AI Can Teach Facts. You Teach What Matters.
- Behavior Breakthroughs
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
There’s this moment that sticks with me. A seventh grader, quiet most days, lingered after class. Everyone else was gone. He pulled out a crumpled slip of paper from his hoodie pocket, handed it to me, and just said, “Can you sign this?” It was a progress report. Every subject had a low grade, all blank comments—except mine. I’d written, “He’s been showing up more, and I notice that. Let’s keep going.”
He didn’t say much. Just nodded, shoved it back in his pocket, and walked out. But I knew what that small pause meant. That comment wasn’t just about his work. It was a signal—someone sees me.
AI can grade a quiz. It can explain photosynthesis with a smooth voice and perfect animations. It can summarize a novel, create flashcards, and spit out writing prompts. But it will never replace that moment. It won’t catch a kid’s body language when they’ve given up. It won’t pick up on the look in their eyes when they’re about to lose it but are trying not to. It won’t stay after school to help a student who hasn’t spoken a full sentence in weeks, or offer a clean shirt to the kid who hasn’t had one all week.
That’s not something you outsource. That’s something you live.
Schools are experimenting with AI more every day—lesson generators, grading tools, tutoring bots. There’s excitement and pressure. The promises are big: less workload, more efficiency, faster results. But buried in all that is the quiet question every teacher I know is asking: Where do I fit into this?
Here’s the thing: if you measure your worth by content delivery, AI will always be faster. It doesn’t get tired. It doesn’t make typos. It doesn’t get frustrated when the Wi-Fi cuts out or when a student throws a pencil across the room during a math warm-up.
But that’s not why kids show up for you. They don’t remember the perfect slides. They remember how you said their name like it mattered. They remember when you didn’t give up on them after the third office referral. They remember when you laughed with them, sat next to them, told them, “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”
Human connection is what makes school more than information. It’s what makes it matter.
There’s a fourth grader I used to work with who had big emotions and a shorter fuse. Every time something went wrong—too much noise, someone touched his stuff, he couldn’t find his pencil—he’d flip a desk. Not metaphorically. We’re talking desks flying. Most people saw him as a problem. I saw a kid whose nervous system was on fire all day, every day. So I started sitting with him during the morning. No talking about behavior. Just sitting. Drawing sometimes. Sometimes silence.
Three weeks in, he started drawing pictures of his family. Then he handed me one and said, “This is me with you. Because you don’t yell.” That picture sat in my desk drawer until I left that school. AI can’t do that. It can’t read the moment and stay silent on purpose. It can’t earn trust without asking for it.
Connection isn’t a bonus. It’s the job.
If you’re reading this wondering if what you do still matters—because your school just started using chatbots or your curriculum was replaced with some automated platform—let me say this: your students aren’t looking for perfection. They’re looking for someone who cares if they show up.
No matter how good the tech gets, it can’t greet kids at the door with warmth that makes them exhale. It can’t spot when something’s off and gently ask, “You good?” It won’t remember their birthday, their favorite snack, or the name of their dog. That stuff builds belonging. That’s what makes kids try when they don’t feel like it. That’s what turns a classroom into a place where they feel safe enough to fail and brave enough to try again.
So sure, let AI help you plan. Let it take something off your plate. But don’t ever think it’s the thing that makes you valuable. You’re not just a content delivery system.
You are the calm in chaos. The soft landing. The reason a kid keeps walking through the doors.
That’s not just a job.
That’s irreplaceable.
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