Rage Against the Machine: Teaching in the Age of A.I. and the True Threat We've Overlooked

Maybe the threat isn’t what students can do with AI. Maybe it’s what we’ve been asking them to do without it.

Lightkeepers is a newsletter intersecting education with faith, politics, society, and culture. Here, we honor stories, challenge systems, and imagine futures rooted in dignity, love, righteousness, and possibility.

What’s the point of assigning essays if students can now have ChatGPT write them in seconds?
It’s a fair question — and one that many educators are asking with increasing urgency.

But beneath that question is a deeper anxiety:
If students can now access answers instantly through technology, what’s the purpose of teaching them at all?

This isn’t just a technology problem.
It’s a purpose problem.
And in many ways, generative AI is simply exposing what’s been broken in our educational model all along.

---

The Flaw in the American Model

The dominant paradigm of American education has long prioritized performance over purpose.
Demonstrate mastery. Reproduce knowledge. Prove you’ve learned the skill. Pass the test.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of that.
But when performance becomes the ultimate goal of schooling — when the purpose of learning is reduced to showing what you can do on command — then we’ve set up a system where output is valued over impact. Where production is prioritized over contribution.

Now, AI can do the production part faster. Cleaner. Often better.

So the question isn’t just, What do we do about AI?
The deeper question is: Why were we ever aiming so low in the first place?

---

Raising the Ceiling on Learning

We have to ask ourselves: What is actually worth teaching?
And what might be just fine for AI to do for us — or with us?

I’ve long believed that our standards-and-assessments-driven model of education in the U.S. is too shallow — too focused on what students can show, and not nearly invested enough in what they can do.

An essay, a presentation, a math computation — these are evidence of skill, yes.
But what about project-based learning, community organizing, leading a team, civic engagement, solving real problems in real spaces?

That’s what the world — and the workforce — already values.
That’s what students need to be prepared for.
That’s what students are desperately longing for.

It’s time we start expecting more from our students than just churning out a paper or filling in a Scantron.

We need to ask more relevant questions:

• What do you care about?

• Who do you want to influence?

• What are you building?

• What are you changing?

Maybe AI isn’t replacing learning.
Maybe it’s just reminding us to aim higher.

---

Learning With Purpose: What We Can Learn from Singapore

One country has quietly been leading the world in both academic outcomes and purpose-driven education for years: Singapore.

For nearly a decade, Singapore has ranked at the top globally in reading, math, and science. But their approach to education is not centered solely on academic performance — it’s built around values, competencies, and character.

Their 21st Century Competencies Framework starts not with skills, but with core values like respect, responsibility, resilience, and care. These values are surrounded by social-emotional competencies and global skills like communication, critical thinking, and civic engagement.

“At the heart of the framework are values — the core of a person’s character. Surrounding these are social and emotional competencies and 21st century skills, which are necessary for the globalized world we live in.”

In Singapore, excellence grows from a foundation of purpose — not in opposition to it.

It’s a model that recognizes: the goal of education is not simply to create high-functioning workers.
It’s to form whole people who are capable of contributing meaningfully to their communities and to the world.

---

What We Build Next

There’s a fear humming beneath the surface of this conversation.
Not just that students will cheat.
Not just that essays will become meaningless.
But that we — as educators, mentors, guides — won’t be needed anymore.

That AI will replace us.
That students will stop caring altogether.
That something essential will be lost.

But here’s the truth that’s harder to say:
Our system was already broken.
Our students were already disengaged.
And it wasn’t because of ChatGPT.

It was because we haven’t truly given them a reason to care.

Learning for the sake of a grade.
Writing for the sake of a rubric.
Mastery for the sake of a scantron.

These were never deep enough goals to hold a student’s heart.

Maybe AI didn’t cause the crisis.
Maybe it’s just holding up the mirror.

And yes, the reflection is uncomfortable.
But what if it’s also a gift?

What if this moment is our invitation to finally get it right?

To stop asking students to prove what they know.
And start inviting them to use what they learn.

To contribute.
To influence.
To organize.
To heal.
To connect.
To build.

Because when the purpose of learning expands, so does the learner.

So no — I don’t believe this is the end of teaching.
But I do believe it might be the beginning of something much more meaningful.

Stay lit, Lightkeepers. 🔥