I am not afraid of artificial intelligence because I hate technology. I am afraid because I care about students.
I worry about cheating. I worry about plagiarism. I worry that kids will stop thinking for themselves and start copying whatever a screen gives them. Anyone who has spent time in a classroom knows how hard it already is to keep learning honest and meaningful. These fears are real, and they make sense.
But pretending AI does not exist will not protect schools. It will only make things worse.
Right now, students are already using AI. They use it at home. They use it on their phones. They use it late at night when no one is watching. They learn how to use it from friends, from social media, and from guessing and experimenting. School should be the safest place to learn how new tools work, but too often it is the one place where AI is never talked about clearly.
This situation feels familiar to me. It reminds me of how schools once handled sex education. When schools avoided the topic, kids did not stop learning about sex. They just learned about it somewhere else, without guidance, rules, or trusted adults. The same thing is happening with AI. If schools stay silent, students will still use it. They will just use it badly.
That is why I keep asking a simple question: why are we not teaching prompt writing in schools?
If AI is going to be part of our world, then knowing how to talk to it is a basic skill. We already teach students how to write emails. We teach them how to search the internet. We teach them how to use calculators. Teaching students how to give clear instructions to AI should not be any different.
This does not mean letting AI run wild in the classroom. It means setting clear rules. It means having honest conversations about what is okay and what is not. It means showing students how to use AI as a helper, not as a replacement for thinking.
To make that work, schools also need to change how they check learning. We need to be honest with ourselves. The traditional essay is in trouble. If a student can ask a machine to write a five-paragraph essay in seconds, then that assignment no longer shows us what the student really knows.
That does not mean writing is dead. It means writing needs backup.
Imagine asking a student to explain their essay out loud. Imagine asking them how they used AI and what prompts they wrote. Imagine asking them where the AI might be wrong. Did it miss something important? Did it repeat the same ideas without questioning them? Did it fall into confirmation bias and only support one side?
These questions matter. They force students to think. They turn AI into something to challenge instead of something to hide behind.
There is another truth we need to face: paperwork is crushing schools. Teachers fill out endless forms. Students complete worksheets that no one remembers a week later. Hours are spent grading, copying, and checking boxes. All of that steals time from real learning and real teaching.
AI could help here. It could help draft feedback, organize notes, and handle routine tasks. When paperwork goes down, thinking goes up. Teachers get more time to teach. Students get more time to learn.
At the heart of school are two big jobs. Schools create knowledge. Schools prepare people for work. Right now, both jobs are harder than they need to be because of outdated systems and endless busywork.
AI will not fix everything. But refusing to use it guarantees that schools fall further behind.
The goal is not to protect old methods just because they feel familiar. The goal is to help students grow in a world that is changing fast. That means guiding them instead of scaring them. Teaching them instead of banning tools they already use.
If schools lead the way on AI instead of hiding from it, students will become better thinkers, better questioners, and better prepared for what comes next. That is not something to fear. That is something worth teaching.
Dominic “Doc” Ligot is one of the leading voices in AI in the Philippines. Doc has been extensively cited in local and global media outlets including The Economist, South China Morning Post, Washington Post, and Agence France Presse. His award-winning work has been recognized and published by prestigious organizations such as NASA, Data.org, Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF.
If you need guidance or training in maximizing AI for your career or business, reach out to Doc via https://docligot.com.
