What are schools for?

The Third Parent

Camping and cooperating at Khao Yai National Park, Thailand, 2019

During teacher training, I was shocked to discover that the question, “What are schools for?” was up for debate. I thought it was obvious, and if I’m honest, it wasn’t something I wrestled with. But the argument essentially centers around whether schools exist to cultivate critical thinkers or to produce compliant citizens.

But now we have AI banging on the door. In other words, we’re at a point in history where answering this question becomes important to how we want to shape society and our children’s minds.

When I taught 1st and 2nd grade at a young Waldorf school in Portland, Oregon, one of my parents said, “Teachers are like a third parent.” So, how do we feel about AI (and social media) becoming the third parent? Because right now, when students think no one’s looking, that’s exactly who’s doing the chiseling and sculpting.

My chiseling and sculpting happened on the playground, between my desk partners, and in my relationships with my teachers.

Let’s take the sixth grade for instance. I remember getting yelled at for my poor penmanship in front of the classroom, becoming a sobbing mess, and deciding to check out permanently from Mrs. E’s English class.

I remember befriending the first black girl at our school because, at first, no one would talk to her. Later, she made other friends, and we never hung out again.

I remember winning a drawing contest for the school’s May Day program. I was teased when I went up to receive the contest form. No one thought I’d win because I wasn’t considered an artist.

May Day at Mililani Waena Elementary School, circa 1985

And I remember receiving high marks for a standardized statewide test on essay writing. Then, I immediately asked to see my classmates’ in order to compare.

What is it they say? We don’t remember what they did, but how they made you feel.

What these moments carry is something I’ve come to discover throughout the years. The point of schools is to learn how to behave and be around other people. Yes, academic learning matters, but the universe of personalities do, too. If living with family is like running a marathon, schools are where we clock in resistance training.

When I first started teaching English abroad, in 2010, I’d walk into the classroom of students talking to one other, lively, loud. Visiting each other, in groups, pairs, on the floor. Now, they’re seated and barely look up from their phones.

Now, LLMs are changing the landscape of education. Writing, presentations, projects, homework, all of it is being fed into data centers.

So it’s time to rethink what’s the point of school. What do we want that third parent to be in our children’s lives? For as much as AI is amazing, what I continually return to is that AI doesn’t live in reality.

But we do.

Making Santas with my 3rd grade class, Lampang, Thailand, 2022

Schools provide a shared reality at a time when our lives are becoming increasingly individualized. It’s one of the few places where children regularly encounter people they didn't choose.

During teacher training, I thought the debate over the purpose of school was purely academic. If AI can explain grammar better than I can and answer any factual question in seconds, then the value of school must lie somewhere else. Perhaps it has all along. Perhaps classrooms matter because they’re one of the few places left where we don’t just learn about the world ~ we learn how to live in it, together.