AI has upended school as we know it. In this episode, Daniel and Tristan talk with Maryanne Wolf and Rebecca Winthrop about how tech has broken the old model of education—and how we might build something better.
AI has upended schooling as we know it. Students now have instant access to tools that can write their essays, summarize entire books, and solve complex math problems. Whether they want to or not, many feel pressured to use these tools just to keep up. Teachers, meanwhile, are left questioning how to evaluate student performance and whether the whole idea of assignments and grading still makes sense. The old model of education suddenly feels broken.
So what comes next?
In this episode, Daniel and Tristan sit down with cognitive neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf and global education expert Rebecca Winthrop—two lifelong educators who have spent decades thinking about how children learn and how technology reshapes the classroom. Together, they explore how AI is shaking the very purpose of school to its core, why the promise of previous classroom tech failed to deliver, and how we might seize this moment to design a more human-centered, curiosity-driven future for learning.
Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_
Guests
Rebecca Winthrop is director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution and chair Brookings Global Task Force on AI and Education. Her new book is The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better, co-written with Jenny Anderson.
Maryanne Wolf is a cognitive neuroscientist and expert on the reading brain. Her books include Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain and Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World.
RECOMMENDED MEDIA
The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better by Rebecca Winthrop and Jenny Anderson
Proust and the Squid, Reader, Come Home, and other books by Maryanne Wolf
The OECD research which found little benefit to desktop computers in the classroom
Further reading on the Singapore study on digital exposure and attention cited by Maryanne
The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han
Further reading on the VR Bio 101 class at Arizona State University cited by Rebecca
Leapfrogging Inequality by Rebecca Winthrop
The Nation’s Report Card from NAEP
Further reading on the Nigeria AI Tutor Study
Further reading on the JAMA paper showing a link between digital exposure and lower language development cited by Maryanne
Further reading on Linda Stone’s thesis of continuous partial attention.
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