Timeless Education in an AI World

Tradition.

We don’t even need to say the word out loud to feel its weight. It is heavy for a reason. It carries the memory of a people. It stands on the shoulders of giants. It is the foundation on which we build.

Any conservative vision of higher education must begin here. Education should prepare students for the future while remaining in dialogue with tradition and its values, rituals, stories, and practices. The end of education is not simply the acquisition of information; it is the formation of a people — a people who can flourish. Without this in mind, education becomes a vapid, hollow enterprise, sending students adrift on the currents of popular opinion and the tsunamis of trend.

As artificial intelligence tempts educators to leave so much behind, we must ask what is worth carrying forward, heavy as it may be. The answers don’t rely on vague nostalgia. There are concrete traditions that have proven their weight: the texts that form our common intellectual inheritance, the Socratic seminar where those texts are wrestled with, and the essay where students learn to defend and refine their own thoughts. In other words, what we teach, how we teach, and how we assess student learning. These are the places where the work of formation still takes place — and where it must continue.

What We Teach: The Western Canon

A benefit of the AI-saturated classroom repeatedly being touted on LinkedIn and in podcasts is its potential to personalize course content, engaging students on their own terms while endlessly adapting to their preferences, interests, and pace. New educational models like the Alpha School have built their identity on this promise. Universities may soon follow suit. Proponents paint a picture of education in which students can direct their own learning and pick the content that satisfies their curiosity. They complete these lessons alone, supported by a suite of AI-driven mastery tools that adapt to their pace and performance. Then they have time to develop socio-emotional awareness and “life skills” in cohorts with their peers. But the core of their learning is entirely their own.

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All this might sound attractive. Indeed, taking the needs of specific students into account is not a bad thing per se, as each student is unique. However, this exaltation of the individualized learning path overlooks the importance of participating in shared intellectual experiences, building shared values, and cultivating shared meaning through curriculum. If, as I argued above, education is about the formation of a people and not merely the optimization of individual potential or knowledge acquisition, then learning and wrestling with a program of common texts is indispensable. And these should not just be any texts — they should be the texts that have shaped Western culture and values. 

Through collective engagement with the works of Aristotle, Plato, the Scholastics, and the Enlightenment thinkers, students see the emergence of democracy, the ideological beginnings of human rights, and the perpetual struggle to find, grapple with, and name the truth. When you see the development of these beautiful ideas unfold, you gain a kind of reverence for their foundations. These things were hard-fought and hard-won. Engaging the whole narrative also brings into sharp focus what is at risk when the foundations fail. Even if God really were dead, Nietzsche was right: It wouldn’t be good news.

Moreover, there is no way to critically think about these ideas or what they mean for us today without first engaging with them directly — by reading the Great Books. No one can credibly critique or deconstruct a tradition they have never actually read. To dismiss the Western canon without wrestling with it is like claiming to know the whole plot of a movie from the trailer. Yet this fantasy — that a 20-year-old can deconstruct the West after a semester of sociology, having read none of the Great Books — is one too often indulged in universities today.

How We Teach: The Socratic Seminar

This brings me to the next relic we should hold onto tightly: the Socratic seminar. The seminar is the embodiment of the Western canon. In it, we identify contradictions and approach nuance in dialogue with others who read the very same things. To do this, we must sit in the physical presence of someone who disagrees. We practice our prose so it lands. We learn to ask questions that reveal intentions rather than allege misplaced condemnations. These are formative moments. What do they form? Patience, humility, resilience, and courage. They teach students civility and how to engage with difference. Students place themselves, quite vulnerably, at the mercy of an expert and face probing questions that push them beyond their comfort zone.

It’s worth contrasting this with the experience students have in most online asynchronous courses. They are asked to contribute to a discussion board. They paste in a response that can be generated in ten seconds from a flippant prompt to ChatGPT. They respond to peers who have done the exact same thing, echoing the same canned formulations. They type a trite response into a text box: “I totally agree.” Even if someone musters up the courage to raise a question or critique, he or she can do so from the safety of a keyboard, without ever feeling the weight of disapproving eyes. It is too easy. We have been calling some form of this “education” for far too long. It is not. Civility cannot be learned behind a screenname. If you doubt that, scroll through social media, and you will quickly be reassured.

It’s worth noting the connection between the canon and a Socratic seminar more directly. Real-time discussion and debate with other humans who have feelings and views — the seminar — can’t be accomplished if everyone is going at their own pace, on their own schedule, only reading what immediately interests them. To think critically together requires a shared foundation. That base is, at minimum, reading the same book at the same time and coming together to discuss it under the guidance of an expert. In this sense, the canon and the seminar stand or fall together: The canon provides the common texts, and the seminar provides the common struggle. One without the other collapses — texts without dialogue become inert, dialogue without shared texts becomes shallow.

How We Assess Learning: The Essay

Now, we shouldn’t mistake the dialogue itself as the goal. Yes, it is a means to character formation. It is also a means of finding the best answers. And when one settles on an answer, they should be able to defend it. This is the goal of the essay: It is a testament to having thought well about some subject. To write well, someone has to think well — and rationally. This is what students aim to prove in their essays: that they have clear, defensible, rational thoughts on some subject.

A good essay involves research, analytically organizing premises, weaving in evidence, and carefully selecting words to convey your intentions and represent your position. In this process, students learn how to work through an argument, engage competing perspectives, and defend a thesis. A coherent essay is evidence that these things can be done well — at least, it ought to be. This is why we have long asked students to produce them. This is also why the essay is an indispensable part of a university education. While AI makes it almost impossible for students to complete the traditional essay at home with integrity, this doesn’t mean it can’t be completed at all. In fact, it is entirely possible for students to write essays in class, by hand. And they should. Left to themselves, most students will succumb to the temptation to outsource their work. It is precisely because students are still in formation — not yet virtuous, not yet disciplined — that the essay must be structured to require honesty and effort. With a little scaffolding and careful cadence, the in-class essay can be even more pedagogically valuable than the take-home version.

It is worth mentioning that being able to think well is not simply important for a student’s individual development. It is also essential for healthy public discourse, particularly in a pluralistic society like the United States of America. Dialogue breaks down when no one has thought deeply and analytically about their positions but instead spews them forth like reactionary defense mechanisms. And so students should most certainly practice writing and defending arguments. 

Finally, the benefit of writing to think in this specific way — by hand and in class — is that it preserves a sacred space for students to develop their own thoughts without the mediation of technology. I know, archaic. But remember: These tools are not value-neutral. Their creators have intentions and ideologies that, as C. S. Lewis warns of all educational tools in The Abolition of Man, seep through in the most inconspicuous ways. For example, AI is trained on biased data that reflects the current cultural ethos. These tools have humans with agendas and half-baked ideas refining their models. As a result, freedom of thought depends, in large part, on ensuring students can think without the suggestions and covert manipulations of a chatbot made and trained in Silicon Valley. Organic thought protects freedom of thought. We should make time for it. Doing so will allow more critical engagement with these tools when they do need to be used.

Some might label these suggestions as positively medieval. Perhaps they are. They are traditions — traditions important for the maintenance of beautiful ideas and the cultivation of character, the necessary components of a flourishing society. We should cling to them.

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