Jason Reynolds on What AI Is Quietly Stealing From the Next Generation

Life—much like learning—is filled with friction. New, emerging technologies like AI increasingly promise to smooth those rough edges. Forget having to cook when you can get hot food delivered to your door in minutes. Forget stressing about parallel parking on a crowded side street; modern cars can practically handle that task with barely any human intervention. But that same impulse toward ease in learning, warns author Jason Reynolds, is quietly robbing a generation of an opportunity to develop something far more valuable: fortitude.

For many kids, AI has become deeply embedded in their learning process, and they’re leaning on it to do their reading and writing. Edutopia asked Reynolds in a recent interview: How do you make the case to students that the hard work of developing literacy skills is important?

“It’s tricky,” he admits. “I’m always asking them, ‘If a computer could teach LeBron James the fundamentals of basketball, do you think LeBron James would be able to handle himself when a human being decided to guard him?’ My question isn't about what they're doing now. My question is what happens when this thing is unavailable?” 

That’s a question teachers could turn right back to their students. What would happen if AI suddenly became unavailable? In high school teacher Stacy Kratochvil’s classroom, she’s asking her students to grapple with similar meaty questions: “One question I’ve started asking my students is: ‘Who are you becoming when you use AI? Are you becoming more curious, capable, and reflective? Or more dependent, passive, and disconnected from your own thinking?’” 

Ninth-grade English teacher Brett Vogelsinger is pushing students to reflect as well, asking them to critically analyze their use of AI tools and answer questions like: “Did use of AI in any way harm your learning or take away opportunities to think deeply?” Or: “Do you feel that this piece of writing accurately represents your work and your voice?” 

For more thoughts from Reynolds—author of more than 20 books, including the New York Times best-sellers All American Boys, Long Way Down, and Ghost—this recent interview includes reflections on his newest work, Soundtrack; his thoughts on writing as an act of self-preservation; and why he thinks over-reliance on the classics in middle and high school English classrooms could be a mistake.