Disarm the mind, capture the state
Disinformation threatens democratic power by compromising the institutions through which people investigate claims, judge evidence, and challenge authority.
Topic
Editorial
Arguments and commentaries that challenge inherited assumptions about education, technology, and institutional change.
Educating for what machines can’t do is the wrong approach
As AI takes on more codified work, schools need to develop the personal knowledge people use to create new value.
The tool was never the problem: Phone bans, AI, and the failure of control
This article examines what school phone bans reveal about control, trust, and the purpose of education. It argues that the debate is less about devices than about how institutions understand learning and student agency.
How Big Tech is silently colonizing education
Big Tech shapes what schools can teach and how knowledge circulates through AI platforms. Education needs the capacity to govern these systems in the public interest.
Motivation is something we create with students, not something we do to them
Thomas Arnett’s piece “AI can personalize learning. It can’t make students care” makes a compelling case that adolescent motivation is deeply social and that AI, however powerful, can’t replace the human need for recognition and belonging.
The future of digital learning communities: Beyond algorithms
The modern internet is aging, and the cracks are showing. For nearly three decades, we have built online spaces rooted in structures that, while groundbreaking at the time, now struggle to serve the ways we live, work, and learn today.
Deception by design: Education’s role in countering disinformation
This article examines how misinformation is designed to spread and why education must respond. It argues for learning approaches that build critical judgment, media literacy, and democratic resilience.
Reclaiming education for inclusive, democratic institutions
This morning, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson with the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.
Teachers as knowmads in the era of AI
In recent talks in Argentina, Spain, and Colombia, I delved into the competencies essential for “knowmads” in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). This transformative era requires a shift in how educators approach teaching and learning, and it’s critical to understand what this means for teachers today.
Schools are still struggling with the question: Is it okay for students to use technologies?
After decades of wondering if calculators, phones, or Wikipedia have a place in schools, the next target is obviously generative AI.
Why Pokémon Go and Minecraft in the classroom are very bad ideas
It’s “back to school” season in the United States and Europe, and the social media universe is ablaze with ideas on how to harness the Pokémon Go craze in the classroom.
The biggest problem in mainstream education is that it does precisely what it is designed to do
In many the conversations about design thinking in schools, we tend to assume that mainstream education is poorly designed. What if it wasn’t?
Christel Hartkamp: “Children are like slaves of the modern age”
Editor’s note: This provocative commentary originally appeared in Heb jij iets geleerd vandaag? – Een Sudbury school perspectief op leren, a blog by Sudbury schools in the Netherlands.