What Teachers Have to Say – Détails, épisodes et analyse

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A student turned in a short story this spring that neither of us has stopped thinking about. A man installs an AI system in his home. It does everything for him. Slowly there is nothing left to want, and no one left to talk to. He wrote it as a warning. He is 17.

This started as a workflow episode. Nathan built a college-level writing assignment around Isabelle Hau's "Welcome to the Era of Relational Intelligence" and the full nine-hour Stanford AI+Education Summit, using NotebookLM as the engine and Claude to clean the transcript. We walk through the entire build, step by step, so you can run it in your own room.

Then it became a much larger argument about AI literacy and what school is actually for. We get into cognitive offloading, cognitive outsourcing, and cognitive surrender. We get into active procrastination as a teaching strategy, and why the most creative students are the ones who let an assignment sit. And we get into the dopamine reward system underneath every large language model, the same circuit that drives a honeybee to forage. That is where the bees come in.

One student summed up the whole problem in a single line. AI has a job to do. It cannot not do one. That is the difference between a tool and a relationship, and it may be the most important thing teachers need to understand right now.

Timestamps

00:00 Cold open: the ADHD bee waggle hole

01:35 Why this is a workflow episode, and why Claude is good at cleaning transcript data

02:59 The dataset: the entire Stanford AI+Education Summit, all nine hours

07:34 Bringing the Stanford experience into a high school classroom

09:22 Isabelle Hau and "Welcome to the Era of Relational Intelligence"

12:30 AI and mental health, sycophancy, and what the technology exposes

16:09 The full writing prompt: depict the future, use evidence, propose a turning point

17:27 The build: assembling the notebook and cleaning the transcript with Claude

23:09 A student essay, read in full: the man, the box, and the absence of absence

31:23 The student's breakdown, and Hau on why relational intelligence is indispensable

34:09 The factory model and the danger of siloing the individual

35:00 Sapiens, storytelling, and what set modern humans apart

43:00 Three tiers: cognitive offloading, cognitive outsourcing, and cognitive surrender

44:41 The clearest student line of the year: "AI has a job to do"

46:30 AI literacy as the real work, and the EduProtocols AI Literacy edition

48:33 One screen per table: a setup that beats one-to-one

49:46 Active procrastination as a deliberate teaching strategy

51:16 Adam Grant on why moderate procrastinators are the most creative

52:27 "Where is the work happening?" Nathan does his own assignment, timestamped

59:27 The assignment walked through, step by step

01:00:19 The custom NotebookLM prompt, read aloud

01:11:15 What students built, and the pivot point most of them landed on

01:19:39 The ADHD bees, Huberman Lab, and Dr. Read Montague

01:21:30 The dopamine reward system as the algorithm under every LLM

01:28:31 The first AI-native job, and the gap between the haves and have-nots

01:34:28 Language shapes culture, and AI is shaping language

01:35:21 Adam Aleksic and Algospeak

01:39:12 The Gmail auto-reply story, and engineering a population's language

01:43:44 The inner voice, and what happens when an outside source writes it

01:46:24 Closing on hope, and why this generation gets the last word

Ideas Worth Keeping

Relational intelligence is the counterweight to cognitive surrender. Hau's argument is not a rejection of AI. It is a claim that human connection is the infrastructure everything else depends on, and that infrastructure is now under pressure precisely because AI responds with so little friction. Relational intelligence is under threat and newly indispensable at the same time.

Offloading, outsourcing, surrender. These terms are not codified, so we use them as a working spectrum. Offloading is adaptive and ordinary: a daily briefing pulled from your calendar and email. Outsourcing is genuine collaboration with the machine, and almost nobody has figured out how to do it well yet. Surrender is what the student in this episode dramatized, where a person outsources the need for other people, not just the task in front of them.

Active procrastination is incubation, not avoidance. Open the assignment, do enough to understand what it asks, then let it sit. The thinking continues while you do other things. The best student writing in this unit came from the students who let it cook. Most strong ideas are not the first one you have.

The dopamine reward system is the algorithm. This is the connective tissue of the whole episode. The same circuit that drives a honeybee to forage, and drives some bees to wander off the bee line entirely, is the architecture underneath every large language model. The reward lives in the search more than the finish. Understanding that explains both why AI is compelling and why it cannot replicate a human relationship.

AI has a job to do, and it cannot not do it. Every input is a job. That is its only setting. Human-to-human exchange does not work this way. A person can reject what you say, sit with it, change the subject, or remember something unrelated. An LLM in its current form cannot.

Language shapes thought, and AI now shapes language. If the inner voice is partly engineered by an outside source, identity is implicated. The Gmail auto-reply story is a low-stakes version of a very high-stakes problem.

Recreate the Assignment

The custom prompt loaded into the back end of the notebook, roughly:

"Pretend you have the knowledge and writing style of Isabelle Hau, the organizer and facilitator of this AI and education summit held each year at Stanford. I have added her most recent article, "Relational Intelligence," for content knowledge. Ask respondents questions that push them to question relationality and explore the meaning of this topic as it relates to their futures. Respondents are 16 to 18 years old, attempting college-level work in a freshman composition course. This is paired with a writing assignment that asks students to speculate about our future with artificial intelligence."

Resources

A few of the book links below are Amazon affiliate links. We only link things we actually talk about on the show. If you buy through them, we get a small cut and you pay nothing extra. So, thanks!

Isabelle Hau — "Welcome to the Era of Relational Intelligence"
 Stanford Social Innovation Review, Spring 2026
 [LINK]

Stanford AI+Education Summit 2026 — All Sessions
 Full conference on YouTube, February 11, 2026
 [LINK]

Ge Wang — Stanford HAI
 Associate Professor of Music, Associate Director at Stanford HAI
 [LINK]

McKinsey DELTAs Report — "Defining the Skills Citizens Will Need in the Future World of Work" (2021)
 The source for "breaking orthodoxies" as a named, measurable skill
 [LINK]

EduProtocols AI Literacy Edition
 By Kate Meyer, Nicole Davis, Jon Corippo, and Marlena Hebern
 [LINK]

EduProtocols Mindset Episode — WTHTS
 [LINK]

Procrastination Episode — WTHTS
 [LINK]

Adam Grant — Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World
 The research behind active procrastination and moderate procrastinators as the most creative group
 [LINK]

Huberman Lab — "How Dopamine & Serotonin Shape Decisions, Motivation & Learning" with Dr. Read Montague
 The episode that connected dopamine reward systems, AI architecture, and bee foraging behavior
 [LINK]

Adam Aleksic — Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language
 On how algorithms shape language, and language shapes thought
 [LINK]

Dungeon Crawler Carl — Matt Dinniman
 Highly inappropriate. Highly recommended.
 [LINK]

Join Jake's Email List (He's sending out the NotebookLM Resource document shortly)
 [LINK] 

Keep In Touch

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The federal government recently launched an AI literacy program delivered entirely by text message. Jake has completed the first five days, and also looked into a network of teachers, HR professionals, and writers and to ask what they thought. The results were predictable in one direction and surprising in another. This episode is less about the program and more about what it exposes: who gets to define AI literacy, what it's for, and what the cost of doing nothing actually looks like.

What You'll Hear

• Why Jake's reaction to a federally branded program shifted once he actually went through it — and what changed his mind
• The DOL's AI Literacy Framework broken down: five foundations, seven principles, and why the pedagogical thinking behind it is more serious than the branding suggests
• Nathan's argument that 28% of students being able to describe how an LLM works is a real problem — and why understanding the engine matters even if you never plan to drive
• The "professional chef critiquing a how-to-boil-an-egg pamphlet" problem, and who the pamphlet is actually for
• Jake's prediction that the 2026-27 school year is when schools start approaching AI literacy systemically — and what that should and shouldn't mean
• Why excluding AI from your classroom is becoming harder to defend as a pedagogical choice rather than a protective one
• The adult literacy statistic that reframes what's actually at stake when we talk about the AI access gap

Resources Mentioned

• Make America AI Ready — Federal SMS-based AI literacy program from the U.S. Department of Labor. Text READY to 20202 to enroll. [beta.dol.gov/ai-ready]
• U.S. Department of Labor AI Literacy Framework — Five foundational content areas and seven implementation principles for workforce AI readiness. [https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/advisories/ten-07-25]
• Slow AI (Sam Ellingsworth) — Substack publication examining AI adoption at a more measured pace. Recommended reading for the "email problem" analogy. [https://theslowai.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile_chips]
• Quick, Draw! — Google experiment using a neural network to guess your drawings. Referenced as a Day 1 challenge in the Make America AI Ready program. [quickdraw.withgoogle.com/]
• What Uses More? — Tool for comparing energy and carbon footprint of AI tasks vs. everyday activities. [what-uses-more.com]
• Stanford HAI — Stanford's Human-Centered AI institute. Referenced for statistics on AI usage by age and the research on AI in classroom settings. [hai.stanford.edu]
• NCES Adult Literacy Data — National Center for Education Statistics. Nathan cites current figures: 28% low literacy, 29% basic proficiency, 43% proficient — among adults ages 16-65. [nces.ed.gov]

Connect & Continue

Jake writes about AI in education weekly on Substack. Subscribe at whatteachershavetosay.substack.com

Stay curious, stay hopeful, keep learning.

Got a question? We'd love to answer it! Leave us a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/whatteachershavetosay

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Jake & Nathan explore two ways to motivate students toward better learning habits by valuing their learning process, not just the products of their learning, and connecting their skills to real world applications. Your teacher besties return to ideas from two previous episodes on procrastination and the EduProtocols mindset, and dig deeper into Adam Grant’s work in his book Hidden Potential, to find solutions to the age old problem of procrastination.

Grades are often highly subjective, a mode of behavior modification, and are inherently extrinsic motivation, when we want to build intrinsic motivation for learning. While most of us can’t functionally throw out the point system, having moments of “deliberate play” can help foster a love for learning and help your students engage in “harmonious passion” to sidestep the emotional response that is procrastination.

Having said that, not all procrastination is created equal! Active procrastination is an important part of the learning process. A growth mindset, by definition, values the process of growth. We need to remember to build time to allow for that growth to happen with scaffolding, and permission for students to push their limits, without punishing failure.

Enjoy this discussion on procrastination styles, growth mindset, valuing the learning process, and remember these two modes of motivation when you're lesson planning: deliberate play and harmonious passion. This conversation breaks down the process of skill building in this context, with some history of education reform and educational philosophy thrown in because we're nerds.

Join the Conversation!

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Got a question? We'd love to answer it! Leave us a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/whatteachershavetosay

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In this episode Jake explores Wicked Hydra, a dynamic EduProtocol from The EduProtocols Field Guide: ELA Edition, that transforms classroom inquiry by putting questions first.

In conversation with Courtney, a passionate middle school social studies teacher from Texas, we learn how Wicked Hydra shifts the responsibility for inquiry from teacher to student. Rather than delivering a single, predetermined answer, this protocol creates a question-only mind map where every query opens up new rabbit trails of inspiration and exploration.

Courtney explains how Wicked Hydra encourages students to move from surface-level questions to deeper, more insightful inquiries. Even when the first attempts are rough, practice transforms these initial queries into rich discussions that empower learners to build their own “question bank” and reclaim the wonder of curiosity.

This approach not only nurtures independent thought but also aligns with educational philosophies from leaders like John Hattie, emphasizing visible learning and the critical role of student voice.

• Wicked Hydra empowers students to generate and refine their own questions.
• It transforms simple observations into deep, layered inquiry.
• The protocol challenges the habit of accepting one fixed answer.
• It nurtures a rich, active questioning culture across all grade levels.
• It encourages learners to explore multiple rabbit trails of thought.
• This strategy aligns with educational theories that value student voice and visible learning.
• 
  

"Wicked Hydra: The Protocol That Puts Questions First"
"Reclaiming curiosity, one question at a time."
"Transforming surface queries into deep inquiry."

Resources:
Check out The EduProtocols Field Guide: ELA Edition for more innovative strategies like Wicked Hydra.

Get Involved:
Have you tried using Wicked Hydra or a similar inquiry tool in your classroom? How do you foster a culture of deep questioning among your students? Share your story or ask your questions by leaving us a voice message on SpeakPipe. Your insights might be featured in a future episode!

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a five‑star review—it helps us reach more educators and keeps the conversation going.

Keep questioning, keep exploring, and keep teaching!

Got a question? We'd love to answer it! Leave us a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/whatteachershavetosay

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Jake and Matt Miller from Ditch That Textbook dive into the power of AI’s imperfections as a teaching tool. They explore how the quirks and mistakes in AI-generated content, like extra fingers or misshapen images, can sharpen students’ critical thinking, media literacy, and observation skills. Instead of fearing AI’s flaws, teachers can turn them into opportunities for deeper learning and classroom engagement.

Matt shares how he uses AI-generated images in his Spanish classroom to help students develop AI literacy and train their ability to "check the weirdness." Jake builds on this idea, discussing how engaging with AI critically can strengthen students' ability to discern fact from fiction. This episode is all about flipping the script: AI isn’t a threat to critical thinking: it’s a tool to refine it.

• AI-generated errors can be powerful tools for teaching observation skills.
• Encouraging students to "check the weirdness" fosters critical thinking.
• AI literacy is essential in today's classrooms.
• Engaging with AI helps students become more skeptical and analytical.
• Classroom discussions on AI weirdness can lead to broader conversations about media literacy.
• Discerning fact from fiction is a critical skill in the digital age.
• Educators should embrace AI as a learning tool, not fear its impact.

• "Check the weirdness!"
• "AI is highly fallible."
• "Training our BS detector."
• "AI’s mistakes are teaching gold."

• Matt Miller’s Website
• AI for Educators by Matt Miller
• Leave us a voice message on SpeakPipe
• Follow What Teachers Have to Say on your favorite podcast platform

Have you tried using AI-generated weirdness in your classroom? How are you helping students think critically about AI? Share your story! Leave us a message on SpeakPipe or connect with us on social media. Your insights might be featured in a future episode!

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it helps us reach more educators and keep the conversation going.

Got a question? We'd love to answer it! Leave us a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/whatteachershavetosay

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Can you be excellent at your job without letting it consume your life? The education system thrives on unpaid teacher labor, but at what cost?

In this episode, we discuss cruel optimism—the idea that if teachers just work harder, they can fix systemic issues. Spoiler: They can’t. More hours don’t equal better teaching, and burnout isn’t a badge of honor.

Hans Tullman kicks off the discussion with a hard truth: the system depends on teachers working for free. Jake unpacks how setting boundaries, leveraging AI, and using EduProtocols can help teachers reclaim their time—without sacrificing excellence.

Key Takeaways:
🔹 Cruel Optimism—Pushing through systemic problems won’t fix them, it just keeps them going.
🔹 More Hours ≠ Better Teaching—A well-rested teacher is more impactful than a burnt-out one.
🔹 Unpaid Labor—Other professions wouldn’t tolerate it. Why should teachers?
🔹 Set Boundaries—Excellence doesn’t require self-sacrifice. Protect your time.
🔹 AI & EduProtocols—Work smarter, not harder. Reduce workload & focus on what really matters.
🔹 School Leaders—Admins must redefine what “excellence” looks like and actually protect teacher time.

Join the Conversation!
Got thoughts? Rants? Questions? Leave us a voicemail!
📞 SpeakPipe:

https://www.speakpipe.com/whatteachershavetosay

Resources Mentioned:
🎤 Hans Tullman – hanstullman.com
📚 Cruel Optimism by Lauren Berlant
⚡ EduProtocols & AI Tools – Reduce your workload & increase efficiency

🔥 Final Thought: You can be an excellent teacher and have a life—in fact, you’ll be a better teacher because of it.

👉 Share this episode with a teacher who needs to hear it!
🔗 Follow us on social media & keep the conversation going!

Got a question? We'd love to answer it! Leave us a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/whatteachershavetosay

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We’re back! Our real-talk educator dynamic duo, Jake & Nathan are back in action: complete with career and life updates and a return to form discussing real life uses of AI tools to beat burnout and have more fun in your classroom tomorrow! 

Visit https://www.mrcarrontheweb.com/ and sign up with your email for Jake’s newsletter to receive a PDF guide on when students should and should not use AI in the classroom.

Resources discussed in the episode:

Jake’s ELA Edition Edu-Protocols Book

Adam Grant’s Re-Thinking Podcast with Sam Altman on the future of AI and humanity

Artificial Intelligence tools mentioned in the episode that you should familiarize yourself with:

ChatGPT — for the left brain!

Claude.ai — for the right brain!

Google Notebook LM — create AI podcasts on demand of learning materials? What?!

Brisk — ultimate instant feedback hack

SchoolAI — use “Spaces” to easily create content-focused chat bots with full back channel, student overview, and NO student account needed

MagicSchool — SO MUCH stuff on here!

Learning Genie — new soon-to-be EduProtocol-embedded lesson plan partner

Reach out to us on What Teachers Have to Say SpeakPipe to get in on the conversation with what YOU have to say, teachers!

Got a question? We'd love to answer it! Leave us a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/whatteachershavetosay

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Are we really preparing students for their future? Educators are tasked to teach state standards, but are we also teaching the skills that students really need to be successful in the “real world”? State standards and standardized tests often test rote memorization more than real world application. The struggle is real and how will they get a job when they can’t turn in homework on time?!?! is a common refrain in the staff room, but what are the real life skills we need to be teaching?

Global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company recently put forth a report on the “56 foundational skills for the future of work” they refer to as: future-citizen skills. While meant for the business world to guide global leaders and captains of industry, Jake & Nathan explore how these skills are reflected in an educational environment. Does what we teach translate into real world outcomes in the lives of our students?

Stay to the end for tips on how you can start teaching these skills in your future-focused classroom! Using EduProtocols as a framework, our hosts consider the popular EduProtocols: Wicked Hydra (One of Jake’s own! From his upcoming book!), Iron Chef, and Sketch & Tell and align the classic pedagogical approaches embedded in these lesson frames to McKinsey & Company's 56 real-world, business-approved, future-citizen skills. You can build self-confidence and real-world-skills in students. Join us as we pull back the curtain on the “foundational skills” that are crucial to our students’ future success.

Resources Mentioned in the episode:

McKinsey & Company: Defining the skills citizens will need in the future world of work

EduProtocols

EduProtocols: ELA Edition by Jacob Carr COMING SOON! Sign up here for updates!

EduProtocols: Social Studies Edition by Dr. Scott Petri & Adam Moler

Find Adam Moler’s work at Moler's Musings

Got a question? We'd love to answer it! Leave us a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/whatteachershavetosay

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Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! Move into the weekend with an incredible, inspiring, hope-filled conversation about the immense cultural value teachers have as problem solvers and keepers of democratic ideals. Don't wait for acts of Congress, act with your conscience.

Dr. Fred Mednick is a teacher changemaker, global educator, thought leader, and founder of Teachers Without Borders. Awarded the Champion of African Education Award, the Luxembourg Peace Prize, and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Prize for Peace. Professor Emeritus from Johns Hopkins and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Jake & Nathan have an incredible conversation about the idea of the classroom—your classroom—as a laboratory of democracy. This educator calls Dr. Jane Goodall a close friend and mentor, and his new book In the Small Places: Stories of Teacher Changemakers and the Power of Human Agency describes the stories of local heroes who are working on some of the world's most challenging issues: education in emergencies, peace and human rights education, and the education of girls.

With a title borrowed from the following quote, this book portrays teachers as the human center of social change—"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world." - Eleanor Roosevelt

Resources mentioned in the episode:

⁠In the Small Places: Stories of Teacher Changemakers and the Power of Human Agency⁠ Amazon Link⁠

In the Small Places: Stories of Teacher Changemakers and the Power of Human Agency Website

Teachers Without Borders

Got a question? We'd love to answer it! Leave us a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/whatteachershavetosay

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Pat Yongpradit is a nationally recognized computer science education advocate and thought leader working at the policy level to make sure ALL students have the opportunity to learn computer science. You can't talk CS in education without talking CODE.org! Pat has been at CODE since the beginning and is currently the Chief Academic Officer.

Before CODE, Pat was a high school computer science teacher. At CODE, he made it his mission to reshape the way that computer science is taught. He has been instrumental in developing the computer science curriculum that is used by tens of millions of students worldwide. He has dedicated his career to making computer science education accessible to all students, regardless of their background.

We discuss the current state of K-12 computer science education, why it's so important for all students to have the opportunity to learn CS, and what parents, teachers and policymakers can do to continue expanding access as AI tools fundamentally change the way we educate.

While we talk some valid concerns and potential pitfalls, our focus is on the future. Together we can create edtech-infused classrooms where students are empowered to use AI tools with teachers to enhance their learning. We need to work as a "vanguard" team of innovative educators and lead the way. Stay to end to hear about Pat's secret mission!

... and come say "Hi!" to Jake & Nathan, Pat from CODE.org, and Bill Nye the Science Guy (!!!) at the ASU+GSV AIR Show in San Diego, CA — April 13th-15th. It's a FREE event! REGISTER HERE to attend!

Resources mentioned in the episode:

CODE.org

CODE.org's AI Resources

Teach AI — Sign up for their mailing list!

AI for Education — AI implementation resources for teachers and school districts!

EduProtocols Community | Facebook Group

Got a question? We'd love to answer it! Leave us a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/whatteachershavetosay

Want more EduProtocols from Jake? Check out his book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and more.