Thursday, October 1, 2026
On a mild August morning, English teacher Sare Perrone sits before an empty classroom, her fingertips tracing the edge of a fresh stack of writing journals. She’s usually in here already, planning, mapping and thinking of how words will bounce between young minds in the months ahead.
“I think I’m most looking forward to taking more risks in the classroom,” she said. “My 11th graders are such strong readers and writers. I’d like to have them mentor my ninth graders, especially when we’re working on opinion pieces. The collaboration could be incredible.”
But beyond that vision, a more urgent question lingers in many teacher’s minds this year: Where does artificial intelligence fit, or not, in the classroom?
<SUB> From hidden tool to classroom reality </SUB>
Perrone does not pretend AI isn’t here. She doesn’t pretend it’s a distant threat. She confronts it.
“You can’t hide from AI,” Perrone said.
She has her AP students write by hand frequently, a way to attune to each student’s natural voice. But she also encourages them, later, to feed their thesis ideas into AI systems, compare the output with their own drafting, and evaluate what the tool got wrong.
“It’s not about banning it. It’s about teaching them how to use it responsibly,” she said.
In smaller classrooms at Centre Ave Elementary School, ToniAnn Donald and Linda Grace are enacting complementary shifts.
Donald, teaching fifth grade, has fully embraced project-based learning: students build pencil holders from empty cans, coach each other on pitching techniques, debate, prototype and present.
“It’s about developing a plethora of skills: planning, communication, iteration,” she said, “And that carries over into how they show up for each other.”
When teachers let students draft, brainstorm, fail, revise and present — when success is in the “doing,” she said — the pressure to be perfect eases. That’s Donald’s entire project-based pedagogy in a nutshell: let them explore, struggle and reflect. In those moments, the learning is internalized, not merely performed, she said.
Grace, in her 35th year teaching kindergarten, builds the foundation stone by stone.
On her walls, you’ll find Thinking Maps — bubble maps, double bubbles, flow maps — tools that help children organize thought even before they’ve mastered full sentences.
She blends in technology early, showing videos of penguins, but always teaching children to question what they see. Grace even introduces ChatGPT:
“Kindergartners are sponges for it,” she said. “But I want them to ask: is it real, or made up?”
Many parents don’t know whether AI is part of their child’s classroom. In one study, 88 percent of parents believed AI fluency would be essential for their child’s future — yet many were unsure if their school taught it, according to New York Academy of Sciences.
Without openness, AI becomes a silent shadow. But when teachers name it, when students argue over whether an AI-generated paragraph misuses a word, or explain why they discarded it— the learning becomes richer.
In “Street-Level AI,” education policy experts argue for naming the tool, talking through its failures, and teaching everyone — students and adults — not just how to use it, but when not to.
Christine Ericson, who spends much of her day guiding struggling readers across grades 7 through 12, views AI as both opportunity and risk. Her classrooms don’t issue grades; they offer extra assistance to low-performing readers.
Because of that, she sees how the pressure to “create perfect” can push students to lean on shortcuts.
“Progress isn’t linear,” she said. “Some kids are here for one year and make huge gains. Some need more time. But we have to help them see the line, not just the leap.”
From sixth-grade math and science teacher Ann Kerner, there’s a different version of the same approach.
Kerner grew up imagining herself teaching, and now she builds lessons around life’s constants: percent, unit rate, ratios.
One recent exercise: comparing Starbucks sizes by cost.
“If you’re going to take one thing from sixth grade, let it be percent,” she told her students.
She doesn’t shy away from bluntness: lessons must reflect life outside school, because school now competes with TikTok and screens, not just recess.
Many teachers expressed how the educational contract has changed. Parents’ roles matter now more than ever — not as overseers, but as informed partners, Donald said.
