Teaching with AI
An assistant. Not a replacement.
A lot is being said about AI taking creativity away from us — that we stop thinking for ourselves and everything becomes algorithms. That is not how I experience it.
I work as an early-years teacher, author and educational developer, and I find that AI can be an unusually good support in idea generation and in writing. You ask for advice and decide yourself what to keep. You already know a great deal — but you can ask about subjects you do not know well enough yet.
AI in idea generation
Questions that open the work.
For me it is not about getting a finished text back. It is about having more paths to choose between, faster — and about being asked something I had not thought of. These are the questions I ask most often:
- Which books should I read to get further into this subject?
- Which directions could this style take, and what has already been done?
- Something is missing here — what would be worth building?
- What would a specialist object to in this idea?
AI as a creative sparring partner
A sparring partner is something other than a tool that writes for you. A sparring partner says things you can disagree with. I use AI with care, and I am far from agreeing with everything that comes back. But I am the one steering. AI is the assistant. The direction, the professional judgement and the responsibility are mine.
In educational work this means AI never takes the place of the relationship with the children or of professional judgement. It can help prepare, formulate, vary and question a plan — but adults with professional responsibility decide what becomes practice.
How I use it in practice
I always begin with my own draft or my own wondering — not with an empty field and an order. Then I use AI to challenge, expand and sort. Finally I rewrite it in my own language, because otherwise it is not mine.
The same goes for the materials I develop: the idea, the view of the child and the wording are mine. Personal data about children never belongs in an AI tool.
