Bringing Humanity Back to the Classroom—With AI

Meaningful discourse can be re-integrated into our classrooms at scale with the use of artificial intelligence.

GUEST COLUMN | by Ramit Varma

As a society, we have lost the ability to discuss and disagree with one another. We often hear that social media is the reason for this atrophy of civil debate. But could social media simply be amplifying deep-seated deficiencies that have been present for years? With 20+ years in the fields of academia, I would argue that we’re unable to talk to each other because our educational system has schooled us out of debate.

‘I would argue that we’re unable to talk to each other because our educational system has schooled us out of debate.’

Consider The Way We Learn and Teach

Consider this: Over the past decades, the way we learn and teach has undergone a radical transformation. Education used to be performed in mostly small-scale environments with manageable amounts of information to learn. We had small classrooms, teachers knew their students, and the focus in classrooms, especially in higher education, was on discussion and problem-solving.

This was possible because the number of students and the sheer amount of information they had to learn were so much smaller. In 1910, only 156,000 students graduated from high school in the U.S. out of a population of 92.2 million. Of those who went on to college, a grand total of 37,000 earned bachelor degrees. Meanwhile, in 2022,15.2 million students were enrolled in an undergraduate program out of a population of 333.3 million people, and 37.5% of Americans held a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Not only was the number of students passing through our educational system much smaller in 1910 but the total amount of information available to any one individual was also far smaller. The publishers of the Encyclopedia Britannica could reasonably claim to provide most of the important knowledge of the world.

Today, we have Google to remind us that we’ll never grasp more than a sliver of the world’s knowledge.

What the Old System Got Right

In no way was the traditional model of education ideal, of course. Our old way of teaching was narrow, elitist and exclusionary. It kept many people down while lifting up only a few. But this system did get one big thing right. It was geared toward the development of critical thinking skills and civil discourse.

But then, as the world grew bigger and more complex, the amount of information we had to acquire to function successfully simply exploded. And to meet this critical need to learn more, we had to change the way we taught.

The twentieth century was the age of mass production and bigger-is-better industrialization. As class sizes exploded, we applied the principles of efficiency and throughput to education. First, we divided classrooms by age and subjects so that we could more efficiently teach. Second, we developed instructional standards to prescribe what was to be taught in each of those classrooms.

Next, we created textbooks that could ensure faithful delivery of the content contained in those standards. Finally, we invented the Scantron, a machine that could automatically score, analyze and assess what was being taught in classrooms.

Not By Any Measure

The Scantron machine was only ever intended to be an assessment device, not an instructional tool. But since it could only measure multiple-choice responses, instruction had to change to fit into its narrow parameters. And this meant that teaching now had to focus on the acquisition of facts, not the development of understanding.

After all, when successful learning is measured by correctly penciled-in circles, why spend time discussing the reasons for William the Conqueror’s invasion of England? We can only test whether it happened in 1066 CE or 1249 CE. Our educational framework became a high-volume system to support the passive absorption of content and the regurgitation of facts.

‘Our educational framework became a high-volume system to support the passive absorption of content and the regurgitation of facts.’

This has now led us to classrooms where teachers have pacing guides that script their instruction virtually to the minute. They have to adhere to their pacing guides in order to cover all the material needed for successful test-taking.

In the five hours per week of a high school history class, for example, the teacher has to spend about three and a half hours lecturing. One hour per week is allocated to individual assignments such as reading or assessments, and the remaining half hour per week is spent in “other formats.”

No Time to Discuss

Suffice it to say, there isn’t much time for discussion or debate. And for students, this type of instructional pacing fills six hours per day, five days per week for 12 years. Then off they go to college to do it for another four years, but this time in classes of 300 students. And none of this translates well to the workplaces of the AI age when we need more thoughtful conversations, not fewer.

We have literally schooled ourselves to accept facts, rather than to discuss and debate. As a result, we have failed to learn how to talk to one another. We no longer know how to disagree, how to ask searching but civil questions, or how to find interest in opposing viewpoints. We don’t know how to feel comfortable changing our minds but instead, see this as a weakness. We don’t even know how to articulate what we, ourselves, believe.

And we wonder why we’re polarized. We shouldn’t wonder — we’ve made this world.

But we can unmake it. We can create learning environments where students engage in spirited debate, where their voices are heard, and where they can practice listening to each other. In this model, students engage in discussions that aim to elevate their thinking, rather than encourage them to jump blindly into black and white arguments, with winners and losers.

The Technology to Create a Better Model

Does this sound like a naive fantasy? In fact, we already have the technology to create this better model of teaching and learning — it’s artificial intelligence. AI has the power to positively transform education so that we can return debate and discussion to the classroom.

‘AI has the power to positively transform education so that we can return debate and discussion to the classroom.’

We are coming to see that the AI revolution will be at least as impactful as the personal computing revolution was in transforming society. This new technology will enable us to fundamentally rethink how we live, work, play — and teach.

Imagine if, as a teacher, you could set up small-group discussion assignments that would take place on fair and equal playing fields. You wouldn’t have one student dominating the discussion, while another one contributes nothing.

Imagine having visibility into the quality of the discussion, the individual engagement of each student and the group’s conclusions. Imagine being able to actively moderate each and every one of those discussions.

With AI, we can already do this. AI can be used to summarize and analyze small-group discussions that students have before class, providing professors with detailed insights into students’ understanding and participation. These insights allow professors to tailor their classroom discussions more effectively, making the learning experience more engaging and inclusive. As a result, students enter the classroom more prepared and confident, leading to richer and more dynamic debates.

We can start using this transformative technology to return humanity to the humanities and bring people together to once again talk to each other. We can return the central role of discussion to our educational system with AI, so that one day, we won’t need to shout at each other. Instead, we’ll relearn to ask one another that most human of all questions: “Why?”

—

Ramit Varma is the CEO and Co-founder of Breakout Learning. Connect with Ramit on LinkedIn.

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