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Rethinking School in the Age of AI

Rethinking School in the Age of AI

Your Undivided Attention vor 1 Jahr

AI has upended school as we know it. In this episode, Daniel and Tristan talk with Maryanne Wolf and Rebecca Winthrop about how tech has broken the old model of education—and how we might build something better.

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AI has upended schooling as we know it. Students now have instant
access to tools that can write their essays, summarize entire
books, and solve complex math problems. Whether they want to or
not, many feel pressured to use these tools just to keep up.
Teachers, meanwhile, are left questioning how to evaluate student
performance and whether the whole idea of assignments and grading
still makes sense. The old model of education suddenly feels
broken.

So what comes next?

In this episode, Daniel and Tristan sit down with cognitive
neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf and global education expert Rebecca
Winthrop—two lifelong educators who have spent decades thinking
about how children learn and how technology reshapes the
classroom. Together, they explore how AI is shaking the very
purpose of school to its core, why the promise of previous
classroom tech failed to deliver, and how we might seize this
moment to design a more human-centered, curiosity-driven future
for learning.

Your Undivided Attention is produced by
the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on
X: @HumaneTech_

Guests

Rebecca Winthrop is director of the Center for Universal
Education at the Brookings Institution and chair Brookings Global
Task Force on AI and Education. Her new book is The Disengaged
Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live
Better, co-written with Jenny Anderson.

Maryanne Wolf is a cognitive neuroscientist and expert on the
reading brain. Her books include Proust and the Squid: The
Story and Science of the Reading Brain and Reader, Come
Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA
The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better,
and Live Better by Rebecca Winthrop and Jenny Anderson

Proust and the Squid, Reader, Come Home, and other books
by Maryanne Wolf

The OECD research which found little benefit to desktop computers
in the classroom

Further reading on the Singapore study on digital exposure and
attention cited by Maryanne

The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han

Further reading on the VR Bio 101 class at Arizona State
University cited by Rebecca

Leapfrogging Inequality by Rebecca Winthrop

The Nation’s Report Card from NAEP

Further reading on the Nigeria AI Tutor Study

Further reading on the JAMA paper showing a link between digital
exposure and lower language development cited by Maryanne

Further reading on Linda Stone’s thesis of continuous partial
attention.

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES
We Have to Get It Right’: Gary Marcus On Untamed AI

AI Is Moving Fast. We Need Laws that Will Too.

Jonathan Haidt On How to Solve the Teen Mental Health Crisis

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