Education must move beyond teaching tools and productivity to building critical literacy, the ability to understand how AI works, its limits, ethics, and impact. The goal isn’t to create passive adopters of AI, but to raise a generation of AI-fluent citizens who shape technology with empathy, ethics, and understanding.

As schools race to embrace the latest technologies, a quiet paradox is emerging: the best use of AI might not be about automation, but restoration. In this piece, I explore how AI could free teachers to focus on what really matters, relationships, and why the next great divide in education may not be digital, but relational.