AI creates Trust
Generative AI gives us a chance to re establish trust between parents, caregivers, and schools
There, I've said it.
For so long now, the relationship between parents/caregivers, and schools has, in some instances, broken down, or at least in can be said that is has been diminishing or strained. The media likes to feed on this. They like to publish stories that highlight how schools are failing parents/caregivers, how they're not listening to parents/caregivers or not acting, acting quick enough or performing in the ways they should be. It is common to see headlines about schools doing the wrong thing with a particular child or a particular incident, where a school has made mistakes or not ‘done enough’.
As an educator who works in an R-12 school, with a role across the Junior and Senior school, I know there are pressures from helicopter parenting and variants of that but we all know that, surely. Whether it be from parents or in some countries, from inspectors, educators and schools are under scrutiny to behave and perform in certain ways. The concept of league tables adds to these pressures. The way that curriculum issues are scrutinised in the media and the job as a whole is completely different than what it was certainly at the start of my career.
So, what we've got at the moment, in schools, is the idea that there is an atmosphere of mistrust. Yes, this is a generalisation. Mistrust is not prevalent in all schools or by all parents. Yet, it exists. A significant number of parents/caregivers do not fully trust the school that their child attends. It's not that they don't trust schools to look after their child. However, that word, “look after” has certain connotations. In education, it is much wider than simply making sure they are safe, isn’t it?
Everybody, perhaps because of the politicisation of education, seems to think they know what's best in terms of what curriculum should be delivered, how it should be delivered, how schools should be organised, what, where and how schools should run, what they should be doing in certain situations; what is the best for everybody. And I'm not just talking about their own child, I'm talking about every child within the school they are involved with. In many ways, online access, being connected, allows for parents/caregivers to have greater knowledge of school systems and approaches that exist worldwide, to be exposed to the realities that the school that they went to, the school that their child is going to and the schools that particular children are going to in various parts of the world can be and are, actually, quite different. The trouble is parents cannot remove their own bias from this which is understandable, in a way.
Hence, what we have is this situation where there is pressure on schools from parents and caregivers, people who have a certain amount of knowledge, knowledge that is corrupted in some ways, by information that is forced on them by the media, sensationalist headlines, but also by the pressures of parenting and their own experiences as children. This plays out in situations where the idea of freedom, and the idea of taking risk gets challenged in a school environment. As you would expect, school leaders and teachers respond accordingly. They play safe, they are measured about what and how they share with parent/caregivers. They look to protect themselves, cover their backs from negative opportunities that they perceive some parent/caregivers will take.
So, when we look at this atmosphere, this culture that schools are operating under and the idea that as a parent, there is a pressure to do something about situations that occur at school; where that pressure sometimes comes from your own child. Eg - I want you to contact the school about this; I want you to have a word with that teacher; Can you email this teacher about this thing that happened? I have even had a text or a phone call during the day from my own children, asking me to do something about a certain situation with a teacher that they have had an altercation with or another child. By the way, I'd like to think that for the most part, I've made the right decision when those things have happened with my own children and explained to them that I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to follow up, I'm not going to intervene, I'm going to trust the school to deal with situations accordingly. I'm also mindful that I benefit from having a career in schools which means I know that looking at situations as a one off, and intervening like I could do, does not often reflect the realities around a particular issue that has developed in a school. In other words, it's not that I don't trust my own child or believe what they're saying. I just know that there is a bigger picture. There could be a variety of other factors, circumstances around a particular issue. And these can influence why a decision has been made, that my child may not like, that I may not like. I happen to think you have to work hard to resist intervening as a parent and you've got to trust a school. If you sit back and look objectively, you have to feel that, on the whole, the right decisions are being made.
Some of this might sound surprising for people who know me well, for me to be saying that schools make right decisions. Let me just clarify that such a view does not reflect the way I think about education generally, or schooling in general, the system, the approaches, etc, because I think a lot of wrong decisions have been and are continually made. The criticisms I have on education as it exists in many places are targeted at the systematic level, for instance calling for curriculum or pedagogical change. They are the reasons why I think that in some ways, we need an education revolution, in terms of what education means, how it delivers, how it's organised, what it offers. And how I think AI offers the chance for us to do that.
What I am talking about here, is the reality that there is for the most part, a breakdown in trust at that ground level between schools and parents. I see that a lot in Australia where it's quite normal to go ‘school shopping’. Maybe since I've left the UK, it's become the same there. This idea that if you don't like the school, where your child's going to, find somewhere else. And that's accepted almost by both sides. This is not confined to the independent sector. It is in all the sectors in Australia where the notion that your child is going to the school at the end of the road is long gone for many people (although I accept that in a lot of regional places, there may only be limited options, or only one option). Hence, what I'm describing here furthers the argument that there is a culture of mistrust.
My view is that with the emergence of Generative AI, I think there's actually a chance to build a completely different culture that relies on trust, to start to build bridges around a particular ‘hot topic’, a dramatic issue that's in the headlines, that is on a lot of peoples’ lips. Furthermore, this seems to be an unsolvable problem that contains lots of twists and turns and curveballs. The reason I think that generative AI offers us a chance to build trust in a different way between parents, caregivers and school is because nobody has quite figured out how best to ‘deal’ with the issue of GAI. There are difficult issues around implementation, around a school’s response to GAI. Some are trying to work it out, others are hiding and some just do not know what to do or where to start. Where a school:
Takes a positivist stance that they are going to try and work out how best to approach GAI
Decides they are going to explore and investigate
Aims to bring along students in the work that they do
Decides on the reasons why they are taking action.
All of this will create a culture of openness from the outset. Yes, in some ways, this will be inviting criticism from parents, the chance for parents to challenge such a decision. However, such is the reality that the field of AI is a lot of unknowns, it provides a furtile space for schools and parents/caregivers to come together. The fact is that there will be very little expertise amongst parents/caregivers. In fact, any any expertise that exists will not be about AI in education. It could be about AI itself. It could be about education. It's highly unlikely to be any sort of expertise about AI education. I don't think anybody can say they have much of that at this moment in time.
So, by creating that culture of openness, by expressing intent, and by bringing people on board, and opening those lines of communication, involving students, involving parents/caregivers, I believe it creates a culture where we're starting to build bridges, trust. Schools can start to act differently than perhaps they have been doing for a long time. In turn, the whole community around the school can start to think differently about how the school operates. No longer should there be this idea that, “Oh, that's just what they do” and as a parent/caregiver, I'm just going to complain about that. No longer is that strong opinion about what should happen because for the most part nobody is quite sure what should be done, what ought to happen.
Now, at this point, you might say, “ah, yes, but you'll get certain parents who say, ‘Oh, well, in this particular place they banned the use of chatbots’”. You can counter that for the most part, by highlighting how that was true, but it's not anymore. Many of those places that banned GAI use in the first place have now changed. You may get some parents who point to the fact that are some places where they have developed guard rail delivery, a sort of safe space or they are holding off on GAI. I can quite easily see that schools may get a few of those responses. Yet, these won't be established views, the majority or something that can be proven on the whole. At least that's what I've seen in my role and in the work I do with other schools.
With development of this culture of openness, sharing, involvement, that involves schools, parents/caregivers, students, that's something we can sustain, something we can go on a journey with together, something where we can see how people respond, who is interested in being a spokesperson, who is interested in being a champion, who is interested in getting involved in learning. It can spark new thinking, new ways of doing things, who wants to be involved in reform that may come as a result of this. It will reveal those in the school and in parents who wants to be involved in the idea of taking risks and the idea of breaking rules. Because, the reality is that if you are involved proactively with GAI in schools, the idea that you're going to break rules is something that you have to consider on a regular basis. I think that's one of the factors that makes the whole AI area so completely different from previous technology, or most other opportunities that exist to build trust in schools. It is also such a fertile ground, because it's an area that has so few answers, and so many questions, and in a way it is divisive in how it makes people think (and act). Yet, you have to remember that as a school, you have got those underlying reasons as to why you are doing what you are doing and what your intentions are.
With intentions laid out and foundations in place, grow a model of co-development, grow a culture of, as I've talked about, openness, sharing, and beneath all of that will sit - trust. Champion this as a school. We need trust from parents if we're going to do these kinds of things. We need trust that we're going to try and do things right but also trust that when a school take risks and we break rules, we do so with the best intentions. Also, make sure everyone knows that we have got things in place, structures in place, guidelines, policies, etc, to deal with situations where things go wrong, because they will go wrong at times.
Just to summarise. I get kind of weary, reading some of the negativity around Generative AI perceived negative connotations issues that arise and views on what schools shouldn't be doing. Added to that are the pieces that talk about how students shouldn't be involved with these AI tools, age limits, sharing of data, bias, ethics and all associated issues. I understand that some of these matters create headlines and clickbait. I understand that headlines and clickbait sell. However, I've never been one to be concerned with what's happening on the surface. I've always been the sort of person who wants to try and read between the lines, try and actually understand what's going on. I believe that if you take that approach with GAI in your school, take a positive stance or at least an explorative one, if you're open, you take parents/caregivers and students on the journey with you, then a spinoff from all this is growth in trust.
Good luck. Enjoy the ride.
