As generative AI creates new complications, questions, and opportunities across society, education practices will also have to evolve. In a recent interview, Rebecca Winthrop, Director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, argues that today’s classrooms are not yet designed for the world students will graduate into.
However, she posits a clear and urgent case for a way forward: Schools must shift away from traditional compliance and content delivery models and instead focus more on building durable human skills like purpose, agency, and adaptability in young people.
As technological capabilities threaten to completely change the way skills are taught and assessed, there will also be a shift in how we must explicitly teach young people to navigate the world. “The skills that I think are going to be most important are how motivated and engaged kids are to be able to learn new things,” she says, “They’re going to be wayfinders.”
Why Student Engagement Matters More Than Ever
Today’s students are growing up in an ever-evolving world—one in which artificial intelligence can instantly write essays, solve math problems, and summarize books. But while AI can automate tasks, it cannot replace a student’s drive to grow, learn, and contribute.
Drawing on years of research, Winthrop and co-author of The Disengaged Teen, Jenny Anderson identified four common modes of student engagement in school:
- Passenger Mode: Students comply but are disengaged, often coasting through without motivation.
- Achiever Mode: Students focus on perfect outcomes but may lack deep curiosity or joy in learning.
- Resistor Mode: Students actively avoid or disrupt schoolwork due to frustration or disconnection.
- Explorer Mode: Students are intrinsically motivated, proactive, and deeply invested in learning.
Most schools, Winthrop notes, reward Achievers and overlook Explorers. Moving more students into Explorer mode is essential: “Things are going to shift and change, and [students are] going to be able to navigate and constantly learn new things—and be excited to learn new things—because when kids are motivated, that’s actually a huge predictor of how they do.” Research supports this approach: engaged students are more likely to achieve academically, express greater self-efficacy, and feel more hopeful about their futures.
Reframing What and Why We Teach
With easily accessible AI tools now able to complete many traditional school assignments, Winthrop challenges educators to revisit the core goals of education: “AI can write essays and pass the bar exam… so what are we preparing kids for?”
Her answer: Students need the human skills to navigate their rapidly evolving world. These include:
- Self-direction: The ability to set goals and manage one’s own learning
- Reflection: Making meaning from experiences and thinking critically
- Collaboration: Working well with others across lines of difference
- Adaptability: Responding to new challenges with curiosity and creativity
This speaks to a greater redefinition of success as it relates to preparing students for life after K-12 education. Rather than viewing education as a machine for helping students chase careers that bestow prestige or affluence, the uncertainty of the future requires that we support them to develop purpose and the tools to navigate uncertainty to live with self-determination and the ability to achieve success on their own terms.
The Role of AI in Learning: Threat or Opportunity?
Winthrop addresses both the potential disruptive benefits and drawbacks of generative AI. While students will be able to use it to enrich their thinking, they can just as easily use it to bypass effort almost entirely. She shares examples of students who “break the essay prompt into three parts, run it through three different generative AI models, then run it through three anti-plagiarism checkers” before turning it in. Others use AI “humanizers” to intentionally insert typos so their work appears more authentic.
These concerning examples notwithstanding, Winthrop still argues that banning AI is not the solution. Instead, schools must:
- Shift instruction toward higher-order thinking and original problem-solving
- Help students develop AI literacy, understanding what the tools can and cannot do
- Design assignments that make cheating with AI less meaningful and less motivating
“Kids will find a way no matter what,” Winthrop says. “We cannot outmaneuver them with technology.”
Personalized Learning—with Safeguards
Winthrop also acknowledges AI’s potential to personalize learning. In her discussion of student engagement, she says, “We do not reward engaging in school in a way that supports Explorers in general.” This leads her to make an optimistic case for AI to be used to support academic exploration by enhancing educators’ ability to differentiate learning. By intentionally leaning on AI tools, educators can more easily and effectively support students to learn in the capacities that excite and motivate them, boosting intrinsic motivation through more personalized learning.
AI also offers opportunities for individualizing learning for the benefit of students with learning differences and those in under-resourced environments. New technologies make it more possible for students to operate in different modalities and access information when traditional education is limited.
But she warns against letting commercial technology dictate the terms. AI can support educators in doing what they do, she argues, but it must be designed with children’s developmental needs in mind. We cannot fall into a FOMO (fear of missing out) trap, allowing tech companies to pressure us into dictating how we use AI in classrooms. Companies must maximize profits, which does not necessarily correspond to students’ best interests.
Building Human Capacity in a Tech-Saturated World
While AI is changing the landscape of work and learning, it also raises the value of what only humans can do. According to Winthrop, schools must double down on helping students develop:
- Deep attention and focus: The ability to think and work without distraction
- Meaning-making: Reflection, synthesis, and ethical reasoning
- Social and emotional skills: Cooperation, empathy, and communication
As technology grows more pervasive—and education must necessarily keep pace—Winthrop still argues for keeping schools light on screentime. While teaching responsible and creative tech use, we must make school a place where kids can actually interact with each other and “develop human-to-human socialization capacities because there is massive commercial tech the minute they leave school that is vying for their attention and coming for them.”
She also stresses the importance of oracy—the speaking and listening skills often neglected in favor of reading and writing. These communication abilities will be vital in a future where increased technological capabilities will shift the average worker’s central function away from completing discrete tasks and toward imagining, planning, and communicating about work being completed.
What Education Leaders Should Prioritize
For district and school leaders, Winthrop’s message is clear: Rethink learning environments to prepare students for a world shaped by both uncertainty and opportunity. Going forward, priorities will include:
- Measuring engagement, not just achievement
- Supporting educators to use AI, rather than banning student access without a plan
- Designing instruction that builds purpose, agency, and adaptability
- Creating space for reflection, communication, and social connection
- Teaching AI literacy, not just AI use
To learn more about Wayfinder’s approach to teaching AI literacy, check out What’s New 2025-2026 or schedule a demo.
