When the internet first crept into American classrooms in the 1990s, educators faced a dilemma that is undoubtedly familiar. A powerful, transformative technology had arrived uninvited, promising both unprecedented opportunities and unknown risks. Administrators scrambled to create acceptable use policies and install content filters, and teachers set about the meaningful exploration of how to somehow integrate this new tool into their teaching. Many schools' first instinct was to tightly restrict access, rightly treating the internet as a potential threat rather than the revolutionary educational tool it has become.
Three decades later, history repeats. But please allow me a few observations about how we have arrived at this nexus that, in many ways, is an existential threat to the system of education we’ve constructed. It’s not a threat to actual learning and human development, but it represents a critical threat to our concept of education and its delivery. I make no bones. That’s a party I’m here for. I have watched for decades as this system, while helpful to many, has destroyed young people who simply didn’t fit within its “one size.”
While many districts have incorporated digital citizenship curricula, there has been no development, in three decades, of a standardized way in which young people can best approach the use of their personal devices as a productivity tool. This training has been left up to families, most of whom have no idea how the technology works themselves. While American schools debate whether to allow phones in classrooms, Chinese schools are integrating state-approved educational technology at scale, creating a controlled but comprehensive digital learning environment. We have been negligent in our approach to teaching young people about their personal technology and its power as a learning tool.
US schools have spent billions of dollars purchasing devices in order to circumvent the liability they perceive they have for students’ personal devices. Districts have created an antithetical relationship between these devices and learning that does not resonate with student users. By digging in on this narrative, schools further alienate the students they should be serving and create disillusionment that makes students question the relevance of the classroom experience entirely.
While students may have access to specialized training in content creation or media programs at the secondary level, these are far too little far too late, failing to recognize the significance of the digital economy and the need for student proficiency across a wide range of digital disciplines.
Essentially, US Education has done everything possible to avoid allowing the technology that’s been developed in the last 30 years to transform its classroom mode of delivery in any way. That’s not to say technology hasn't changed education. It has, but the system itself: teacher/classroom/students along with their proximity and relationship to one another remains essentially unchanged. The consequences of that resistance are coming to bear, unfortunately.
History repeats itself with artificial intelligence as the technology now but with a crucial difference. While schools could once control internet access through computer lab schedules and network permissions, AI will arrive in the classroom every day in students' pockets through their smartphones—smartphones purchased for them by their parents. Just as the internet evolved from a carefully regulated school resource to a ubiquitous part of daily life, AI is already becoming embedded in students' digital experiences whether educators are ready or not.
The parallel is striking: in both cases, education systems initially responded with resistance and restriction rather than adaptation and innovation. But there's a lesson in how the internet transformed from a perceived classroom disruption into an essential educational tool. Perhaps the question isn't whether to allow AI in education, but rather how to harness it effectively before it bypasses the classroom entirely.
When the Illusion of Control was Lost
I watched helplessly as my students became digital ghosts during the pandemic, their cameras off, their engagement minimal. It was like watching their souls die a little each day. The vibrant energy of live theatre reduced to awkward Zoom readings and recorded monologues. The collaborative spirit that had always defined my classroom dissolved into a series of disconnected squares on a screen. While there may have been your random “success story,” from our attempt at online learning, our pedagogy didn’t transfer well to the digital space.
And everyone knew it. Whatever assurances we had ever communicated about our preparedness in the face of the unexpected flew right out the window with the reality of the unexpected. The facade of education was exposed. A foundational societal structure was exposed as completely unprepared for what should have been as easy as flipping a switch in the year 2020. This rocks the security of an entire nation, but we had bigger fish to fry.
A seed was planted. At the time, I was working with a secondary population, and I had no idea that seed would grow into a mistrust I would encounter when I moved to middle school in 2022.
But before I get ahead of myself… what happened next was revelatory. When we finally returned to in-person learning, students came back with a furious hunger to connect, create, build relationships, and tell stories. The brief drought of human connection they experienced was enough to tell them they never wanted to be in that situation again if they could help it. The 2021-2022 school year became my most successful as an artist and educator. This renaissance of human connection taught me something crucial: technology isn't the enemy of creativity - it’s an untamed force waiting to be harnessed.
The Power Shift
Perhaps it was always on a collision course, considering the narrative surrounding phone use and the classroom. Whether inevitable or not, smartphones, once a minor classroom disruption, have become an overwhelming force. District administrators struggled with policies, usually defaulting to simply telling teachers to police phone use without providing real solutions or consequences. The result? Teachers spend precious instructional time in an endless battle against a tide of glowing screens.
I stood up in front of my students one day and we discussed all the positive experiences associated with their phones and came up with a list of 15-16 things. Then, we turned to discuss the positive experiences with teachers… I was lucky to get 4 items on the list. Is it any wonder that education is in a crisis of relevancy? I can’t help but think our system set itself up for failure by failing to do the one thing we attempt to ingrain into our students: adapt.
But I began to see this not as a classroom management issue, but as an unprecedented opportunity. These devices weren't just distractions - they were powerful tools being wielded without guidance or purpose. We weren't failing to control technology; we were failing to harness its power for learning.
Finding the Reins
The perspective shift came when a good friend from high school reached out about building an AI-driven learning system for his customers. He wanted to create an AI assistant to help build understanding among clients - a perfect example of harnessing artificial intelligence to strengthen human connections rather than replace them. And this was my first earnest step in seeing AI as a tool with a lot of power that could perhaps give us what we needed to fix education.
What’s holding us back in most versions of renovating our approach to education? Time. But what if we reimagined education to be so much more than it is right now, and were able to build that reality very quickly? What if what we build could be scaled and translated with a simple “copy and paste?” What if we could accelerate our designing and building so that we truly could provide a meaningful learning tool that could be available to anyone for free? I knew I wanted to find a way to make a difference beyond the classroom, and I knew that AI might be the key.
But I had no idea how much it would change my life.
Learning to Ride
This realization struck me during my first Zoom meeting for the AI for Learning course at the Digital Learning Institute. This wasn't just another educational trend - this was urgent. We needed to understand how to harness AI's power effectively because the rest of the world was already racing ahead.
The challenge wasn't just learning to use AI - it was learning to communicate with a tool that doesn't work like the plug-and-play technology we've grown accustomed to. After a generation of instant solutions, we've lost the art of mastering new tools through exploration and experimentation. We were, and are, a bit rusty
After decades of being spoiled with plug-and-play, it’s obvious why we’re struggling. We’re so used to giving specific input and receiving the expected output, that the unexpected collaboration we’re now having to do with what feels like a really smart 5 year old is really throwing us off our game.
But as a theatre educator who had spent decades guiding students through the creative process, adapting to different learning styles every four years with each new rotation of students, I found AI felt surprisingly familiar. It required the same patience, creativity, and willingness to explore that I'd been teaching all along.
Channeling the Current
By spring 2024, I had begun to see a way forward. The questions evolved: What if, instead of fighting the tide of technology in our classrooms, we could channel it into a powerful force for learning? What if we could develop a curriculum that taught digital citizenship, responsible technology use, and essential skills for the future - all delivered through the very devices that were causing such disruption?
While the vision was clear, the scope was minimal: a digital citizenship app that could help American students change the way they use their phone, harnessing it as a powerful learning tool. I was just one teacher, but I really believed AI could make me so much more.
That's when a message arrived in my LinkedIn inbox from a technology entrepreneur in Karachi, Pakistan. Neither of us knew it then, but this connection would be the catalyst for turning these ideas into ATLAS, an initiative that would aim to harness mobile technology to transform global digital education.
But that's a story for the next article in this series.
For now, I'll leave you with this thought: Sometimes our greatest opportunities arrive disguised as uncontrollable forces. The key isn't in resisting them, but in learning to harness their power for something greater than we initially imagined possible.