When teachers think about whether AI is good or bad for education, it’s natural to approach it from two angles.
On the one hand, what possibilities does this open up for me to be a better teacher?
On the other, which parts of the complex set of skills involved in teaching are going to be irrelevant in five years?
The answer to the second question may be more reassuring than you expect.
That’s because teaching is not just one skill.
Teaching is not a skill. It’s a humongous set of micro skills.
Some of those micro skills can be replaced by AI.
And honestly, you may even feel relieved to hand some of them off.
Here’s a story
I remember being at a professional development meeting with colleagues, where we were asked to talk about a teacher who had influenced us. One of my colleagues described a teacher who had “unlimited time” for her.
I remember the exact wording of this line because she choked up when she said it—this teacher had clearly helped her through a difficult time in her life with this sense of unlimited-ness.
I also remember the exact wording because of how I felt when I heard this: conflicted, at best.
The thought of having unlimited time for students stressed me out.
This was a year into my time teaching high school, and I had just recently made the difficult decision to stop letting students eat lunch in my classroom.
It turned out I needed those lunch periods.
I needed that quiet time in the middle of my day.
This was also time I was contractually entitled to, and I don’t think I had to feel bad about it.
I didn’t know the word “boundaries” yet; It hadn’t quite come into style—but I knew I needed certain periods of time that were mine: to sit at my computer, to be alone in my classroom, and not feel guilty about it.
Teacher Time, Effort, and Emotional Energy Are Finite
In The Maintain and Stay Sane Program for Teachers, one of the core ideas is that some of the most finite resources in education are teachers’ time, effort, and emotional energy.
Teachers have always needed to budget those three things carefully.
And AI, used thoughtfully, can be a budgeting tool for all three.
One of the things AI uniquely offers is the absence of a ticking clock.
In a human interaction, there is almost always always a ticking clock.
Appointments have an end.
Class periods have a bell.
Tutoring sessions wrap up.
Even in casual face-to-face conversation, we pick up on tiny signals that the other person is ready to be done.
With AI, there is no ticking clock.
Students can’t really annoy it with too many follow-up questions.
And that’s something most teachers — if they’re honest — wouldn’t want to compete with anyway.
Using AI to Address Your Own Limits of Time and Energy
Here’s something to reflect on this week: What are some areas where I often feel like I should be unlimited, but I do have my limits?
Then flip it: What human aspect of my teaching will AI allow me to do more of — or do better?
Here’s one example: a simple classroom strategy that addresses the reality that you don’t have unlimited time for student follow-up questions.
After you explain something, give students a five-minute break where they ask AI one to three questions — or as many follow-ups as they want, in whatever direction their curiosity or confusion takes them.
Then randomly call on one student to share what they asked and what they learned.
This does a few things at once.
It gives you a window into what students are actually wondering about.
In some cases, they may have needed clarification.
In others, they might have come up with a genuinely interesting question.
In either case, this is your moment.
Compliment them in front of the class. Reinforce their curiosity. Say something like, “I love that you asked a second question when the first answer wasn’t clear.” Or, “Wow! That’s a great followup question. I never would have thought of that.”
Reinforce their research skills, their critical thinking, their willingness to dig deeper.
Because one thing that AI can’t replace is the feeling that another human is proud of you.