Leading in an AI World: Discussing Discerningly

“You’re just trying to keep kids in the dark ages!”

“Well, better that than have them live their lives on a laptop!”

It was one of the most heated debates I’d seen, and it was only 11 minutes into a full day of professional development I was leading at a Christian school.

Artificial Intelligence has changed many of our assumptions about teaching and learning. The scale and pace of disruption is unprecedented. There’s been a lot of change, and the one thing we know about change is that it’s not easy. So what can we do to manage this rapid change?

Having examined the first three steps in the LEAD framework (living under lordship, engaging ethically, and adapting appropriately), we now turn our attention to the final step: discussing discerningly.

What are discerning discussions?

Discerning discussions allow school communities to manage change well during the AI revolution.

The adaptations required by the ecological change of AI will be significant. Even if schools can adapt appropriately, it won’t be easy for the school community. When poorly managed, attempts at organisational change can result in rumours, frustration, resistance, and a failure to achieve meaningful change.[1]

Research shows that 50-70% of planned change efforts fail.[2] While there are many frameworks for managing change in an organisation, the lowest common denominator is they all include communication within the community.

However, we must acknowledge that we’ve been called to do more than just communicate.

It’s not enough that discussions are taking place: they must be discerning discussions.

There is a type of conversation that actually makes things worse. As mentioned in the first post in this series, many meet this AI world with considerable fear. Others are prone to idolising technology. Some people resent tech companies for creating the tech, students for using the tech, and schools for adapting to the tech. As we seek to adapt appropriately, we must manage our adaptation not only with discussions but with discerning discussions.

Discerning discussions operate with the following principles:

• Do not slander others.
• Keep the lordship of Christ central.
• Encourage and build up one another.
• Acknowledge the difficulty of change.
• Spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
• Encourage all to live in fellowship by faith, not fractured by fear.
• Honour the efforts of school leaders, teachers, students, and parents.
• Seek to bring the Scriptures to bear on our thoughts, words, and circumstances.

It would be easy for school leaders to imagine that change must be managed between school leadership and teaching staff. While this is a crucial area where discerning discussions are needed, there are two other crucial stakeholders in the Christian school: students and parents.

This brings us to the question of what kind of discussions we should be having. Here is a list of questions related to AI that students, teachers, and parents have asked me during my work with Christian schools. This list suggests the scope of the discussions we must have within our school communities.

Students

• How can I use AI to improve my learning?
• When is using AI cheating and when is it useful?
• Why do I need to write/spell/research/solve equations when AI can do it better and faster?
• I am trying not to cheat with AI, but I know other students who are, and they’re getting away with it.
• Will there be any jobs left for me by the time I graduate—what does the future look like?
• Why bother learning when we will soon have the technology to implant knowledge directly into our brains?

Teachers

• How can I tell when my students are being academically dishonest with AI?
• Do I have to go back to pen-and-paper, in-class, exam-style assessments to prevent cheating with AI?
• How can AI help me reduce my workload?
• How much AI use is appropriate for each task I give to students?
• If AI does reduce my workload, will the school leadership simply expect me to take on more work?
• Is it ethically right for me to create resources with AI if I’ve instructed my students not to use it?

Parents

• How do I know if my son or daughter uses AI to complete their work?
• My child is anxious about the future; how can I counsel them well during this time?
• I don’t think the school is making wise decisions with AI; with whom can I discuss my concerns?
• Why is my child still learning to write? All they should be learning is to manage AI; AI skills are what the future of work requires.
• I fear my child is too reliant on technology and isn’t being educated in the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

A commitment to discerning discussions acknowledges that navigating life as a Christian isn’t something we do on our own. It’s something we do together. 

While such discussions can be difficult, it’s freeing to know we don’t always need to have the “right” answers. For some questions, we will be able to give a clear, well-informed answer. For other questions, such as the future of work, we may offer an educated guess, acknowledge our inability to tell the future, and rejoice that there is one in heaven who has gone before us and will care for his children no matter what the future looks like (1 Peter 5:7).

A commitment to discerning discussions acknowledges that navigating life as a Christian isn’t something we do on our own. It’s something we do together. We must “one another” our way through these changes.

Conclusion

Open communication and discerning discussions within our school communities allow us to—

• Live under the Lordship of Christ, fleeing fear and avoiding idolatry.
• Engage ethically with technology, avoiding unconscious formation and resisting temptation.
• Adapt appropriately, leveraging the benefits and avoiding the pitfalls of new technology.

In short, navigating the AI world well is a whole-community project. And, as with any community project, we must keep the lines of communication open and discuss discerningly.

[1] Lewis, Laurie. Organizational change: Creating change through strategic communication. John Wiley & Sons, 2019.

[2] Mansaray, H. E. (2019). The role of leadership style in organisational change management: A literature review. Journal of Human Resource Management, 7(1), 18-31.