AI Literacy in K-12 and the Workforce Gap with CIESC's Lena Darnay
About this episode
Lena Darnay discusses the importance of AI literacy in K-12 education and the workforce gap with host Jason.
Lena Darnay spent years as a school librarian before she landed at the Central Indiana Educational Service Center, and that librarian's brain turns out to be exactly what the AI moment needs. In this School's Out Saturdays conversation she and Jason dig into why K-12 has to expose kids to AI early instead of blocking it, why every industry panel she has ever sat on names the same must-have skill, spreadsheets, and why the old blame game between K-12, higher ed, and employers has to end. Jason makes his case against Carmel Schools, which trained its teachers on AI for two and a half years and still keeps it out of the classroom. The two get into anthropomorphism, sycophancy, and the Character AI tragedy that should worry every parent. They also cover Indiana's new diploma seals, the SAIL leadership work at CIESC, vibe coding a conference app in Replit, and what Plato's Republic has to do with Sam Altman. Lena closes on grief, sci-fi, and radical acceptance. ABOUT THE GUEST Lena Darnay is Director of Communications at the Central Indiana Educational Service Center, or CIESC, the largest of Indiana's nine educational service centers, serving 35 member districts and about 220,000…
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