ARE WE FOOLISH TO TRY TO COUNTER THE AI REVOLUTION IN SCHOOLS?

Let’s be honest, in schools around the country, if not around the world, educators from the Principal down to the most junior classroom practitioner are at least a little uneasy, if not downright fearful, about the exponential incursion of artificial intelligence both into our institutions and into our pedagogical practice. Some of our fears may have good foundation; others may reflect our natural apprehension about introducing new technologies when we are sometimes struggling to master last year’s great technological leap forward. Apple, for instance, is already touting its new devices and technologies to be released in 2025, and every day another press article or report records the latest penetration into a workplace by AI, robotics or something else that scares us in our relative ignorance.

Some of our school colleagues are concerned about how AI will fundamentally change the way we teach, the way we operate in our classroom, the way we monitor and attend to student welfare and wellbeing issues; and a host of other dimensions of the way we do things around here. On the other hand, among our colleagues are passionate advocates of AI in schools, pointing to how administrative and student performance data management might be automated, freeing them up to spend more time preparing excellent lessons and working one on one with students who may be behind. We just feel apprehensive that it seems as though we are on the threshold of a brave new world in our schools.

Yet in a piece I published here earlier today, leadership expert William Arruga was arguing that in order to be effective and authentic leaders in today’s rapidly changing world of work, our embracing AI is a key way in which we can improve the quality of our leading (in 12 Critical Leadership Skills For Authentic Leaders In 2025, in Forbes, 3 Jan 25). Even in educational institutions, to drive efficiency and creativity, Arruga advocates that leaders inspire their teams to embrace AI tools and integrate them into their workflows. He believes a basic understanding of AI’s potential is essential for all contemporary leaders, and suggests that deep knowledge as it relates to your role will help you stand out and demonstrate that you are an innovative leader.

?He is also persuasive about the power of what he calls reverse mentoring, which I suspect is already happening informally in our schools. Reverse mentoring involves younger team members – members more adept and au fait with technology – helping their leaders learn, and when senior leaders encourage it, this can accelerate this process and foster a culture of innovation and cohesion. Building AI proficiency across the organisation is crucial, Arruga insists, and it begins with you as a leader.

Part of our problem is that the great majority of our current workforce in schools has come deeply to believe that teaching and learning fundamentally involves forming a relationship between teacher and pupil, between educator and student. Teaching demands of us not only that we know and love our subject, but that we also come to know and love our students as well, valuing and appreciating their unique individuality, which only we can assess and access. Our teaching and learning relationship involves finding out what each of our young people is good at and enjoys, and leveraging that as we seek to plan engaging and interesting lessons delivered by adopting contemporary, evidence-based pedagogy. And we cling to what we believe to be the truth – that no artificial intelligence can master the complexities of the teaching and learning relationship.

But perhaps that truth is about to be, or may already have been, challenged.

We were fearful of learning machines in the 60s and early 70s. We were fearful about computers in the mid-80s and into the 90s. We were sceptical about allowing technology into our classrooms as the millennium turned, and then the laptop, the tablet and the smart phone pushed through the classroom door. And dedicated professionals and innovative schools showed us the potential these new technologies offered us.

What if we were to decide to embrace AI too? If we identified truthfully and accurately what it cannot do. At least yet.

One of the things it can’t do yet is form a human bond with a child or a young person. Sure, some of the robots we encounter are pretty smart – at least at doing repetitive things and producing things for which they have access to the necessary raw materials, including search engines and the internet. Of course ChatGPT and its cousins and off-shoots can produce extended pieces of writing that resemble student essays and assessment tasks. But that is not the same as producing the unique piece of writing, for example, that a clever student can craft using their own imagination, adopting writing skills and strategies that have been carefully and caringly taught by an enthusiastic highly skilled teacher. And what that caring, careful teacher brings to the relationship is their highly developed soft skills.

Entrepreneurship and regular Forbes Contributor on leadership Caroline Castrillon asserts that as artificial intelligence continues to transform industries and occupations, the importance of soft skills can't be overstated (in 5 soft skills that are critical in the age of AI, in Forbes, 19 Jan 25). She cites a new survey from Wiley, a leader in research and learning, which suggests employees do not feel AI will replace the art of communication in the workplace. In fact, a whopping 80% of respondents say soft skills are more important than ever.

Like many of our teaching colleagues, these good folk pointed out in the survey that AI can make our jobs easier by automating mundane, time-consuming tasks, but it can’t replace the important interpersonal connections that help make our jobs meaningful, according to Dr. Mark Scullard, the senior director of product innovation at Wiley.

Indeed, soft skills, more aptly described as “power skills," are typically defined as non-technical skills that help people excel in the workplace, Castrillon points out. In terms of the future of work, Wiley survey respondents ranked communication (34%), leadership (23%) and adaptability (12%) as the top three soft skills that will be most needed in the workplace post AI. While AI can increase efficiency, it cannot get to know and understand the people you work with to create meaningful connections, Castrillon affirms.

And this is exactly our situation in schools. AI may well have important applications in our schools in the fulness of time, and if it relieves busy teachers of administrivia and sub-professional duties, then why would we not embrace it, so that we have more time to foster and nurture those connections with our students, those relationships, that give them the sense of belonging, that enable us to engage them in learning, and which allow us to equip them to be caring, responsible, contributing adult members of our communities.

Castrillon avers that as businesses struggle to remain competitive, people-centred skills will be more in demand than ever. As more and more demands are placed on schools too, people-centred skills will also be more in demand in our context too.

Castrillon offers five soft skills that will be highly sought after in the age of AI.

Strategic Thinking

For Castrillon, strategic thinking is a much sought-after soft skill, and William Arruga strongly supports Castrillon’s position on Strategic Thinking as a critical skill for leaders in today’s organisational world. After all, strategic thinking is a teachable skill, and every team member, or at least every person in a leadership role in your organisation, should be encouraged and offered opportunity to engage in strategic thinking and planning. Thinking strategically involves seeing the big picture, having the confidence to crafting and put forward high-level strategies, along with inspiring others to embrace the emerging vision. Effective leaders combine the attributes of current organisational realities with their perception of emerging future trends and opportunities, encouraging every team member to deploy their curiosity and to fearlessly adopt experimental or innovative strategies to drive discovery and innovation, Arruga enthuses.

When leaders in schools – at whatever level they lead - possess skills in strategic thinking, they can contribute significantly to shaping the school’s culture, mission and vision, supporting the Principal in their desire to offer students a high quality student experience through excellent teaching, through strong and effective wellbeing and pastoral care programs, ?and through intentional efforts in character formation to assist young people to be resilient, adaptable, flexible innovative thinkers and collaborative learners. Strategic thinking ability is necessary not only for executive staff but also for mid-level managers like department heads and sub-school heads, as well as in high-achieving individual contributors.

As Castrillon explains, strategic thinking allows individuals and their organisations to make informed decisions while balancing their responses to changing conditions and circumstances. Leaders with strategic thinking skills are more likely to inspire confidence in their colleagues and staff teams, securing high levels of internal cohesion amongst staff as well as ensuring that individual staff initiatives align with the organisation's long-term objectives.

Communication Skills

Castrillon cites research carried out by the?Business and Professional Communication Quarterly?which showed employers expect to increasingly value communication skills in the AI age, noting that oral communication skills that help foster a sense of authenticity and trust will be primarily in demand. In the study, 72% of frequent AI users reported that oral communication will become more important. At the same time, 50% said that written communication will decrease in value as AI evolves. Castrillon emphasises that while it will become common to use AI to blast off simple emails, complex or sensitive issues will still need to be dealt with in person. In person. Face to face. One on one. She reminds you how face to face conversations are also a good way for managers to assess whether employees understand and are engaged with their projects.

Once again, Arruga is in fierce agreement, noting the ways in which highly effective communication skills contribute to building the human culture of an organisation – especially in? an intensely human environment such as a school.? For Arruga, leaders need exceptional communication skills because their ability to inspire trust, foster engagement, and build meaningful relationships hinges on how effectively they convey their vision, values, and intentions to their staff. By actively listening and knowing exactly what to say with clarity and authenticity, authentic leaders empower their teams, resolve conflicts, and drive alignment toward shared goals, making communication the foundation stone of their influence and impact.

Honesty And Integrity

As we navigate how we deal with the power and influence of AI, human moral codes and values-driven behaviour risk being overlooked or worse, overturned. AI has no morality. No values. No respect for ethical behaviour and no sense of right and wrong. At least not yet.

Thus, in the age of AI, human moral behaviours, such as demonstrating honesty and integrity will become even more highly regarded. In the BPCQ ?study, 78% of frequent AI users anticipate that integrity will grow in importance. This is understandable, given that human trust and a high code of ethics will be necessary to oversee the incorporation of AI at work. Castrillon also points out that high standards of ethics amongst leaders will remain highly important. Honesty, for example, is essential in leaders striving to maintain trust with employees who fear losing their jobs to technology. By being transparent, teams will feel confident that leaders have their best interests in mind. School leaders need to reassure teachers that their classroom work is still highly valued and not about to be subsumed in a welter of robotic teaching or AI-driven assessments of student performance. AI needs to be seen as a partner technology, not as a substitute for human-centred teaching and learning.

Critical Thinking

While AI can recognise patterns and automate tasks, the human mind still outperforms it – indeed excels at, critical thinking and problem-solving, Castrillon maintains. Moving forward, she continues, organisations will still need people to define goals, make strategic decisions and assess risks. A highly valued soft skill, critical thinking involves the ability to analyse and interpret information in a logical way, Castrillon goes on, reaffirming that critical thinking allows individuals to make educated decisions based on hard data rather than emotion. Employees with strong critical thinking skills also tend to be good problem solvers and communicators, she declares.

Adaptability

The rise of AI has also made adaptability in the workplace the "top skill of the moment," according to a recent Linkedin report, Castrillon states, going on to remind you that adaptability is the ability to adjust rapidly to changes in your work environment, something AI is less capable of doing. ?Adaptability is the best way to have agency right now, Aneesh Raman, the VP Workforce Expert at LinkedIn, says, adding, at the core of managing change is building that muscle of adaptability. Whether you're dealing with a layoff or a shift in work priorities, the ability to embrace change is critical in today’s ever-evolving workplace, Castrillon observes, noting that besides the fact that the pace of change is accelerating, skills-based hiring is more common. That makes the ability to adopt a growth mindset critical for individual workers who want to stay ahead of the curve.

As the nature of work evolves, soft skills will become even more crucial for organisational success, Castrillon concludes. In our schools, possibly even to a degree that perhaps exceeds that in any other institutional workplace, the skills in demand as the AI revolution continues its inevitable disruption will be those that technology can’t replace, like adaptability, honesty and critical thinking, the unique, human capabilities and competencies that no AI machine or program is able to emulate to any significant extent.

The reality is that probably we will not be able to resist the incremental increase in the deployment of AI in our schools, so perhaps as we have done with every change in educational technology over the decades, we need to embrace it, to understand it, to work out how best to exploit its potential and to think through its impact on possible further improvements in our classroom practice and our students’ learning.

That said, we also need to attend to our own ongoing professional growth, and in order to prepare for the future of our work together, we need to invest in developing these human-centric soft/power skills. By doing so we may find ways of building stronger interpersonal relationships with both our colleagues and our students and thus be able to equip them to lead and work effectively and successfully in an AI - rich world.

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