Life at MA

The AI Question in Schools Isn’t Really About AI 

By Jon Bretan in Spring 2026

Fifteen years ago MA had to decide whether to provide every student with an iPad or adopt a bring-your-own-device policy. 

In 2012–2013, I served on a committee exploring that choice. At the time, the answer seemed obvious. An iPad was useful in a backpack but a poor substitute for a laptop. It lacked reliable multitasking, file management, keyboard support, and a stylus that made digital writing feel natural. Google Docs was rapidly becoming the backbone of schoolwork, and students needed full computers to use it well. Providing every student with a capable school device also seemed financially unrealistic. So we adopted BYOD. At the time, it was the right answer. Today it probably isn’t. 

Consider what has happened since. Fifteen years ago my laptop was large, heavy, and equipped with a DVD drive. Today my smartphone can plug into a monitor, keyboard, and mouse and function as a desktop computer that far exceeds that old laptop’s capabilities. At the same time, it is also a camera, messaging hub, gaming console, social-media portal, and television. The device students carry is no longer merely a productivity tool. It is the entertainment ecosystem of the internet condensed into a pocket-sized machine designed to capture attention. 

That is why the debate about artificial intelligence is, in some ways, asking the wrong question. Administrators worry about technological change. Teachers worry about cheating and authenticity. Students often see AI as a way to complete assignments faster. Parents want reassurance that their children are learning skills that will matter in the future. Those concerns are understandable, but they are not really about AI itself. They are about something more basic: the purpose of school and the conditions under which students learn. 

The difference becomes clearer when we compare students with employees. In the workplace, new tools are judged mainly by their effect on productivity. If software allows a report, spreadsheet, or presentation to be produced faster, it is considered an improvement. The goal is the finished product. 

Students, however, are not employees. The purpose of school is not efficient production. It is practice. Students repeat tasks, make mistakes, refine their thinking, and gradually build competence. The essay, problem set, or lab report is only a proxy for that process. Teachers look at the final artifact and try to infer whether meaningful learning occurred along the way. In some activities, that inference is unnecessary: a student who runs a mile or performs on stage cannot outsource the work. But when the final artifact can be produced without the student engaging the underlying process, the educational signal disappears. AI has made that problem impossible to ignore, but the problem itself predates AI. 

That is why many teachers are trying to make student thinking more visible. Years before the current AI discussion, I began replacing traditional lab reports with video summaries in which students explained their experiments in their own voice. Later those summaries included screen recordings showing how students analyzed data using software tools. More recently, platforms such as Snorkl have students solve problems on a digital whiteboard while explaining their reasoning aloud. These approaches attempt to recover what education has always sought: evidence of the learning process, not just its final product. 

Even thoughtful assignment design, however, runs into a larger obstacle. The devices students carry are not simply tools for schoolwork; they are also the primary delivery system for entertainment and social interaction. Teachers spend considerable time simply asking students to put their phones away. I sometimes tell students to put their “television” away, because that is what the device in their pocket has effectively become. 

Calling these devices “phones” understates the situation. The smartphone has absorbed several industries, and its business model is built on capturing attention. Schools therefore face a challenge that extends beyond academic integrity. They are trying to cultivate habits of sustained attention in an environment saturated with devices designed to fragment it. 

For that reason, the AI debate may ultimately point schools back to an earlier decision: whether students should bring their own devices at all. The technological limitations that once made BYOD attractive have largely disappeared. A modern tablet with a keyboard and stylus can support writing, annotation, spreadsheets, research, collaboration, and AI tools. A school-provided device also offers something BYOD cannot: consistency. Teachers know which tools students have. Software updates are managed centrally. Internet access and AI tools can be provided within clear boundaries rather than as a free-for-all across hundreds of personal machines. 

None of this implies hostility toward technology. Schools should be teaching students how to use modern tools effectively. But those tools are difficult to teach in a setting dominated by personal devices designed primarily for entertainment and social interaction. The goal is not to reduce technology in schools. It is to align technology with the purpose of school itself. Students are not employees whose objective is productivity; they are learners whose task is guided exploration and practice. AI will shape the future of work, but schools first need to decide what kind of learning environment they are willing to defend. The real question is not what AI students can access. It is what technological habits schools are willing to cultivate.