Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

https://www.reuters.com/technology/norway-imposes-near-ban-ai-elementary-school-2026-06-19/

by ilreb • 1 month ago

823 570 1 month ago

jenthoven• 1 month ago

Surprised to read this as Norway also has Sikt AI for schools, where teachers can monitor how AI systems are used. Seems like it has both embraced AI and banned it.

embedding-shape3• 1 month ago

Seems like it has both embraced AI and banned it.

Indeed, seemingly they done so by age/educational progression:

Pupils from first through seventh grade, aged 6 to 13, should as a general rule not be using AI, while those in lower secondary school, aged 14 to 16, can cautiously adopt tools under teachers' supervision, the government said. In upper secondary education, from ages 17 to 19, students should learn to use AI appropriately so that they are prepared for further education and work, it added.

wwweston• 1 month ago

I wonder if the struggle is really comprehending thoughtful selective adoption.

Schools are the place where the product is a more fully developed person. There's no LLM shortcut for generating that. There are many ways you could use LLMs that would discourage it. There may be some that can encourage it.

Personally, I can see aggressively keeping kids away from LLMs until they've learned effort, living in tension/frustration, the pleasure of breaking through to discovery, trust evaluation, hypothesis/test cycles, and good socratic dialogue from the learner's side.

It may be possible at intermediate phases to prime some models to help with this process.

elasticeel• 1 month ago

Very well said. As someone who taught for 6 years it's hard enough to just stay on top of lesson planning, let alone opens my curriculum to incorporate a tool (LLMs) which I'm personally figuring out for my own use.

LLMs add the most utility to people who understand process and what a good result looks and feels like. To a novice they can't stunt the learning of this.

petcat2• 1 month ago

I wonder if at some point we will look back on stuff like this as back in the 1990s schools banning internet research and search engines. Obviously that seems ridiculous now, but the internet was big and scary back then too.

JumpCrisscross24• 1 month ago

Those bans were implemented without evidence. We have evidence AI exposure reduces learning and cognition. There are probably situations where it enhances it. But we haven’t delineated those yet, and so shouldn’t be rolling out a half-baked system more likely to hurt than to help.

petcat2• 1 month ago

what is the evidence

Retric• 1 month ago

Few schools allow unrestricted internet access these days.

The general question here is risks vs rewards and with any new technology both are unknown making caution perfectly reasonable be that internet searches or anything else.

So sure in 30 years the policy will look different, but that doesn’t mean they are making the wrong decision.

mapmeld• 1 month ago

Were schools banning search engines? I remember teachers recommending Dogpile (because it would combine search engines), and we did some computer lab stuff in the 00s, but there was no one saying that we should ignore search or the internet altogether.

In middle school I remember being assigned a book report that would include the author's biography. I'd just finished a book (The Gammage Cup) and of course my local library did not have any information about the author. So in that situation it was assumed that you would learn traditional research methods, but also that you would just pick a classic book where the information was readily available.

FloorEgg5• 1 month ago

Wouldn't it matter a lot how AI is being used?

I would assume if children are allowed to use AI without rails as a shortcut it will undermine their learning, and it's used for feedback and as a patient tutor it would accelerate their learning?

It seems like the problem is that they don't have the science and tooling to use it constructively at scale, so the desperate solution is to ban it outright until a scalable constructive approach is understood?

The article doesn't explain any of this directly...

It's frustrating to me when bold statements are directed at "AI" holistically and vaguely, completely ignoring any nuance.

There is a massive gap between letting elementary students free reign use chatGPT 3.5 (hallucinations and all) to do whatever, vs using a very guard-railed pedagogically optimized app powered by a SOTA model to support students in a specific way that accelerates good outcomes.

Most respectful interpretation is that the leaders know this and have a plan to figure it out, but for some reason it's not making it's way into this article. Is the absence representative of the truth of the situation, or some editors choice to pile on to a holistic anti-ai narrative?

JumpCrisscross24• 1 month ago

it's used for feedback and as a patient tutor it would accelerate their learning?

We have mounting evidence AI hurts learning and cognition in many circumstances. I have not yet seen similar-quality evidence for it helping.

Given that balance, restricting AI in education in the general population (while studying how to best deploy it) seems prudent. Especially given the Norwegian approach, which gradually introduces AI as kids get older.

bpodgursky2• 1 month ago

AI makes me worse at programming but helps me learn things much more quickly than reading textbooks. Both can be true.

newfriend• 1 month ago

Do you delegate all opinions to only those which have studies?

FloorEgg5• 1 month ago

I'm actually not really criticizing the decision so much the article and communications around it. If student learning outcomes are crashing and they desperately want to turn them around I understand why they would take dramatic action.

Giving students uncontrolled access to generic LLMs probably would hurt outcomes. Research process is slow (IRB and all that) so they are dealing with data from years ago (models that confident hallucinated a lot more than current SOTA) so if thats what they are basing it on its reasonable.

My frustration isn't with the decision (hey all teachers - no more chatGPT in the classroom). My frustration is with the reporting / nuance of "until we can research this better and figure out how to harness AI to improve outcomes and not undermine them".

erelong4• 1 month ago

I think soemthing ignored in the discussion is that there are "good" students who can make use of AI to further their learning versus "bad" students who use AI as a crutch that prevents them from learning well

Acknowledging this divide exists would come down to individual parenting and assessment of a student's use of the tools, rather than a blanket ban of AI tools which punish the "good" students

FloorEgg5• 1 month ago

It's not just being ignored, I was down voted and argued with for trying to make this point.

morkalork2• 1 month ago

Social media execs are already known for keeping their children off their platforms* and even phones so my question is: Do the leading ML/AI people let their children interact with LLMs yes or no?

[*] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/13/youtubes-ceo-is-latest-tech-...

JumpCrisscross24• 1 month ago

Broadly speaking, the wealthier the parents the more restrictive device is in general in the household.

This used to be a tech/non-tech line. It shifted to class sometime over the last ten years. The iPad kids are probably getting served slop. The AI-employed parents don’t have to directly police AI exposure because their kids’ device use is already controlled; at school, at extra-curriculars and at home.

pawelmurias• 1 month ago

The question is do the allow them to use their laptops to access llms. Like I assume before ai they where not allowing the kids to fry their brains doom scrolling but would allow programming. They weren't blocking all tech as they aren't raising subsistence farmers.

jackdoe• 1 month ago

there is a difference in a kid asking a LLM to explain 0! or 0^0 and to ask it to be its friend.

golem14• 1 month ago

The difference is between asking to explain x^y and reading and understanding the why and maybe go through a test, vs asking to do my homework for me and then go back to video games quickly. If the whole idea of using LLMs is to reduce effort on the part of the pupil, you are probably holding it wrong.

replwoacause• 1 month ago

Good, wholeheartedly agree with this. Too bad US legislators are impotent.

tadfisher• 1 month ago

US legislators have almost no say in how schools are run. The DoE is a husk, and states call the shots. In my state of Oregon, you will have wildly different curricula and standards depending on your district, because there's almost no state oversight either.

LastTrain• 1 month ago

Yes, that is what impotent means.

solid_fuel15• 1 month ago

They made a choice - US legislators effectively gave up their control of how schools are run when the conservative coalition allowed the trump administration to dismantle the DoE without congressional approval. Congress itself could legally retain control of education, but if congress refuses to assert that power then it is meaningless.

The end goal is to dismantle public education and route public money to religious and private schools.

cheesecakegood2• 1 month ago

To be fair, the US has long followed a model prioritizing district-level control, this isn’t anything new.

asdff3• 1 month ago

Impotent? You mean bought by these companies.

bko2• 1 month ago

Im confused, are there tasks given to 6 to 13 year old to use AI?

In the classroom, are they just throwing gpt in front of them? Is that the modern equivalent of watching a vhs?

Or do they have homework to vibe code something or given some prompts to ask at home and save somewhere?

Serious question, what does this mean?

vorticalbox• 1 month ago

Well one can no longer search for information in the big search engines without it just giving you the answer.

This ruins “search and topic and write about it”

setopt• 1 month ago

I guess Norwegian schools will have to use smaller / alternative search engines now?

sisve4• 1 month ago

There where no clear rules on the matter. Now the PM has given some guidance to schools so they know when they should use it and not.

If there are no guidance teachers and schools can do what they want and some teachers would probably go to far to early

ransom15382• 1 month ago

Teacher uses AI, creates lesson plan -> AI creates assignments -> Teacher gives assignments to students -> Students use AI to do assignment -> Teacher grades with AI -> Principal uses AI to monitor teachers progress.

This is happening at schools nationwide. It is unstoppable at this point. It's a bizarre charade.

bko2• 1 month ago

This isn't about teachers using Ai to make their life easier, otherwise it wouldn't only apply to elementary school, and from what I read it applies to students.

Students likely aren't allowed to use AI anyway for assignments. Or are they? That's the question, what is actually being banned if anything

avaer• 1 month ago

It speaks to the nonsensical structure of the education system, that it functions just fine having optimized out the education.

Nobody seems to care enough to do anything about it.

throw101010• 1 month ago

You forgot the parasite companies that sit between the teachers/student/principal which pretend they detect the big bad AI assisted/generated work to punish individuals using AI (with a majority of false positives and always late by 1 generation of models). The charade wouldn't be complete without rent seeking intermediaries.

AlienRobot• 1 month ago

AI starts charging money -> Everybody stops using it.

kristianp2• 1 month ago

The same thing is happening in business settings. There's more words being sent around than ever before, with an ever lowering percentage that is read by humans. There has to be a way to stop the madness.

bobro2• 1 month ago

eacher uses AI, creates lesson plan -> AI creates assignments -> Teacher gives assignments to students |

Up to this point, it's actually completely fine. LLMs do an excellent job up to here.

| Teacher grades with AI -> Principal uses AI to monitor teachers progress.

Again, this is probably mostly fine. Assuming they are taking it seriously, this is also fine.

Students use AI to do assignment

This is singularly the section of the loop that AI has no place in. The ENTIRE point of the education system is for the students to learn how to use their brains to accomplish tasks.

bendriv5• 1 month ago

I have three children in that age span in a Norwegian school. For the ages 10-13, ChatGPT and the like has frequently been used in the classroom to help with the cold start problem when doing writing assignments, and for getting feedback on written work before handing in to the teachers. Also frequently used as a brainstorming tool or for writing whole speaches or presentations that should be held in front of the class or school. As for doing homework, the school-provided and school-managed iPad has (had I should say) www.chatgpt.com whitelisted, so using these tools also for homework is at least not blocked, and sometimes encouraged.

My children has at least not yet received any tasks or homework using AI for coding. They teach less coding in school now compared to when I was at the same age, at least at my elementary school.

throwaway20376• 1 month ago

Thank you for the first hand feedback. I am assuming that you did similar assignments at the same age. Yet, you did not have the same tools. When I think back on my own LLM-free educational experiences, brainstorming was a hard mental skill to master. Some might argue it is one of the hardest as it requires some imagination, then critical thinking skills to filter the ideas. Can you comment about this? To be clear, I am trolling/baiting with my question.

lelanthran7• 1 month ago

ChatGPT and the like has frequently been used in the classroom to help with the cold start problem when doing writing assignments, and for getting feedback on written work before handing in to the teachers. Also frequently used as a brainstorming tool or for writing whole speaches or presentations that should be held in front of the class or school.

Aren't those things critical thinking? We do we want to prevent the acquisition of critical thinking skills.

insane_dreamer4• 1 month ago

likely preemptive

JimsonYang3• 1 month ago

A kid gets homework to do a writing assignment online. Kid goes on chatgpt. "Chatgpt do this work, heres the assignment' ctrl c + ctrl v Chatgpt spits out a good answer.

Kid spent no time doing homework and learned nothing

Or imagine a reading log(typing out what you read) to encourage a kid to read, you have AI that can copy and paste your homework for you

scotty795• 1 month ago

Maybe homework should be handwritten again? OCRs got good.

baq2• 1 month ago

AI used to write homework should be banned.

AI in 1:1 tutor mode with proper hardware (live scanning pen and paper), harness and guardrails should be wildly successful (in terms of education outcomes) especially in elementary school.

JumpCrisscross24• 1 month ago

AI in 1:1 tutor mode with proper hardware, harness and guardrails should be wildly successful

I’m open to the idea! Show me the evidence. Then we can roll it out to our kids.

baq2• 1 month ago

Glad you’re asking. https://cepr.org/publications/dp21577

forgetfreeman• 1 month ago

We thought the same of electronic devices in general and digital learning content specifically. In actual practice both result in lowered test scores and declining critical thinking skills.

SubmarineClub• 1 month ago

Idk why you screeching AI touts are so confident about its ‘wild’ success in all areas given absolutely zero evidence to that effect.

It’s tiresome.

LtWorf4• 1 month ago

It's inevitably your fault for prompting incorrectly or using the wrong model.

solid_fuel15• 1 month ago

Disagree. AI has no business being used in 1:1 tutor mode before the hallucination and sycophancy issues are completely resolved. As is, I can easily see it being a hindrance to building actual understanding.

Just one example - it's very common to see ChatGPT and the like respond with "you're absolutely correct! Great insight" to something that is a complete misunderstanding.

JumpCrisscross24• 1 month ago

Just realized 1:1 AI is 90s self-esteem medals-for-everyone parenting on steroids.

therealdrag0• 1 month ago

Teachers hallucinate too. I’ve had creationists and communists and tin-foil-hat (chem trails, 5g, etc) teachers. Surely you can imagine an AI tutor that is higher than zero ROI.

ndriscoll3• 1 month ago

This is specifically a consumer model (or specifically ChatGPT) issue. e.g. IME codex does not do this, and will just tell you when you're missing something or somehow wrong, and Gemini does this weird thing where it tells you you're a genius and then immediately starts correcting everything you said.

wolvoleo• 1 month ago

I think AI should be used in higher level schools but with the added requirement that the output will be held to a much higher standard and that it's fact checked. Teach the students to use AI to reach a higher level while mitigating the inherent issues like hallucination and sycophancy.

logickkk1• 1 month ago

fwiw, Alpha School is the supervised version. the New York campus is $65k/yr and not legally a school.

private school money with homeschool paperwork and an app doing the teaching.

https://www.wired.com/story/alpha-schools-new-york-city-camp...

asdff3• 1 month ago

Tutor mode sucks because even if it was actually accurate and didn't hallucinate, it isn't scoped to what the class is actually covering within a given topic.

Best AI is still your own brain, trained on paying attention in class and reading the assigned content.

graemep3• 1 month ago

One to one human tutors are the best way of educating kids and they are not scoped to what a class is covering. They teach the kid as an individual: they are effective because they can adjust to the kids abilities and interests.

garganzol2• 1 month ago

I already saw it in my life: a ban on calculators, a ban on computers. But after a short period of rejection, everybody starts to embrace the new tech. Instead of bans we were getting computer classes in schools.

JumpCrisscross24• 1 month ago

after a short period of rejection, everybody starts to embrace the new tech

We’re banning cell phones in school after seeing the evidence, albeit along a class gradient. We’ll probably see something similar with AI. Poor kids get AI in school (and unmonitored at home). Rich kids do not.

cryo328• 1 month ago

I did mathematics, and a fair bit of computer science on the side. This was nearly all on paper, without computers. And I'd go a week or two without a calculator sometimes, mostly employing it when I had a bad hangover.

Do we really need to force technology into everything or are we just used to doing it so see it as necessary?

garganzol2• 1 month ago

I did mathematics on paper, and informatics on computers. Some of my peers weren't so lucky, so they had to do informatics on paper only. Needless to say that the magnitude of progress we were getting in informatics had day and night difference, not in the favor of paper.

AI is indeed dangerous. It gives super abilities when in the right hands. Some people don't like it as it creates competition for their mere existence. They start gaslighting campaigns - "AI is bad, dangerous, does not work, consumes too much energy etc". This is luddism of our century, but also a form of psychopathy. When everybody is being gaslit, some of the very same players who spreads false narratives use AI to their own benefit.

bawolff2• 1 month ago

Calculators might be allowed sometimes, but i dont think they are ever allowed when you are trying to teach school children how to add and multiply. Which feels like the appropriate comparison.

erelong4• 1 month ago

The opposition is a fad that will pass; until then I guess people could investigate workable ways to use AI in the circumstances people object to

charcircuit8• 1 month ago

The traditional schooling system can't stand that they are being outcompeted by AI and are trying to use the government to maintain their monopoly and keep those tax dollars flowing.

LtWorf4• 1 month ago

Yep… I mean scientific studies seem to suggest that you are completely wrong. But big science is all a conspiracy against those AI companies that work so hard for the betterment of mankind after all.

charcircuit8• 1 month ago

I believe my eyes more than studies. I have learned so much, so fast through the process of talking with LLMs.

solid_fuel15• 1 month ago

The traditional schooling system can't stand that they are being outcompeted by AI and are trying to use the government to maintain their monopoly and keep those tax dollars flowing.

Learning is a conspiracy by Big Knowing, it's all a myth. Let's just ask an LLM to all our thinking, no need to be a functional human.

charcircuit8• 1 month ago

LLMs can teach better than the human teacher could. Big Knowing wants to be the one to teach, but that is not the only option.

erelong4• 1 month ago

Pretty much; as people experience AI work better than the previous arrangement it will simply be adopted and this antiquated approach will likely be phased out

cryo328• 1 month ago

I'm glad this is the case. It is the correct outcome.

I've heard students actually discussing that they will just use an LLM to shortcut work. I even have friends in their 50s who can barely think for themselves now without having to refer to "AI". And at least two of them are teachers.

Leading on from that, the staff are the most dangerous. My daughter has had generated exercises provided to her from multiple teachers, which are quite frankly entirely wrong. This was hilariously pointed out after I called a meeting with her mathematics teacher over it. They questioned my knowledge on the matter with the insane assumption that "AI is foolproof". I had to hit them with a clue stick then.

No one taught anything of value. No one learned anything of value. I am very worried we'll see a lost generation at some point rippling through the ages.

Aerolfos2• 1 month ago

Leading on from that, the staff are the most dangerous. My daughter has had generated exercises provided to her from multiple teachers, which are quite frankly entirely wrong. This was hilariously pointed out after I called a meeting with her mathematics teacher over it. They questioned my knowledge on the matter with the insane assumption that "AI is foolproof". I had to hit them with a clue stick then.

They have also been explicitly told by the department of education to NOT do this, but it hasn't stopped lazy teachers all over. Apparently not doing your job, in direct contradiction to your given rules, is ok because "it's the future".

lacoolj• 1 month ago

"..ban on smart phones.." "..ban on gen AI.." "..ban on social media.."

yes YES YASSSSSSSSSSSS

Ban all the things for kids. I don't want to be interviewing people in 10 years and decline every candidate because they can't correctly answer the question "You are 50ft away from the car wash. Do you walk or drive?"

LtWorf4• 1 month ago

To be fair, norwegian kids would probably fail because they don't have a clue how much 50 feet are.

WCSTombs• 1 month ago

The question is slightly vague (since I could be going there not to wash my car), but I'm pretty sure in the intended interpretation, the actual distance is irrelevant. :)

solid_fuel15• 1 month ago

To be fair, norwegian kids would probably fail because they don't have a clue how much 50 feet are.

I... are you an LLM? The distance doesn't matter - you probably don't want to walk to the car wash.

Rapzid• 1 month ago

Got'em! Yes, this one right here officer; that's the clanker!

snvzz• 1 month ago

50ft

I only have two feet, so if I am to get there, I must use a vehicle.

FinnLobsien6• 1 month ago

I think it’s quite tricky. On one side, writing is a form of thinking and cognitive training.

Just NOT doing that work by having AI simulate it is not good for anyone’s cognitive development.

At the same time, anyone growing up today will be using LLMs for massive parts of the jobs they grow up to do. So they should learn about it.

I really feel for teachers/educators right now. It must be hard to remain demanding and insist on educating kids well while also preparing them for the future they’ll actually live in.

JumpCrisscross24• 1 month ago

anyone growing up today will be using LLMs for massive parts of the jobs they grow up to do. So they should learn about it

Whatever AI looks like in 20 years is going to be so different from what it is today as to make distracting from basic skill-building an almost-certainly net negative educational effort.

FinnLobsien6• 1 month ago

I agree to some degree. But by that logic, should kids in the 2000s not have learned about the internet because the internet fundamentally changed between then and now?

I think that if anything, it’s really good I learned how to operate a computer and the Internet BEFORE what the Internet became.

I pity the generation who don’t understand a computer’s folder structure because they grew up with smartphones and TikTok.

Cpoll• 1 month ago

At the same time, anyone growing up today will be using LLMs for massive parts of the jobs they grow up to do. So they should learn about it.

There's not so much to learn they can't put it into a high school course. Adults currently in the workforce haven't been using AI since they were in elementary school, and they're adjusting fine.

FinnLobsien6• 1 month ago

I would disagree that they’re adjusting fine. So much of the stuff we see now is full AI slop clearly created with the first output of ChatGPT. It’s like saying we don’t need to teach kids about the internet because older generations grew up without it and they’re scrolling TikTok.

a) what’s the actual percentage of professionals who actively use AI? It’s much smaller than we think in tech.

b) what percentage of those people understand the very basics of how LLMs work (e.g. token prediction, context windows, etc)

c) what percentage of those people understand AI Agents (or any of their ingredients (APIs, credentials, etc.)

You quickly arrive at a tiny fraction that has a real clue about what they’re doing.

fma• 1 month ago

using LLMs for massive parts of the jobs they grow up to do

These are elementary school kids...if they start using AI in 6th grade, they have 6 years to learn AI before graduating high school.

FinnLobsien6• 1 month ago

Fair point!

Planktonne• 1 month ago

anyone growing up today will be using LLMs for massive parts of the jobs they grow up to do. So they should learn about it

Essentially the entire value proposition for AI, particularly as it advances, is that you don't need to learn how to do things anymore.

simonw10• 1 month ago

Pupils from first through seventh grade, aged 6 to 13, should as a general rule not be using AI, while those in lower secondary school, aged 14 to 16, can cautiously adopt tools under teachers' supervision, the government said.

Sounds right to me. Kids under 13 need to learn to read, write and comprehend text. Generative AI is not going to help them with those skills.

They can play with AI at home, and after 13 they can learn how to use AI productively and, ideally, in a way that enhances rather than detracts from their education.

Also from the story:

Facing a broad decline in education test scores, the government in 2024 banned smartphones from schools and has given teachers back more powers to enforce discipline in the classroom.

A big hooray for that. Will be interesting to see what impact that has on Norway education - a quick search just now didn't turn up any detailed studies, presumably those will show up eventually.

irishcoffee• 1 month ago

Kids can read, write, and comprehend text at 8. I don’t even like LLMs and I’m against this mess. Imagine having regulations rolled out when we were 8 saying “you can’t use the internet!” And I was running my own websites by 10 years old.

Let’s stop pretending this tech is as interesting as we wish it was. If we want to ban models in school, ban laptops/chromebooks with internet. I don’t see the difference at this point.

cryo328• 1 month ago

At eight they have limited comprehension of the world around them and limited language skills. They need a lot longer to develop those in tandem.

And also you may be above average there.

pertymcpert2• 1 month ago

Yes, there's also a push to ban all computers in classrooms because data is showing that it's of no benefit and if anything is a negative effect on education.

simonw10• 1 month ago

Kids can read, write, and comprehend text at 8

A sizable portion of the US adult population effectively can't read, write and comprehend text.

https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/2023/national_results.asp for 2023:

Between 2017 and 2023, there were increases in the percentages of adults performing at the lowest proficiency level (Level 1 or below) in both literacy and numeracy: in literacy this percentage increased from 19 to 28 percent and in numeracy from 29 to 34 percent.

The literacy proficiency levels section on https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/measure.asp describes what Level 1 means:

Adults at level 1 are able to locate information on a text page, find a relevant link from a website, and identify relevant text among multiple options when the relevant information is explicitly cued. They can understand the meaning of short texts, as well as the organization of lists or multiple sections within a single page.

28% of US adults are just at or below that level.

beejiu2• 1 month ago

When I was 8, I could use the Internet at school but every website was whitelisted.

zemvpferreira• 1 month ago

From what I can tell the average school at best can aspire to teach kids how to work and how to socialize. That's it. I'd personally be very happy with computers mostly going away from school too. Most actual learning and exploring will hopefully happen at home.

xboxnolifes• 1 month ago

If you think an 8 year old can comprehend text at the same level of a 13 year old (or an 18 year old for that matter), I don't know what to tell you. Reading comprehension doesn't peak at 8.

ilovecake19842• 1 month ago

8 years olds shouldn’t be using the internet.

slashdev• 1 month ago

They can use it at home.

Using it school is likely undermining their learning.

assimpleaspossi• 1 month ago

I didn't have the internet when I was in school. Neither did my kids till they got to college. We've all gone pretty far. For myself, that's in the technology world as a software engineer.

sumeno• 1 month ago

If we want to ban models in school, ban laptops/chromebooks with internet.

Now we're talkin'

I'm all for it, let's teach kids the fundamentals of the world without relying on computers before we introduce them

yard2010• 1 month ago

AI is not the internet, it's a stochastic parrot that lays golden eggs for its shareholders.

Jimmc4142• 1 month ago

Norway spent two decades digitizing classrooms and is now unwinding it. Seems a bit shortsighted and reactionary although I think they are trying to do the right thing.

Plus "Generative AI" isn't one single thing. Using it to write your essay is cognitive offloading but using it as a Socratic tutor that gives immediate feedback and adapts to the student is closer to the thing education research says works.

There's an equity angle as well. A school ban doesn't ban AI at home. It bans the equalizing version. Kids in educated, rich households will get AI exposure from parents. Kids without that won't get it anywhere, because the one place where the field is leveled has opted out. If AI fluency becomes a differentiator in the labor market infrastructure which is very likely a 7 year exposure gap sorted by household class is the opposite of what public education is supposed to be for.

(edit: By AI fluency I mean basically knowing how to drive the tools, an intuition for what the tools can and can't do, when to use AI vs doing it yourself, plus detecting when output is wrong, knowing what to verify, etc.)

conception• 1 month ago

I feel like two decades of data that it doesn’t work seems the opposite of shortsighted and reactionary.

willsmith72• 1 month ago

It's not just Norway. Here in Australia many modern style schools were leaning hard into the digitized classroom era in the 2010s. Now slowly they're realizing their mistake

The problem is, a lot of the parents have bought into the digital parenting age too. They were told ipads etc were part of getting the best education for their kid. Now they're fighting hard on rolling it back (not least because they can't comprehend that it's a problem, that their child can't focus 5 minutes without a device)

EA-3167• 1 month ago

It stinks that investments are going to be unwound, but it would be worse to engage in a sunk-cost mindset and keep it digital. Since the move was made we've had research suggesting that writing by hand is superior at generating lasting recall and learning than typing.[1] There's very early evidence that skills we use AI for begin to atrophy. [2] Erring on the side of nurturing young people's minds while their ability to learn is maximized seems completely rational to me.

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/05/11/1250529... (Article is fine, but more importantly has multiple study links)

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01947-1

jimbokun• 1 month ago

Norway spent two decades digitizing classrooms and is now unwinding it. Seems a bit shortsighted and reactionary although I think they are trying to do the right thing.

Sounds like following the evidence.

Saline95152• 1 month ago

Please define "AI fluency"? From what I see, it's mainly being able to write and read at a high level, and having a strong media litteracy and critical reasoning sense something you don't need AI for.

And having no TV and no smartphone at home and at school is likely the best way to acquire it.

ddp26• 1 month ago

You mean chatgpt style AI won't help them with those skills?

If a human parent or teacher can help with skills like reading, an AI system can too, once it's trained and designed to do so. (How good are humans at teaching reading anyway?)

stackghost4• 1 month ago

How good are humans at teaching reading anyway?

Writing developed thousands of years BCE. So, considering we as a species have been successfully teaching our offspring how to read for hundreds of generations, I'd say we're probably pretty decent at it.

wseqyrku• 1 month ago

They need those skills to be able to communicate with others, not to .. research?

ilovecake19842• 1 month ago

Sounds dystopian.

What kids need to learn to read is an adult to engage with them, listen to how they read and engage them on the contents of the book.

ekjhgkejhgk• 1 month ago

LOL

raincole4• 1 month ago

Yeah, it baffles me that the sentiment here is that AI can only hurt kids' reading ability, when AI (in the form of a chatbot) is practically a tool that forces its users to read a lot.

I still support for some sort of AI restriction for kids, though, since school is a place for kids to socializing. It's a more aspect important than reading and writing.

truncate2• 1 month ago

Totally agree!

For anyone who still thinks kids should use AI, another argument to make is we are still figuring out AI (hence the constant debate on it, hype, uncertainty, boundaries of its capabilities etc etc). I don't think anyone with right mind can disagree with that. Keeping that mind, wouldn't it make sense to at-the-very-least tread with caution when it comes to kids.

iwontberude• 1 month ago

Whether they should or not is a moot point. They are using it and we need to figure out how to organise society to deal with it.

cornholio2• 1 month ago

The counterargument is that kids will live in a world different from our own.

For example, in many countries children lost the ability to write cursive; that used to be a critical skill comparable to literacy itself. But in our current society, that's no longer the case and you can be very successful without it, but there are other skills, such as using technology, that became critical.

Any definitive claim to know what are the right things kids should learn in a moment of rapid technological shift is probably garbage and just a projection of our own biases.

lukan2• 1 month ago

"and has given teachers back more powers to enforce discipline in the classroom.

A big hooray for that."

I don't suppose they are allowed to use physical violence again, still I would like to know what exactly you are cheering here for?

simonw10• 1 month ago

I was cheering for the phones bit. I honestly hadn't noticed the dark undertones of "enforce discipline".

JimsonYang3• 1 month ago

Facing a broad decline in education test scores, the government in 2024 banned smartphones from schools and has given teachers back more powers to enforce discipline in the classroom.

I remember seeing an nyt article where there was mixed results on cell phone bans. While they increased socialization among students, the school didnt see better test scores.

We'll have to see if a ban on AI can improve test scores-I am bullish on the idea tho

Jakob• 1 month ago

I would see that as an absolute win. Socialization is the main point I send my kids to school.

Socialization leads to discourse which leads to learning.

cmrdporcupine4• 1 month ago

Here in Ontario they "banned" phones in class/school and the teens just ignore it and the teachers are unable/scared to enforce it. As parents we've tried over and over with both our kids to lay down the law -- including taking phones away, consequences etc -- but the attitude is intense with both them and their peers and enforcement becomes very difficult once they're out of "child account" parental control range.

It's a shitty time to be a parent of a teen.

belorn• 1 month ago

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20556365241270394

Looking at that meta study, the conclusions seems to be that this kind of studies on children take a lot of time and generally lack any control group, thus conclusions are going to be weak.

theptip10• 1 month ago

Generative AI is not going to help them with those skills.

I think it's more complex than this.

AI is both the best technology ever invented for avoiding learning, and the best technology ever invented for learning.

The cat is out of the bag. If teachers are asking for take-home essay assignments in 2026 then students are going to use AI and learn nothing. "AI detectors" are nowhere near reliable enough to be fair; they have well-known false-positive weaknesses that disproportionately disadvantage ESL students. The status quo is not viable, I just don't see it as being workable to ban AI at home. (If they just mean that kids shouldn't be using ChatGPT during class I can get behind that I suppose.)

On the other hand I believe that if we figure out how to teach AI to be a better tutor, we can get the equivalent of 1:1 personalized education for everyone. The potential is huge. Unfortunately this requires a complete rethink of how the curriculum is structured, and my read is that the public school systems (both teachers and government agencies) mostly don't have the resources or appetite to tackle this.

wffurr• 1 month ago

There is no universe where an LLM helps one learn to read. You need to be able to read first to use one, and worse yet, you need to be able to think critically about the outputs, not just decode and sound out the letters.

alexashka• 1 month ago

Stupid people never have the appetite or ability to 'tackle' anything. It's their defining characteristic.

It's not more complex than stupid people in charge, stupid results follow. Smart people with integrity in charge, good things follow.

AI changes nothing.

20k• 1 month ago

AI is a terrible teacher though. It makes stuff up all the time, and for some subjects it has a remarkably low accuracy rate

BobbyTables2• 1 month ago

Learning is also impacted when homework/test questions are created and graded by AI.

The line of 90 degrees north latitude shouldn’t be visible on a map…

Why have teachers?

The AI might as well grade itself.

runarberg7• 1 month ago

and the best technology ever invented for learning.

This has been tested, many times over, and I have yet to see convincing evidence this is the case. In fact, despite this industry being on the scale of trillions of dollars, I bet you have also not seen convincing evidence of your statement.

Because those trillions of dollars aren’t going into research (well they are, but not into good research) it goes into propaganda, and this is one of the lies the industry tells people. The industry tells this lie so often that many people have started to believe it, just because they herd it so often it must be true.

dosisking• 1 month ago

AI has existed for decades. The average person has just discovered it / had it forced upon them. And just a small-subset of AI. The average person does not use real AI. And AI is not even well-defined.

Education is more about indoctrination, than it is about actual learning. AI will be used as a tool as a way of 'shaping' the mind of young people. Similar to using standardized textbooks. AI is too much of a political tool to be useful.

AI is a tool for propaganda.

lelanthran7• 1 month ago

AI is both the best technology ever invented for avoiding learning, and the best technology ever invented for learning.

Yeah, right. Did you forget a /s

https://chatgpt.com/share/6a363b6d-92ac-83ea-a619-41b2ecd9f5...

This is a popular game, still doing sales almost 18 years after release, with dozens of wiki fansites containing all the information, and with hundreds, if not thousands, of reddit postings... and it falls apart on the first answer!

No. Kids in school should not be using AI, because:

1. They won't be using the latest models, and

2. They can't tell if the info is accurate

ifwinterco5• 1 month ago

The obvious way to square this circle is to go back to how things used to be: less emphasis on coursework and more on old-fashioned tests in an examination environment with just pen and paper.

You can cheat on your homework all you like, but you'll completely fail the exams. On the other hand, students who use LLMs to augment their learning will do fine

habagav2• 1 month ago

It’s not complex. One must first learn HOW TO LEARN before they can use any tool to help them learn.

There’s no substitution for human connection (social media) and there’s no substitution for traditional learning (robot teachers).

Everyone who wants to “disrupt” this fundamental human quality is chasing delusion. If you want to help, pay teachers a couple billion from the hundreds-of-billions going into AI maybe?

cuvert• 1 month ago

I understand the first part, but I don't understand the second one. It's probably my ignorance for not having children and being out of touch with schooling. When I was in school very little grading was based on homework, mostly was grading by testing in class. For example math, I'm absolutely sure it was 100% a few grading tests every semester. You could cheat by copying the homework of your classmates, it was the same set of problems for, but with 0 understanding, you would not pass.

amelius• 1 month ago

It's the same old argument about knives and technology. But we don't give children knives.

blitzar• 1 month ago

I presume kids still learn to add 1 and 1, do their multiplication tables and long division before being given a calculator ?

kakacik4• 1 month ago

This is what schools enforce, second, even more important part is what parents do/allow/pay for at home.

Every single household I've seen benevolent use of phones/tablets/tv/computer/consoles (quite often all of it), kids were unruly, had shitty grades, living empty lives without good role models and very little passions or hobbies, and overall were more depressed than happy.

I do get why - its supremely easier to just throw tech at them and let them drown in endless cheap dopamine content, triple that for already-addicted parents. The whole principle of active screen itself is so overpowering and addictive compared to good old physical toys, drawing, paint, reading etc.

As a parent of young kids, its much harder to come up, continuously, with good motivating program out there, or even indoors, ie climbing. But - I didn't get kids to have easiest possible life, coursing through our short lives deep in comfort zone is a failure IMHO, thats not life well lived, that's life avoided. I am not kind to such parents - its the biggest achievement, or failure, in one's life, biggest challenges bring biggest rewards. Rather few people put in corresponding effort continuously, compared to careers, relaxing and other aspects of adult lives.

And then folks wonder why so many old people are sour, seeing in more life-successful others all the stuff one could/should have done if not so lazy is deeply depressing, usually amounts to biggest life regrets.

fouc• 1 month ago

take-home essay assignments

Typically there's not a whole lot of homework prior to Grade 7 anyways.

Homework levels between elementary school and start of junior might look something like this:

    Division I / early elementary - no formal assignments should be made, though 5–10 minutes of systematic study or reading was recommended.

    Division II / upper elementary - formal homework could be assigned at the teacher’s discretion, but generally should be reading or study-type work and not exceed about 20 minutes.

    Starting from junior high - students are expected to study one-half to one hour per school night.

hyperpallium2• 1 month ago

Bloom's 2 sigma problem solved at last! But that's overestimating LLMs, our zeitgeist.

AI can't detect AI, not because AI undetectable, but because it lacks judgment. Its shtick is random generation; the proverbial monkey on a typewriter.

testfrequency5• 1 month ago

Why is this the most upvoted comment, yet when the UK repents teens form social media it’s met with “aDulTs arE bEiNg monItoRed”.

I agree with Norway here, and it’s slightly exhausting to see people attack any country that’s trying to protect kids as somehow coming for everyone’s supposed sovereignty.

I care about the youth and know they are in the midst of a culture war with adults, leave them out of it until we figure out a path forward.

edit: (crazy to see +11 on my comment, and also -1 when refreshing. Clearly my comment is divisive. This is honestly validating that adults simply cannot find common ground in this topic - especially HN)

mattnewton4• 1 month ago

Because banning smartphones in schools doesn’t affect adults not in those schools, whereas age verification does?

How you implement these protections matter.

tacomagick23• 1 month ago

Is Norway forcing all internet users to provide their ID to access all internet services?

dev1ycan• 1 month ago

13? there is no reason a minor should use a brain rotting technology like AI, in fact, AI for pretty much most teens is way WAY more damaging than even tiktok ever was.

tacomagick23• 1 month ago

Care to elaborate with an example?

NDlurker2• 1 month ago

I don't understand what the controversy is in the US about banning phones in schools. I graduated highschool in the mid 2000s and cell phones were just starting to gain adoption in my town in the last couple years I was in school. I don't recall anyone using a phone in class, but Game Boys were definitely not allowed. I was surprised when I found out that kids were regularly on their phones in class. Why was that ever allowed? Did it get too hard to enforce and they gave up on it until recently?

doctorpangloss3• 1 month ago

a large florida school district banned cell phones in schools, and after two years, the total benefit that was measured to be likely caused by this was +0.9 percentiles on their standardized achievement test.

in comparison, if you study ONE HOUR for the SAT, you gain approximately 0.9 percentiles on the test.

how do dozens if not low hundreds of hours of time you are not spending on your phone at school translate to only the same benefit as doing ONE hour of studying? well, if there is no mechanism, then yeah, that's what happens.

so why was it ever allowed? either tests are severely limited in what they measure, or the impact of cell phones on education is actually quite small. it cannot be both.

simonw10• 1 month ago

I've heard a big problem is the parents - they want to be able to communicate with their kids while they are in school, so many parents oppose phone bans.

shusaku• 1 month ago

Connect the dots also banned, though there is some discussion of loosening the rules to allow interpolating up to four points.

breppp• 1 month ago

Facing a broad decline in education test scores, the government in 2024 banned smartphones from schools and has given teachers back more powers to enforce discipline in the classroom.

Isn't that expected in most countries in Europe? There's an aging overall population that is shrinking and immigration is rising. So you get a progressively rising percentage of immigrants among school students, many of those coming from 3rd world countries with non-functioning education systems.

guyomes2• 1 month ago

They can play with AI at home

Actually, in Europe, Gemini is officially not available for kids even at home [1]. In some countries like Germany, the restriction applies until 16 [2]. I find unsettling that even for supervised account, parents are forbidden to let their kids learn how to use Gemini, even between 14 and 16 yo.

Note that this restriction does not seem to appear from other AI company. So from outside, it looks like unsolicited interference from Google in the parental education choices.

[1] https://support.google.com/families/answer/16109150?hl=en#av...

[2] https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1350409?sjid=7871...

master-lincoln6• 1 month ago

lol

unsolicited interference from Google in the parental education choices.

They are a company offering a product and they decided not to offer it to kids. It's not like they are telling you as a parent what you need to do. Why don't you get a similar product from a different company for your kids?

suyavuz• 1 month ago

I think this is basically right. You don’t hand out calculators before kids understand arithmetic. LLM version is sneakier because skipping the work still produces something that looks finished.

aykutseker• 1 month ago

A calculator gives you an answer. An LLM gives you an answer that sounds like it already checked itself.

cryo328• 1 month ago

Not quite. The LLM gives you a statistically probable sounding token stream. The calculator gives you a qualified answer within documented and deterministic limits of the device.

No one knows how to use either.

arendtio• 1 month ago

Actually, calculators were banned in my school until 10th grade or so. I understood the reasoning at the time and still think it was a good thing.

But I think the AI topic is a double-edged sword. Those tools can help tremendously when used in the right setting (e.g., similar to how brilliant.org works) and can easily spoil the whole learning effort when used wrongly.

I am not convinced that a ban is the solution, but probably better than doing nothing.

bebe839396• 1 month ago

Great, yet another "no child and no teacher left behind!"

I was gifted kid, bored to death at basic school. I was reading books under the table, and was lucky to have tolerant teacher. Total ban would just push me to misbehaving and disrupting the class.

AI is amazing tool for learning, if Norway can not harness it, there is something deeply wrong with the educational system. Perhaps teachers unions?

Norway has a big problem with young immigrant kids at school not speaking Norwegian. Right now other kids are expected to teach them basic language, holding back their own development (like learning reading and writing)! Again, AI could provide amazing help here!

bborud5• 1 month ago

So I take it you have some expertise in teaching? At what level? K-12? Middle school?

What, in your professional opinion as an educator, should schools do about AI in schools?

bebe839396• 1 month ago

I would allow schooling in other languages in primary schools in Norway. Basic education is a human right, and it is not right to force kids out of their mother tongue. Insisting on some obscure language is just misplaced nationalism!

AI could help with that.

platevoltage• 1 month ago

Calculators are amazing at multiplication tables. Let's just give those to the kids too. It's the same thing. This type of thinking is ruining kids' futures.

throw93934i2• 1 month ago

Some kids can understand and memorize multiplication tables in a day. Are they just suppose to sit idle, for rest of semester not to disrupt "normal kids"?

Should we ban programming as well? You know, kid could program multiplication and cheat this way! I can not believe I am reading opinions like this on "hacker" news!

graphememes• 1 month ago

just ban everyone from using ai completely lets go back to how it used to be

nunez3• 1 month ago

can't come fast enough

this tech is unsustainable by design

pesus2• 1 month ago

What a dream. If we could also somehow get rid of social media at the same time (or at least algorithmic recommendations and other predatory practices), the world would be a significantly better place.

nunez3• 1 month ago

Spend a few minutes on the teacher subreddits: /r/teachers and /r/professors, specifically. AI has been a disaster for student outcomes and educator performance, more or less across the board. It should be banned in education, but there's no way to enforce that without increasing educator workload substantially (eliminating homework and re-working lesson plans around that; moving tests and projects back into the classroom; etc.)

ori_b3• 1 month ago

Banning it in classrooms isn't going to fix things, not when adults are broadcasting to students that (in the actual words of Sam Altman) "intelligence will be too cheap to meter", that (in the words of Darius Amodei) half of white collar jobs will be gone by the time these students graduate school, and so on. If intelligence is too cheap to meter, mental labor is a losing proposition. We've also spent decades emphasizing STEM and de-emphasizing arts and culture. In a world like that, why would anyone value an education?

So, it's no surprise they're going to opt out of a system that's investing trillions to make education useless.

Even if the people building this world are wrong -- not all students are equipped to call some of the wealthiest people in the world complete bullshitters. Not all adults are ready to call them out as bullshitters, for that matter.

kristianp2• 1 month ago

"intelligence will be too cheap to meter" has been shown to be wrong. They've started metering it.

What makes you think school students are being told that? I've heard that they are told everyone will be using AI to help them write.

insane_dreamer4• 1 month ago

it'll start to raise the question of not only is college not worth it, but why should we even have compulsory education through high school? (just think of all the money we could save aka spend on the military instead)

raincole4• 1 month ago

If intelligence is too cheap to meter, selling your mental labor is a losing proposition. In a world like that, why would anyone value an education?

The ban is for elementary school. I don't know about you, but when I was 11, what motivated me to go to school definitely wasn't the idea that I could monetize my intelligence later on.

hoofedear• 1 month ago

I’d argue education (especially those early years) is less about making them good white collar workers and moreso making them well rounded people. Education has value beyond monetary gains

Hendrikto• 1 month ago

I would not build my philosophy on the marketing talk of a well-known impulsive liar. Sam, by his own admission, does not even know that much about LLMs, but he is so good at sales that somehow people take what he says for gospel anyway.

dools• 1 month ago

Computers generally are stupid for schools. There should be a computer room and computer classes, but all other learning should happen offline. Computers are far too distracting.

tacomagick23• 1 month ago

Half of my classmates in university failed Compsci, they could not use a computer but they somehow could install Instagram, do basic video edits there and doomscroll. It is NOT conputers! Phones should be the main target.

0xpgm• 1 month ago

without increasing educator workload substantially

Isn't this a good thing, employing more educators, building more schools?

Any sane society will always invest more into its future well being and incentivize investments into education.

jasongill• 1 month ago

Not sure what country you live in, but I don't think that the US falls under your definition of a "sane society"

tgv• 1 month ago

That used to be the case, but it no longer is. Not only are budgets limited, only a few choose for a career in education, leaving schools already understaffed. Expansion is not feasible in the short run.

etherealG• 1 month ago

I think like every field this revolution reveals the cracks, good teachers use AI to enhance teaching material and experience for students while weak teachers complaint they can't keep up with student's access to Ai that out-paces them.

AI forces us all in every field to be better at what we do, and coupled with the previous innovation of the internet only reveals the drastic variance in quality of skills. Teaching is no different.

Good teachers use AI. Bad teachers complain AI is ruining their job, but I posit it's only revealing they were never able to excel beyond their students in the first place.

A savant exceeds their teacher fast. Even faster with AI.

sohrob• 1 month ago

I'm pretty certain the execs who run the large AI companies would limit their children's AI usage also.

petercooper• 1 month ago

Nothing mentioned about the use of AI by elementary school teachers who may well be using it to generate sub-par worksheets or to rapidly, and potentially inaccurately, mark work.

Every special event flyer I get from my kids' school now seems to be AI generated. I'd be surprised if quizzes and worksheets don't head the same way.

greekrich92• 1 month ago

This is Norway, not the US. They have standards and a functioning social contract.

abujazar2• 1 month ago

The problem is they were two decades late digitizing the classroom. Now we're dealing with the aftermath with the educational system still not being capable of keeping up with societal progress.

froh2• 1 month ago

that's dismissing that brains need time to evolve. what if brains need to be mature enough in and by themselves before they benefit from digital support? as in "no telly before 3-4, no smartphone before 14, prioritize pen and paper proficiency until 12-14" makes sense biological brain maturity?

then "give'm a computer ASAP" is the wrong answer.

abujazar2• 1 month ago

I don't think giving children tech adults don't fully understand is a goal by itself. But children shouldn't be limited by their parents' shortcomings either. Strict age limits may seem like a safe approach, but children and their capacity to bypass those rules should not be underestimated.

delis-thumbs-7e3• 1 month ago

Two decades late? So they should have brought computers to primary school in the 70’s? Teach them how to connect into a mainframe from a terminal?

enaaem• 1 month ago

Buddhism identifies three stages of wisdom:

1. Wisdom through dogma. 2. Wisdom through reasoning. 3. Wisdom through experience.

AI is just stage 1. Instant and easily digestible. Traditional learning forces you to go to Stage 2, because you are often given too much information and you need to compress it to memorise it. And the best way to compress it, is by finding some kind of logical structure in the information.

aurelius_44• 1 month ago

Good connection, never thought of it that way.

I learned it as: 1 Knowing what it is. 2 Knowing how it works. 3 Knowing what it can become.

bobro2• 1 month ago

I feel like in the context of AI in education, "wisdom through dogma" still doesn't capture it. It's not even wisdom nor dogma, but something in the form of wisdom developed through something in the form of dogma. "Wisdom" implies you actually believe it and embody it, but students don't believe it or embody it as much as just pass it along to finish the assignment. "Dogma" implies there's a coherent logic of accepted doctrine, but the output is more a stretched and morphed version of the most generalized doctrine imaginable.

skydhash3• 1 month ago

In my country, education is the basic minimum for any social status. Dropping before the high school diploma is basically saying that you're going to be mediocre for your whole life. Anyone will try to get the basic down otherwise that means being ridiculed for your whole life basically.

spoaceman7777• 1 month ago

Am I imagining things, or are all of the "vaguely pro-AI" comments being brigaded into oblivion?

I can't remember ever seeing this many reasonable posts being downvoted to the point of greying out.

erelong4• 1 month ago

HN is an extremely biased hivemind like Reddit

The anti-AI stance seems like a fashionable contrarianism, not sure what will end up changing it

What's really interesting to me is seeing people who are pro-technology but anti-AI, like... if you're anti-tech, you become something like the Amish. If you're pro-tech, AI is the logical next development along that path of technology - whatever tech you preciously enjoyed, was part of the package deal of building this AI that we now see.

So I guess I am curious to see if more anti-AI people become something like the Amish or if they come to terms with their championing of technology being equivalent to embracing AI.

insane_dreamer4• 1 month ago

It's absolutely the right move. We're already seeing declines in cognitive capabilities among adults using AI. We're going to wind up with future generations of ignorants if we let them start as kids.

We are seriously in danger of "we need AI" becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as humanity becomes too stupid to do anything without AI, and we end up with a few companies essentially holding the keys to our collective ability to produce anything of value. Am I the only one freaked out about that?

jessinra98• 1 month ago

Education right now has basically become a giant AI echo chamber, and it's happening nationwide. It’s this bizarre setup where teachers use AI to make assignments, students use AI to do them, teachers use AI to grade them, and principals use AI to watch over the teachers.

dyauspitr• 1 month ago

I love how data driven and fast acting these European countries are. It takes forever for anything to happen in the US even with 80% support.

WalterBright12• 1 month ago

I'd ban all technology in the classroom.

What works is chalkboard and chalk, pencil and paper.

You'll never get strong by watching a video of people lifting weights. Similarly, you'll never understand math by watching a video or having an AI do the work for you. And, somehow, writing out the words and equations by hand is very effective for learning.

https://www.holdenluntz.com/artists/keystone-press-agency/al...

tacomagick23• 1 month ago

I do not think your example is at all fair. You can definitely learn from the way AI solves a math question.

WalterBright12• 1 month ago

You can definitely learn from the way AI solves a math question.

Challenge: learn some math from AI. Sleep on it. Duplicate it on paper the next day.

techpression• 1 month ago

Not really, you might understand it in the moment, but to learn something you need to do actual work. An example is, watch a thousand hours on photography, how to take great photos. Go out and try to take great photos, you will fail. This is why all serious tutors keep saying ”stop watching and go out and take photos, every day, all the time”. I don’t know Rust, but I can understand AI outputting some Rust code if I ask it to. Two days later I won’t be able to write it again.

Gigachad• 1 month ago

You might pick up tips the same way watching a workout video could give you tips. But it means nothing until you physically put it in to practice.

WalterBright12• 1 month ago

Here's how to tell if their homework is done by AI: if the homework was much better quality than the in-class work.

maplethorpe• 1 month ago

Not always. I once got accused of cheating at University because my take-home assignment was so much better than my in class work. At home there was no pressure to perform. I could practice and try things.

bawolff2• 1 month ago

If your in class work is of the same quality as homework you are obviously not trying very hard.

KPGv23• 1 month ago

I'd ban all technology in the classroom. What works is chalkboard and chalk, pencil and paper.

You've prohibited technology and then listed four technologies. "Technology" needs a more concrete definition. Calculators? Computers? TVs? Overhead projectors? Musical instruments?

ajsnigrutin• 1 month ago

This is nitpicking

And sure, kids 6-13 don't need calculators, basic stuff, like multiplication tables is memorized.

lazyasciiart2• 1 month ago

They appear to be equating technology with products that did not exist when they were in elementary school.

UltraSane• 1 month ago

I actually think students should learn how to use a computer algebra system as early as possible so that it becomes second nature. Being and expert user of a CAS makes math vastly more interesting and less tedious.

padolsey• 1 month ago

Chalkboard, pencil and paper are also technology. Ban them. Instead rely purely on the vocal chords to tell stories of old.

hackable_sand• 1 month ago

Found the absurdum

Aeolun• 1 month ago

This feels so obvious I’m surprised it needed to be news.

fvckaigotohell• 1 month ago

Fuck yeah go to hell AI. Kids shouldn't be touching that IP infringement slop producer with a 10 foot pole.

casey2• 1 month ago

"The most important thing in school is that our children learn to read, write and do mathematics," Stoere

Language is not a tool for thought. It's a tool for communication. This has been known for decades. People routinely lose all language related faculties and remain competent in other skills. Their only value is in creating an artifact that a teacher can then look over and update their mental model of the students knowledge. This is no longer the case since students can now easily create those artifact without having a mental model. You are entirely swapping the test for the goal when you say language is the most important thing we much teach them. You are optimizing for a large noise to signal ratio.

The EU's general obsession with deprecated tech is mindboggling. Teach you're kids these skills and you won't have to worry about getting sent to a nursing home, I guess.

dartharva• 1 month ago

You can straight-up bypass AI mania in schooling altogether by just keeping pen-and-paper as the primary medium, as most Asian countries do. Digitization is a meaningless overcomplication.

tarkin2• 1 month ago

The number of people--adults included--who, when don't know something they could easily think about, resort to some AI bot rather than thinking, and developing their mind and intelligence, is staggering. Giving kids a reason not to think and develop their intelligence seems a pathway to even further declines in intelligence. Seems a quick route to dementia in old age too: if you fail to exercise and maintain something it eventually stops working.

delis-thumbs-7e3• 1 month ago

If you have fast sugars and nice fat available at you any time of day and night, why to eat healthy? If you can spend your whole life getting easy dopamine hots from games and social media, why to exercise, study, work or do anything at all.

And we have a little bot that does your thinking for you, so that we will become a society of dumb fat morons who just fill online spaces with whayever hate speech our future fascist dictators tell the AI to be the correct opinion.

This is worse than 1984.

himata41132• 1 month ago

The fundemental problem is motivation not AI and this is simply the result of a larger societal shift that happened to correlate with the advent of AI.

Personally I've never done any homework or assignments, when I was outside school it was over. However, this motivated me to do really well in tests which in-turn made me extremely active during the limited time I had in school and I became pretty damn efficient at absorbing information and picking things up. So on the surface at minimum it appears that we should stop grading on activities outside school.

To be honest, what worked the best for me was what my history teacher did, 5 minute tests at the start of the lesson, then 10-20 minutes of teaching + self study assignments, remaining time is grading + answering any questions and if grading goes fast they usually had time to continue teaching for a few more minutes before the lesson ended. Group study was also heavily utilized as a form to take the load off themselves when they were overwhelmed from work due to 12th grade students especially right before exams, most of our classes became group study. All the students from their class always performed exceptionally well in nationals even though it was a mid tier public school. I will recognize that I am a bit special and that students are extremely varied I picked up on this when I discovered that someone in 11th grade still couldn't grasp the pythagorean theorem.

I don't really have a solution to the motivation problem when phones are just so addicting and have an atmosphere of their own, the best way I can put it is that your child becomes an outcast if they can't play roblox because everyone in their school does which is a very real thing my friend experienced with their kids.

kakacik4• 1 month ago

I will recognize that I am a bit special

Should have started with that. No, your experience doesn't easily translate into some general good advice, you are probably way-above-average bright. I for example went through old school education with tons of home work and benefited greatly from having enough time to comprehend harder topics more deeply, without rush. Memorizing is another aspect, my mind is slow in that so I took my time, trying to remember everything at class' pace would not bring results.

Having some homework ain't something horrible, it became daily habit as part of education and I certainly don't see it negatively in hindsight. It also teaches things like a bit of self-discipline, a trait thats very rare in young these days, and probably the most important personality trait in overall long term life success. It doesn't come on its own, but can be taught/self-taught quite a bit over time. Again, in hindsight, those similarly mentally equipped but lacking it, after few decades, performed in life worse to much worse (I don't mean just money but overall life situation and happiness/fulfillment)

himata41132• 1 month ago

I highly doubt that I am special in a way where I have a "smarter" brain. I believe that I simply adapted to learning fast. I was a slow learner and by grades were awful until around 7th grade where I've started to catch up and perform really well in school.

But what you said about homework IS motivation, self-discipline IS motivation. I had zero issues digging into whatever I can find to improve at programming and grasp concepts far beyond what I would be learning at my age. I started programming at the age of 12 which I believe also manifested in the ability to do much better in school.

galkk3• 1 month ago

Completely understandable.

My 6yo kiddo recently realized that smart speaker (Google home) can not only play her favorite songs, but answer her homework questions. And it was something not that trivial, like “which animal from the list changes color of its fur when seasons change: tiger, arctic fox, something else”.

And now I need to either disable everything or figure out how to turn that off for her.

lelanthran7• 1 month ago

And now I need to either disable everything or figure out how to turn that off for her.

Why?

I tell me 6yo "That's for adults only, children are not allowed to use it" and not have to worry.

Sure, he'll push boundaries here and there, but with some things he knows "No means no" and doesn't push those boundaries.

I have literally tested this: left a cookie on the table (that he wants) and told him "You can eat that cookie after you finish the thing you are reading" and left the room.

Teaching kids to not succumb to their instant-gratification instincts is part of being a parent.

justanotherjoe• 1 month ago

You tested it, i doubt you authored it. A paternal twin can have one with good impulse control and another who's more instinctual. Even in the same family and upbringing.

galkk3• 1 month ago

It’s okay to pat yourself on the back sometimes, but you have 0 idea about me/my kid, if she’s neurotypical or neurodivergent.

So I suggest to keep unasked parental advices or expectations how other kids should behave to yourself.

toasty228• 1 month ago

Teach them right and yeet the surveillance device altogether

AgentMasterRace• 1 month ago

What about teachers using it to generate learning material that is just fabricated?

FlippieFinance• 1 month ago

The only AI elementary school kids should be confronted with is any AI their Nintendo Switch uses. Let the kids be kids, man

delis-thumbs-7e3• 1 month ago

There’s very few sensible posts in this thread. This is one of them.

yoz-y• 1 month ago

Imo in elementary school they should not be using computers outside of a dedicated class.

utopiah2• 1 month ago

Computer literacy.

utopiah2• 1 month ago

I just had a discussion with 10 to 12 years old kids today. They are not using AI to learn, they are using it to cheat. It's not a moral judgement, it's what they, themselves, told me today in front of their peers. Initially they claimed it was an aid to get homework done, then their own peers asked few questions to clarify and they themselves came to the conclusion (after quite some pushback and mental gymnastic) that it was indeed to cheat.

So... ask kids themselves, see what they do and what they say, it's fascinating.

tlogan• 1 month ago

It is wrong to think kids should not use AI. They actually need to use AI the most.

Childhood is the age when you constantly ask “why” until you get to the bottom of the problem. It is the age of enormous curiosity. But schools, teachers, and parents do not have enough time or knowledge to answer every single “why.”

AI is here to stay, and I believe the future of AI is education.

But that also means we need to change how we test students. We should bring back more oral exams and in-person writing exams. But to learn things please use AI.

Nathanba• 1 month ago

It's just "rock and roll and video games are bad" popular nonsense. AI is the best learning tool you could possibly ask for, it's literally your own personal ultra knowledgeable teacher that has all day to answer questions from you. I remember being in school and the most I could hope for was to raise my hand and ask one (1) question sometimes. The teacher would then already be miffed if I asked another follow up and made sure to quickly keep talking so that I wouldn't ask anything else alongside all kinds of other social cues or just outright tell me to look at it at home. I remember falling behind in understanding some basic math concepts and literally never ending up understanding them fully. When you are a child nobody cares in the slightest, you are alone. How could AI possibly make this situation any worse? Life is already at the near maximum pain for children, you barely get to ask a question before you get shut down and you get to reread the same exact useless textbook explanation 30 times in a row. AI is a 100% net gain, it's like having 50 extra teachers on standby. Is having teachers suddenly a bad thing? Of course not. Especially not if the only reason you dislike the teachers is because you can't tell the child to use the teachers intelligently for maximum, fastest gain in understanding.

In the future we should be getting rid of nearly the entire teaching position and instead be going with a model where human teachers are more like guidance counselors that can offer some extra experience and anecdotes from how things will be in real life, something that AI will inherently have less ability to do. All these restrictions are just made by adults who literally don't care to think about how life is for children and have long forgotten. They just want to give orders from the top without having to think about it. Is there a danger that children will abuse it? Of course, it's a massive danger. Without AI there is also a massive danger that children will never learn something properly because nobody has time to teach them. Does anyone care about that danger? Does anyone care that a child will waste years of its life in schooling that is boring? No because that damage is invisible to people who do not care, the children will become intellectually stunted and stop caring about learning or doing productive things. Life is full of dangers, the goal should be to use all the tools we have in their optimal way and if that includes teaching children how to use AI, when to use it and the value of understanding things then the time for that is as soon as possible. I have a feeling that all these complaints about AI come from people who themselves never learned the value of independent thinking and stopped thinking at some point. They went through schooling but with rote memorization and repetition and little to no curiosity or drive to do anything other than the exact homework that the teacher gave them.

This is especially ridiculous: "In upper secondary education, from ages 17 to 19, students should learn to use AI appropriately so that they are prepared for further education and work, it added.". So when you are already an adult and went through over a decade of schooling you can finally use AI? When you are 14 there are children these days that are already making videogames, there is no reason whatsoever to hold children back. Stop treating children like their time is worthless. This is their life time, you don't get to take it away from them however you like as if they are dumb pets that just need to be taught how to behave.

akomtu• 1 month ago

Good for Norway. AI turns your brain into slop real quick, especially in the formative years.

Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

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