Educators urge social‑emotional learning and judgment training as A.I. enters schools

Letters to The New York Times responding to a recent Business article on A.I. in classrooms argue that schools must pair new technologies with stronger teaching of social and emotional skills and human judgment. Matt Levinson of Seattle, an education leader for more than 30 years, wrote that social and emotional learning—helping children understand how to be in a community, communicate across differences and discern human emotions through self‑awareness and social awareness—is among the most critical skills to equip students with in the age of A.I.

He urged schools to move beyond treating A.I. as either a golden opportunity or an existential threat. Carmine Giordano, an adjunct English lecturer in Lake Worth, Fla., said decades of teaching show new technologies shift how students think and that, when A.I. generates language effortlessly, education must emphasize evaluation over production.

He described a classroom method he calls "reading against the machine," in which students interpret texts before consulting A.I. outputs and then critique those readings; where the machine flattens ambiguity or misses irony, students learn the value of human judgment. He warned the real risk is adopting A.I.

without redesigning assignments and expectations.

Key Topics

Tech, Artificial Intelligence, Education, Social Emotional Learning, Human Judgment, Matt Levinson