Be Challenged: We’ve had this conversation in staffroom’s before
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In the late 1990s I sat in staff meetings where the internet was argued about with real conviction. If students could look anything up, would they still learn to reason, or just search their way past every hard question? Some colleagues saw the end of deep thinking. Most of us weren’t sure what it would ask of us.
Go back to the mills of 1820 and the shape is the same. A loom could do in an hour what took a skilled weaver a week, and whole trades vanished almost overnight. Some of that fear was justified, and all of it was sincerely felt.
AI is our version of that moment. Every school is working through what it means for assessment and for the essay that reads a little too smoothly. History suggests the tool was never the real question, though. The weavers who came through found what only a human hand could still do. The teachers who thrived through the internet era got better at helping students ask good questions, because answers had become the easy part. The skill underneath both was discernment, which is the work schools already do best.
The other constant was people turning towards each other. The weavers organised, and the early internet mostly gave rise to communities working through shared problems. When the ground shifts, connection is how people find their footing.
That’s as true in a staff team as anywhere. AI can draft a unit plan or summarise a policy. It can’t notice that a faculty has quietly stopped sharing resources, or build the trust that lets teachers try something new in front of each other and talk honestly about what didn’t work. That trust is what turns a new tool into better practice, and it isn’t built in a single PD day. It grows alongside the School Plan you’re already working to, giving staff more than it takes from their week.
The technology has changed before. What staff and students need from each other hasn’t.
If you’re unsure where your team stands on this, we start by listening, well before recommending anything. We’d love to hear from you.
Lisa Kelliher, CEO, Be Challenged
Get in touch for a complimentary consultation:
1300 723 476
[email protected]
bechallenged.com.au
