used it when it was useful and did not use it when our teachers determined that it was not useful and an obstacle to what they were teaching and what we were learning.

AI, if it is simply a tool, then let’s kick the pedestal out from under it, toss out all the hype, and lets just see if it really can help teachers teach and students learn. That has yet to be truly determined, in spite of the mad search for evidence to justify AI existence in the classroom rather than trying to see if teaching and learning improve.

And that is another issue as well, for the AI enthusiasts want their new shiny device so badly to be the salvation in the classroom, that they won’t give it time to demonstrate whether it will be useful or not.

Generative AI has not been around for more than a few years, and every opportunist under the sun is peddling it as the answer for all our problems, especially those in education. And, if anyone expresses concerns over its issues and problems, they are bombarded with promotional hype and labels of being a Luddite.

If I were to provide some experiential advice to all educators and especially educational leaders, stop listening to the AI cheerleading, and let’s settle down and see if this new technology offers teachers anything to enhance their teaching and students anything to enhance their learning.

Stop looking to technology to transform education. Stop looking for an invention that will somehow make learning happen. We know already what will make learning happen, and that is a well-trained, experienced teacher in the classroom equipped not with the fads of the day, but with she or he says they need to educate students.

Ultimately, let’s remember this: It’s the teacher stupid, that ultimately matters, not the gadgets!

When Tech CEOs Make Predictions About AI, Remember They Are Trying to Dictate the Acceptance of Their Product

2026-06-03T23:01:23.544-04:00

When a CEO predicts that AI will replace you, or that everyone will use AI, they are trying to get you to passively accept their future vision.

“Predictions about human beings attempt to change the future by altering what people believe and how they behave, which is why they are veiled imperatives or orders.” Philosopher Carissa Veliz “Prophecy”

Our Tech CEOs know this. They are trying to alter what people believe about AI and alter how people behave towards their product that they stand to make billions.

They want acquiescence to their vision, so their prediction is really a “veiled imperative or order.” “You will accept and adapt to my technology. It is inevitable,” is their meaning.

As Veliz points out, “When the CEO of a tech company says, ‘In the future, everyone will use AI,” he is trying to bend reality to that vision; in a way, he is saying something like ‘Go forth and get your AI before you fall behind! Go forth and fulfill my vision!”

They are dictating the future they wish to see.

Common sense says that we recognize what they are doing and force them to provide AI on our terms.

#AI #EdTech #AIinEducation #SchoolLeadership #Leadership

Predictions About AI and the Future of Our Students Limit Their Futures and Should Be Questioned

2026-06-02T12:01:27.804-04:00

One horrible consequence of all the AI predictions about the future jobs of students is that such predictions are anti-democratic.

Predictions, when followed as fact, become self-fulfilling prophecies, and that’s what these CEOs from AI companies want, and they know it. Those who have the most interest in its widespread use also know this.

But the reality is, when you make a prediction that “you are preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist,” you taking a shot in the dark, for no one knows that future. Instead of playing a game of job training whack-a-mole, educators should perhaps not prepare students for any jobs, since companies constantly outsource, relocate work to other countries, as well as automate.

Instead, educators should be preparing students for a world of total uncertainty, because that is one sure thing about the future. We shouldn’t be so arrogant as to think we can foresee where they will be and the jobs they will have. Prepare them for a world of uncertainty.

Carissa Veliz, in her book “Prophecy” makes this point about prediction:

“When predictions determine our fate, WE LOSE FREEDOM. DEMOCRACY NEEDS UNCERTAINTY TO THRIVE. It’s only when we don’t know the outcome of a future election that we have democracy.”

By simply giving credence to these predictions about AI and all technologies, the freedom of students is stolen, and that should never happen.

All predictions about AI should be viewed with skepticism, especially from those who have an interest in their acceptance. Educators and school leaders have an obligation to prepare students, but not one based on these predictions.

Educate Students for Life and Just Ignore Those Who Make Predictions About the Future Job Statuses of Students

2026-06-02T09:14:52.767-04:00

“We must prepare students for jobs that don’t exist yet,” says the AI consultant-enthusiast.

“No we don’t,” is the sanest of all replies.

As educators with common sense, what we need to do is ignore these AI consultants and Ed Tech prognosticators completely.

They have no crystal ball and can’t see into the future any better than anyone else.

Predictions are guesses. Predictions are NOT facts. Especially facts to be acted upon or to base life-impacting decisions on what we do with our students.

As philosopher Carissa Veliz writes: “An assertion about the future can be many things—an estimate, a desire, a warning—but never a fact.”

So, educators and school leaders can ignore and discard these baseless predictions about some future notion of what the job status of their students will be.

Their predictions are not substantive enough on which to base decisions about anybody’s life. To do so is severe malpractice.

And, the next time Bill Gates, Sam Altman or Jensen Huang spouts some prophecy? Take it for what it is: a prediction no better than that of a soothsayer predicting based upon his view of a pig’s entrails. They are just hyping for business.

Instead, you are an educator and smart enough to figure out AI for yourself and what place it should have in your teaching. You have to consider the long-term view when it comes to students’ lives, and AI may or may not be a part of that. Only the future knows.

Beware of the Soothesayers of Silicon Valley Who Use Algorithmic Entrails and Tea Leaves to Tell Us Our Future Lies with AI or Any Other of Their Inventions

2026-06-01T22:42:25.696-04:00

“Today’s ruling soothesayers are no longer astrologers, astronomers, sociologists, or even economists; they are computer scientists, data analysts, and engineers. Algorithms are the new tea leaves, animal entrails, and stars through which we hope to catch a glimpse of the future.”

from the book “Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI by Carissa Veliz

I just have a picture in my mind of the Bill Gateses, Sam Altmans, and Jensen Huangs, bent over algorithmic entrails, and the entire world sitting on the edge of their seats, waiting for the these “infallible tech CEOs” to declare for us our future.

Our Soothesayers of Silicon Valley and their algorithmic tea leaves and algoritmic entrails continue each day to make self-serving and profit generating predictions for themselves.

I think we need to remember that predictions are not facts, whether you are using algorithms or pig intestines.

Educators need to be skeptical and take all that these Soothesaying CEOs and business leaders say with a grain of salt.

AI Is Not an IT Problem? It's a Leadership Problem? What Nonsense...School Leaders Need to Be More Critical of AI Consultant Claims

2026-06-01T16:51:35.778-04:00

Recently I saw a post where an AI consultant said that "AI is not an IT problem, it's a leadership problem." What nonsense!

So now, they are going to blame the leaders of school districts for a Silicon Valley creation that:

1) steals the copyrighted work of other authors to use in their training models,

2) in their LLM training they exploited low-wage workers in poverty-stricken parts of the world,

3) this product can create facsimile products that can pose as the work of creators to steal their livelihoods,

4) data centers for these products require massive amounts of power and water, often strapping the communities who have these deceptively forced upon with resource shortages,

5) these data centers are also having noise pollution issues in the communities where they are being placed.

6) there is growing concern about cognitive outsourcing for students and the consequences of that in children's futures.

7) Who knows what consequences that are yet to come...

So this AI consultant says, no, there's nothing wrong with AI, and that the problem is with school leaders.

The real problems with AI consultants and opportunists who are ignore the problems with this technology and already declare it as the savior of education, all for what has to be self-interest.

Added to this problem are school leaders believe such nonsense and hire these companies and consultants simply because AI has been mystified to the point that they think they can't possibly understand it. They are wrong. AI is not difficult to understand.

Isn't interesting that no matter the technology, it is flawless and causes no problems? It's always the educators, the leadership, the parents...or whatever the AI consultant can shift the blame to. It's standard sales tactics when you do not want someone to really look at the problems with a technology.

Good, solid leadership sees through all of these AI consultant sales pitches and cheerleading and acts accordingly. Be critical of all the AI Promo Rhetoric!

How to Sell Your Tech Product and Tech Consulting Business No Matter What with the Silicon Valley Marketing Strategy

2026-05-29T12:54:18.796-04:00

Want to sell any technology to everyone and ensure its total acceptance? Here’s how:

If I invented a product that had all kinds of potential dangers and harms but still wanted to make a bundle off that product, I would do the following:

-Convince everyone that my product is here, it's inevitable, and that they might as well use it.

-Convince everyone that failure to use my product means you are behind-the-times and irrelevant.

-Convince everyone that my product was just like a previously non-harmful product like a calculator, and that it was "only a tool." You can always blame the users for harms too.

-Convince anyone that any attempts to regulate my product will stifle innovation and just allow the Chinese to beat us.

-Utilize the Ed Tech and educators to make all the children of the world into proper consumers of my product.

-Buy a political establishment that will protect my enterprise at all costs—environment and health of the people be damned. Especially buy out local governments where I need to put my massive data centers.

-Tell wild fantasies about how my product has the potential to rule the world.

-Make my product as addictive as possible, and keep individuals using it for everything. Even invent uses and convince people to use it even if it is not actually more useful of effective. Goal is to keep users in the product.

That is a blueprint for ensuring product success no matter what harms and unforeseen consequences it might have. That’s the Silicon Valley marketing plan.

AI Boo's at Graduations Might Be Called For When School Leaders Callously Allow AI Cheerleaders and CEOs Sell Their Products at Commencement Ceremonies

2026-05-27T13:36:25.678-04:00

Boos might be called for from graduates when commencement speakers who stand to gain bundles of money from it’s adoption are invited by school leaders as speakers.

Graduations aren’t about their pet products and time for their marketing pitches; graduations should be about the graduates and their families.

Colleges and universities that get commencement speakers who sell their products should be ashamed and booed too.

School leaders should be skeptical of asking AI cheerleaders to speak at graduations. After all, we don’t allow Samsung to sell TVs are graduations.

ChatGPT: Not a Tool, But a Novelty In Search of a Legitimate Use

2026-05-26T11:20:44.930-04:00

I am increasingly seeing the ChatGPT creations where a user asks it to generate a drawing or illustrated map of themselves with drawings indicating who they are, based on the "conversations they have been having with the chatbot."

Don't get me wrong, can anything good come from that?

I hope the "conversations" these users have been having with that chatbot has not been too intimate. Silicon Valley has a notorious reputation with what they do with individual personal data.

Then there's the idea as to why I should care what ChatGPT has to say about me, though I will confess I am not a user, nor will I ever be. But, what credibility does a chatbot have other than what we decide to give it? It's like a bit tech "soothesayer" or horoscope with about the same level of truthfulness.

It's a machine, and it just spitting back to you what you have inputed, and some cases manufacturing that information in order to please the user. Really, it is just a more complex version of Joseph Weizenbaums' chatbot Eliza.

People are searching for ways to use GenAI, in order to give it legitimacy. They want so bad to find some usefulness for it, because it's so neat!

True tools are not like that. They are created to solve a problem, not a solution in search of a problem to solve.

School Leaders Need to Become Data Misers: Make Ed Tech Vendors Justify Every Single Bit of Data They Say They Need

2026-05-26T10:09:42.273-04:00

It is time for schools and school districts to get miserly with their students’ and staffs’ data.

Don’t share it, ever, with Ed Tech companies and vendors.

If they ask for data, make them justify every single data-point requested and then evaluate their justification.

If you deem their need for the data as unnecessary, tell them they can’t have it and need to work around it. Period.

If they say their product will not work without that data, tell them to redesign it so that they won’t need it.

School leaders need to be the ones in control of their students’ and staffs’ data, period.

Become a data miser when you work with any companies.

Bookstore CEO Open to Selling AI-Authored Books: This Reader Not Interested

2026-05-25T12:28:26.703-04:00

Recently, Barnes and Noble bookstore CEO says he would sell AI authored books as long as they are transparently labeled as such and if the customer demand is there. (Why CEO of Barnes and Noble Would Support Selling AI-Written Books in Stores)

That makes sense I suppose for a business. The success of AI books in this case will depend on demand. If readers value author-less books, then they can get them. Set aside my own question of why in the world would anyone want to read a book written by a machine.

I think the important thing is the disclosure and transparency regarding authorship. Personally, I am not interested in AI authored books. Part of me just can't get beyond the fact that such work would not be based on the living being's own experience of being human; it would be an assemblage of the experiences of many others and their writings.

The greater question is whether such AI authored works, such as a novel or book of essays would sell. My purchases are usually tied to authorial reasons. For example, I choose to read a book by historian Lewis Mumford because I enjoy his work, due to the knowledge that he wrote it, it has his style, his ideas, etc.

What for me that is a deal-breaker would be works that are AI authored impersonated works. For example, I would not be interested in a work generated by AI in Lewis Mumford’s style. That to me would require the knowledge that this was not a work that the historian penned himself.

As an avid reader, the notion that bookstores have authorial “knock-offs” on their shelves would not be a place I would frequent.

The Proper Role of Ed Tech and Educational Leaders in the AI Push into Schools

2026-05-24T12:51:39.055-04:00

“We as educators need to educate our students about AI,” is how Ed Tech’s latest pitch goes regarding their new project. Let’s look at what is really involved in that project.

Paul Kingnorth writes in his 2025 thought-provoking book “Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity”:

“…we need to understand the consequences of the Machine we have built, and which is now rebuilding us so that we may become more perfect consumers, shopping for individual fulfillment in its global marketplace of goods, ideas, and identities.”

The Ed Tech calls for “AI Literacy” are part of the “Machine” project that Kingsnorth describes here, the project of “rebuilding us so that we may become more perfect consumers” of AI, Silicon Valley’s latest money-maker. Big Tech, as it did with the internet, Web 2.0, social media, has once again activated our Ed Tech establishment in schools to take on the task of transforming students and teachers into proper consumers of their latest cash cow, AI.

Part of this project of Big Tech has been to short-circuit any critical thought about AI as they have made it, about its moral and ethical uses, and even whether we should accept it as presented. They did this through their “inevitability” myth, and their “everybody-is-using-it” myth, both of which are not true and does not have to be true.

They have used these myths effectively in the past, and educational technology has been acting and is currently acting as the proselytizers of Silicon Valley since it beginnings as a disciplinary field. It is a discipline that exists to carry out Big Tech’s latest proclamations, and their latest is to get all of education—students, teachers, parents—to acquiesce without protest, to being blind, perfect consumers of AI.

Educators have no business acting in this role. If anything, they should be fostering critical-thinking individualists who decide for themselves the role, if any, AI will play in their own lives and use. These students can also decide for themselves whether acceptance or resistance is called for. The next generation can demand that AI serve humanity, not those who stand to profit the most from its success.

Reflecting back on thirty-plus years in education and my own role in Ed Tech, I have seen how educators become implicated in this whole project of consumer generation. Now, we see how this blind promotion of technology has not really transformed anything for the good.

Past history tells us, that this AI consumer project will not end well in its present form either, without ensuring that our students, teachers, and parents are able to think for themselves critically about the place and form of this technology in their lives.

We do not have to let Silicon Valley and Ed Tech decide for us.