From The Boston Globe : “Boston AI-powered school promises students will ‘crush’ academics in two hours a day — no teachers required.” Mrs. Current Occupant is for it. Former professional-wrestling executive Linda McMahon is for it too. And it’s only $55,000 a year.
[An Alpha School room. Aside from the stepstool, little shoes, and the (one?) pencil, it looks disturbingly like the common area in a prison.]
Thanks, Ben and Rachel!
Saturday, May 2, 2026
AI school
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comments: 8
“Alpha” hints at the truth, but they should call it “Apex” so that there is no doubt about predation.
Well said.
so glad i went to school when we didn't have computers and ai wasn't the next big thing. i think this concept is going to explode when parents and workplaces realize that their children/employees haven't learned anything and quite frankly able to think or reason. i know that schools/parents/students have complained about memorization but i'm not sure how much you learn just be a receptacle for knowledge. yes, you have to pass the problems but that is assuming that EVERYONE is a test taker. i've known persons who really didn't study and could still pass exams because they knew how to take a test. doesn't mean they learned anything,
kirsten
ps i never had a set of encyclopedias in our house either nor a television!!
There was a recent story in the news about a judge rebuking lawyers who had submitted whatever document it was with erroneous citations, &c., all the work of AI. As these instances multiply, I think the backlash will become greater and greater.
"it looks disturbingly like the common area in a prison", well, it does say "Learn Life Skills" on the wall :-)
!!
This unseemly rush to learn through AI reminds me of some parents rush to install computers at every single desk in every single class room starting in grade one back when computers were expensive and their were no iPads.
The question that went unasked was: is using a computer like riding a horse where the earlier you start the better, so that years later you had a "good seat," or was it like a learning a car where a limited number of hours would suffice?
If the latter, then computers could start at grade 12 and then be installed in progressively earlier grades, based on feedback from the community and employers, without parents panicking that their children were missing out.
I'm not saying that AI is precisely comparable to compturs, I'm just saying not to panic. And speaking of feedback, an employer at a commercial real estate company that did buildings, never houses, told me that none of his employees could write a letter.
I think that the AI classroom will go the way of (so-called) distance learning, MOOCs, and “guided instruction” (students doing worksheets on computer screens). At least I hope so.
One of the worst moves my English department ever made (no discussion, no vote) was to have freshman comp classes alternate between a classroom and a computer lab. (There was the option to opt out, at least for tenure-track faculty.) Imagine trying to do much of anything with twenty-five students sitting behind huge CRT monitors as twenty-five fans whirred. If students did need to learn word processing (which at least some did), a one-credit course might have sufficed.
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