AI isn't deskilling our kids with Dr Rob Wessman (#342)

About this episode

Dr. Rob Wessman discusses the implications of AI in education and the importance of developing tools that enhance student learning rather than hinder it.

What if the real risk of AI in schools isn't that it cheats - it's that it quietly switches off the parts of our brains we need most? In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Rob Wessman, VP of Ethics and Safety at School AI, to dig into one of the most important questions in education right now: are we building AI tools that develop young people, or tools that do the developing for them? With a background as a high school English teacher, school administrator, and Harvard EdLD graduate, Rob brings a genuinely human lens to the world of edtech and a compelling case for why getting this right matters more than getting it fast. We cover: - The MIT study that showed students struggling to think for themselves after outsourcing their essays to AI - Why School AI's research shows a 28% boost in higher-order reasoning - and how design makes the difference - The deskilling risk hiding in plain sight (and what endoscopy doctors can teach us about it) - Why banning AI in schools may be more dangerous than letting students use it unsupervised - The "agency with guardrails" challenge: how do you build tools that protect without limiting? - What Singapore's education ministry gets right — and…

People in this episode

Guest: Dr Rob Wessman

Topics covered

• AI in education
• student development
• higher-order reasoning
• ethics in edtech
• AI policy
• agency with guardrails

Keywords

• AI
• education
• deskilling
• higher-order reasoning
• ethics
• edtech
• student agency

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: School AI, MIT, Harvard

Places: Singapore

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