The Forbidden Fruit

November 11th, 2024

Tara Voigt

There’s a palpable tension around AI in education. 

It’s polarizing—with perspectives shifting from classroom to classroom, teacher to teacher.

AI has become a bad word. 

We ban it from our schools, even as it becomes part of our everyday lives.

It’s the forbidden fruit of education.

Schools scramble to keep it out— 

playing whack-a-mole as AI shows up in the very tools students are expected to use. 

Each instance is treated like a violation to shut down, rather than an opportunity to prepare students for the world ahead.

But some of us see something different. 

We see potential. 

We use AI to explore, design, create. Quietly.

Carefully. 

Like we’re part of an underground movement.

We share resources in whispers. 

We celebrate the breakthroughs in private. 

Meanwhile, students are publicly shamed and punished for using the same tools.

And from leadership? 

Mostly silence— as if ignoring AI might make it go away.

But it won’t.

AI is already here—

reshaping everything from how we work to how we think. 

The question isn’t if it moves forward.

It already has.

The real question is: 

Will we move forward with it— 

or will we stand still while our students get left behind?

Public education has always been about closing gaps. 

With AI, the stakes are even higher.

If school is the only place some students can access this technology, 

what happens when we block it?

How do we teach the language of AI if we never let them speak it?

AI isn’t waiting for us to catch up. 

It’s moving.

The question is— will we help our students move with it?