Three Things Teachers Still Do Better Than AI

I’ve watched AI write essays, solve case studies, and explain complex theories more efficiently than I ever could. And yet, every day, students still come to me, not just for answers, but for something deeper. Because the most important parts of teaching, presence, trust, and connection, aren’t transferable.

Nietzsche said, “People don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.” That’s been echoing in my mind, especially when people dismiss AI in education. Their concerns aren’t baseless, but discomfort often drowns out evidence. Many still cling to the illusion that teachers are the main gatekeepers of knowledge. But AI is breaking that. It’s unsettling. It forces us to rethink value and authority.

Power shifts.

Education is going through realignment. Let me give you a real life example. There’s a student I’ll call “Mike” (a pseudonym), a diehard fan of the Golden State Warriors. When he asks, “Who’s John Locke?”, instead of giving a dry summary, AI might respond like this:

“Think of the Golden State Warriors as a society. John Locke would say the team should be governed with the consent of the players. If Coach Steve Kerr suddenly started benching Steph Curry, ignoring Draymond and Jimmy Butler, and making wild decisions, Locke would argue the players have a right to push back or even replace him. That’s Locke’s big idea, that power only exists as long as people consent to it. Hobbes, on the other hand, would argue that the team needs to obey the coach no matter what, because any challenge to authority risks total chaos. Even if Kerr loses the locker room, and no one believes in him, Hobbes would say it’s better to stick with him than risk anarchy.”

For a basketball obsessed student like Mike, it makes abstract political theory feel interesting. Fifteen years ago, if a teacher could summarize Locke and Hobbes in two to three sentences, that had value. His/her knowledge saved students time from shifting through books, and held value. True, the student could have looked at the textbook, but to get information direction from the teacher could have been helpful. Today? AI can do that, and personalize it to Mike's world in a way no textbook ever could (it could even change the lexile levels depending on his reading ability. Unlike a textbook, Mike could even ask clarifying questions. So if AI can explain the social contract better through Steph and Steve Kerr, what’s left for us to do?

Be like the Golden State Warriors, as in adapt the system, move the ball, and trust the people on the court. The system works not because it’s rigid, but because it evolves with the players, just like the Golden State Warriors evolved from a defense first team in the early 2000s when I followed them in University, to today a 3 point centered, pass-heavy offense built around movement, trust, and creativity.

They didn’t cling to tradition, they redefined it.

That’s what great educators do too, adapt the game plan, empower others to contribute, and never lose sight of one of the most important things we do, bring joy to the classroom.

Three Things Teachers Still Do Better Than AI

1. Emotional Legitimacy and Trust - AI can give feedback. But students know when something is real. Artificial intelligence saying “Well done!” doesn’t feel the same as a teacher looking you in the eyes and saying, “I’m proud of you.” A good teacher notices when a student is off. They check in. That trust, that human presence? It can’t be automated. Be there for your students emotionally. Most of all, create a fun classroom. Maybe I wouldn't recommend singing Call Me Maybe for an IB Economics class, but you need to give students a reason to come to school. If you're simply relaying information they could learn from a PDF or through AI, you are short changing this generation.

2. Facilitating Discussion and Ethical Judgment - AI can talk about ethical issues. It can write essays on climate justice or Locke vs. Hobbes. It could write a 30+ page essay within one hour...It’s impressive. But what AI can’t do is read the room. It doesn’t see which student is too nervous to speak, or which one just made a brilliant point and should elaborate further. It doesn't know the relationships students have with each other, and it certainly doesn’t know how to help with discussions. Teachers can guide discussions and and shape moments. They create safe, challenging spaces where students learn to listen, question, and respond. I think more than ever, activities like socratic seminars and MUN crisis committees are needed in the classroom in the age of AI.

Example of a robust MUN Crisis Committee

3. Modeling Humility and the Learning Mindset - I went to a public Ivy League university. I’ve earned two master’s degrees. And still I regularly tell my high school students, “I don’t know.” And I mean it. It’s not a trick. It’s not performative. It’s because I really don’t know everything and I want them to see that’s okay. We need to normalize not knowing. In a world where AI pretends to know everything, human educators must model the opposite, curiosity, openness, and humility. I believe one of the most powerful things a teacher can do is say, “Let’s figure it out together.”

Power Isn’t Lost. It’s Changing.

In political science, we don’t fear power shifts. We study them. We try to understand how old institutions fall and new ones rise. We don’t cling to the past. We study it, in order to prepare for the future. Think about how the printing press change the dynamics of the Church in Europe. Once upon a time, only priests could read Latin texts and interpret scripture, but when books became widely available, knowledge began to democratize, and many of the priests saw this change and resisted this democratization of knowledge. Education is facing something similar now. Teachers who try to compete with AI in the realm of raw knowledge will lose. But teachers who lean into their irreplaceable strengths, relationship building, ethical framing, real time judgment, and humility...won’t just survive. They’ll thrive.

Socrates didn’t claim to know everything. In fact, his wisdom came from knowing he didn’t know. As he said during his trial, “I am wiser than this man… for he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know” (Plato, Apology, 21d, trans. 1997). Maybe that’s our role now as educators, not to know all the answers, but to light the path forward through better questions...

AI keeps its eyes on the text. A good teacher keeps theirs on the room, watching, noticing, adjusting. That’s our real superpower-human awareness, in real time.

References

Plato. (1997). Apology (G. M. A. Grube, Trans.). In J. M. Cooper amp; D. S. Hutchinson (Eds.), Plato: Complete works (pp. 17–36). Hackett Publishing Company. (Original work published ca. 399 BCE)etter Than AI