AI on the Front Lines in Primary and Secondary Education: Lessons from the LA County Schools

Today’s podcast is another in a series of first-person stories about how artificial intelligence is used in daily life.

The adoption of AI differs from other new technologies. In the past, new technologies demanded substantial investment. Organizations carefully identified their needs and potential applications before taking action.

Organizations are still making decisions about the use of expensive enterprise-wide AI applications. But the barrier to entry for many AI services is near zero, and people – and, as you will hear, kids – are taking it upon themselves to incorporate artificial intelligence in their work. Some places encourage experimentation, while others prefer to impose strict controls. But achieving total control is nearly impossible.

Our podcasts invite people on the front lines to share their stories about how AI is being used. The listener will gain insights into the thought processes of those who are making sense of this new world. We believe this will help guide your own efforts.

Today’s guests are from the Los Angeles County School system.

Patrick Gittisriboongul is Superintendent of the Lynwood Unified School District, serving 11,200 students living within a 4-square-mile community in Southeast Los Angeles County. The district operates 17 schools from traditional kindergarten through 12th grade, and provides adult education at the Lynwood Community Adult School. Its mission is to build leaders and unlock brilliance in every scholar it serves. Patrick is a first-generation Asian American whose parents are Thai immigrants. He has been a public educator for more than 24 years. Prior to becoming superintendent, he was Lynwood’s assistant superintendent of technology and innovation.

Casey Cuny is the 2024 California Teacher of the Year with more than two decades of teaching experience. Cuny teaches 10th-grade honors English and Senior mythology and folklore at Valencia High School in Santa Clarita, California. He serves as English Department Chair and the school’s Instructional Coach. He also teaches in the Master’s of Education program at National University, working with teachers from across the country, and was recently awarded the 2025 National University Academic Excellence Delphi Award. He is also currently working with ASU to develop their new California Teacher Credential program.

Transcript

Patrick Gittisriboongul: [00:00:00] As educators, we have to become AI literate. AI, when used well, actually just amplifies great teaching.

Peter Creticos: [00:00:08] Welcome to the many Futures of Work, a production of the Institute for work and the economy. I'm Peter Creticos, president of the Institute. Today's podcast is another in a series of first person stories about artificial intelligence and how it's used in daily life. The adoption of AI differs from other new technologies. In the past, new technologies demanded substantial investment. Organizations carefully identified their needs and potential applications before taking action.

[00:00:41] Institutions are still making decisions about the use of expensive, enterprise wide AI applications, but the barrier to entry for many AI services is near zero and people. And as you'll hear, kids are taking it upon themselves to incorporate artificial intelligence in their work, in what they do. Some places encourage experimentation, while others prefer to impose strict controls. But achieving total control is nearly impossible.

[00:01:07] Our podcasts invite people on the front lines to share their stories about how AI is being used. The listener will gain insights into the thought processes of those who are making sense of this new world, and we believe that this will help guide your own efforts.

[00:01:23] Today's guests are from the Los Angeles County School System. Patrick Gittisriboongul is superintendent of the Lynwood Unified School District, serving 11,200 students living within a four square mile community in southeast Los Angeles County. The district operates 17 schools from traditional kindergarten through 12th grade, and provides adult education at the Lynwood Community Adult School. Its mission is to build leaders and unlock brilliance in every scholar it serves. Patrick is a first-generation Asian American whose parents are Thai immigrants. He has been a public educator for more than 24 years. Prior to becoming a superintendent this school year, he was Linwood's Assistant Superintendent of Technology and Innovation.

[00:02:09] Casey Cuny is the 2024 California Teacher of the year, with more than two decades of teaching experience. He teaches 10th grade, honors English and senior mythology and folklore at Valencia High School in Santa Clarita, California. He serves as the English department chair and the school's instructional coach. He also teaches in the Masters of Education program at National University, and was recently awarded the 2025 National University Academic Excellence Delphi Award. He's also currently working with Arizona State University to develop their new California Teacher Credential program. Welcome to you both.

[00:02:52] Patrick, let me start with you. I had an opportunity to see Linwood's Vision 2030's leading with AI vision statement and that aims to prepare students and educators in AI literacy, fluency and proficiency. It sees AI as empowering creativity, supporting educators and increasing efficiency. But I see this as as really sort of the groundwork. I'd like to hear from you about, essentially, what's the theory of change that Linwood schools are embarking on in terms of incorporating AI into the curriculum and operations?

Patrick Gittisriboongul: [00:03:25] Thanks, Peter. Thanks for having me on the podcast. Appreciate the question. And, Linwood, that Vision 2030 is really kind of this balanced focus across four areas. You mentioned leading with AI. AI literacy, AI proficiency, and AI fluency as well. But the other three areas that we're really focused on is making sure that all of our schools have signature programs. You know, we have a district wide instructional focus on claims, evidence and reasoning. And then the third area is around positive relationships as well. So, you know, leading with AI is the fourth pillar, but it's not standalone. You know, it only makes sense inside the rest of, you know, the vision that we have as part of our theory of change. We build a district where learning is rigorous and relevant. I think you already heard the three R's before. It's rigor, relevance, and relationships. But if all those three areas are strong, and then the teachers and staff are equipped to lead, then AI becomes that tool that amplifies and accelerates what we already believe about public education, about great public education, which is really around student agency, voice choice, you know, critical thinking. I think this blend matters tremendously in the city of Lynnwood as well, in the city of Lynnwood. You know, many of our residents, our families experience not only job insecurity, but housing insecurity. Now they're experiencing a lot of immigration insecurity as well. So for us, you know, when we enroll students, we enroll the family. And we know that, you know, families want safe, modern campuses. They want rigorous academics. They want real world learning experience. They want to expand mental health. They want family supports. And so that excitement around that area is important. But AI, innovation, college and career pathways, part of that theory of change, I would say, you know, AI isn't just the thing that we have, but it's kind of that lever. It undergirds what we do. It's part of that broader strategy that we have as a whole.

Peter Creticos: [00:05:39] Thank you for bringing the conversation about AI into the broader context. As you say, it's part of a it's a tool in the process. Casey, you've spoken extensively about your uses of AI in the classroom and the students' unfettered use. I like you to begin to talk about how you're incorporating AI in your teaching. I also speak extensively on the need for educators to drop their resistance to AI and learn how to use it.

Casey Cuny: [00:06:06] Yeah. Thank you, thank you. Peter. Well, yeah, I think when I go around and give these talks and it's been an incredible opportunity. My two points, really my, my thesis really comes down to two things, which is that as educators, we have to become AI literate and we can't put it off. And maybe, you know, years ago, if someone was getting close to retirement and they said, I don't want to learn Google Classroom, like that was probably okay. But I just don't see that with AI. It's moving so rapidly and so fast that as educators, we need to become literate in it. For a variety of reasons. And then number two, that AI, when used well, actually just amplifies great teaching. And to think of it more as a tool and to think in terms of frameworks, bringing it in in terms of like we're going to do a, maybe a human create AI feedback human finish, or an AI brainstorm human first draft AI feedback and then human finish. There's this new phrase being thrown around, "upskilling" where you can rapidly improve skills in the workplace. But the same thing in education. You know, where we have a teacher who's got an activity they've been doing for several years, and now maybe throw it into ChatGPT or Gemini and say, how do I make this more UDL[universal design for learning]? Or what are some really cool formative assessments I could use based on these four standards? With this unit I've been doing for five years, and suddenly we're rapidly upskilling teachers and improving instruction.

[00:07:33] Now to the student angle, the cheating is off the charts.

Casey Cuny: [00:07:36] It's like nothing I've ever seen. And I think that's why to me, I think that's why you're getting resistance. Because a lot of teachers' first exposure to AI is the cheating. And as a teacher, it's really hard not to take that cheating personally. And whenever I talk to my teacher friends, I'm always reminding them, like, don't take it personally, it wasn't you. It's just, you know, they're teenagers and they're looking for a quickest route sometimes. And so I think that's where you're seeing a lot of this pushback and frustration. So I tell teachers, I hate to tell you this, but if it goes home, it will be AI'd. And there are no reliable AI detectors that you can truly depend on. There are some that could lead to a conversation, maybe, but there are none that are going to mean I'm going to give you a zero now, because this says 60% of it was AI. I mean, we don't know what that really means. And so I think it is going to require some changes, although I would argue these changes have been long in the coming. You know, the 15 page homework packet was never a good idea. And now that kids are cheating on it at home, it's causing a lot of us as educators to rethink that. So I think there's ways that we can flip the classroom with AI. There's ways that we can personalize engagement. So I think there's some really exciting ways forward. But I think the first step is teachers have to become AI literate. I think also administrators, we talk about this a lot in my district, need to start infusing AI when they're asking teachers to do stuff.

Casey Cuny: [00:09:02] Like, for instance, we had a meeting, we had teachers take a standard and and turn that standard into learning outcomes. Right. I-can statements to then start building some things. Well, we didn't ask teachers to do this. We gave them a prompt. We shared a prompt, a ChatGPT prompt, that would take a standard and break it down into learning outcomes. Whenever we ask teachers to do administrative stuff, let's try to model how they can use AI, because I think a lot of this is a behavioral shift.

[00:09:27] One last anecdote I'll tell you is I had a student last semester who had an F in my class in mythology, and I made him come in and sit in my room during lunch to do a assignment so that I could get him up to a passing grade. And while he was doing it on paper, by the way, he looked up at me and he said, low key, "Mr. Cuny, this is the first thing I've written in three years." And that really worries me. We watch what happened when we dropped cell phones on kids, and I'm nervous that the head-in-the-sand approach is going to create a 4 to 6 year gap here, where kids are literally going to do nothing because they're just cheating on everything. And teachers who might say, I don't allow AI, but if they don't know how AI works, they have no idea how the kids are using it in the background.

Patrick Gittisriboongul: [00:10:10] I agree completely. I think one idea that I've shared you know, for the past year is that, you know, we've moved from this term digital natives, you know, I think the generation coming in, you know, knowing what Windows and Mac and computers are. And then the pandemic taught everyone to be cloud-native, where everyone's moving everything into Google Drive or OneDrive, whatever that may be. This day and age is really everyone's now coming to school AI native. And I think that kind of transition is where we're living right now. And that AI native perspective is oftentimes like, you know, my daughter, who is 17, I ask her if she uses ChatGPT. If she uses Gemini, she uses all kinds of tools, so she uses. "It's like. It's not that deep, Dad." That's what she tells me all the time. The question isn't whether they'll use it. It's whether the question is whether they'll use it with discernment and the type of integrity that we want that we know as educators, as superintendents, as principals and whoever it is that we want in, in terms of the outputs that they produce. I also wanted to add about cheating. Yes. Cheating is real. You know, we've been at it for the last, I think, three years now because we started an AI task force, like, right, when, you know, OpenAI and ChatGPT came out in 2022 that November. And so we had a task force in 2023. It's always the first thing that adults, the educators, the teachers worry about first. I try often to kind of reframe that conversation because AI didn't invent cheating.

Patrick Gittisriboongul: [00:11:39] It just exposed how, how maybe some of the assignments, some of the tasks in school in our, you know, content areas, subject areas and the textbooks as well. You know, they were measuring kind of that compliance instead of measuring that type of thinking. So, you know, I think it's important for educators, for administrators to also think about, you know, how to encourage being critical thinkers, synthesizing information, you know, having an understanding for the type of outputs that these AI tools can generate because it can generate it instantly. So those those questions that I learned was, you know, really around curriculum instruction and assessment, you have to look at the curriculum that you're providing. You have to look at how you're instructing kids, and then you also have to look at how you're assessing it. I often ask the question of like, are we assessing the right thing? That's why I really am promoting like a district-wide instructional focus for our organization around claims, evidence and reasoning because I think it can apply in every content area, any grade level. But, you know, you can draft with AI, but then, you know, annotations. You can do oral defenses in class as well. You know, it goes back to kind of the old school of like, hey, defend your like your thesis, defend your statement, defend your point. AI can never replace lived experiences. So those lived experiences that kids have, that adults have, it will never replace those lived experiences. So that lived experience is something that has to get woven into the type of conversations and dialogue that we have in classrooms.

Casey Cuny: [00:13:14] I love your saying Patrick. I completely agree with you on all of that. And in terms of that AI-native, I just wanted to tell you I had this great, crazy experience where I had this old assignment. It's so old. It was called a Web Quest.

Patrick Gittisriboongul: [00:13:25] Oh, I remember those.

Casey Cuny: [00:13:26] Yes. And I was still using it, you know, and I quickly realized it's not going to work anymore because they were done in 35 seconds, and all the questions were paragraph length and and so I decided this nifty idea. The next semester, I was like, I gave them a prompt and said, you guys are going to go talk to ChatGPT or Gemini about the Eleusinian Mysteries, this ancient Greek festival, and you're going to learn everything you want about it. And guess what? We're going to do a quiz in 30 minutes. And they looked at me like I was crazy and I was like, well, but you have you can just go learn about it. And of course, I did not put this in the grade book because 70% of the class failed it, but 30% of the class got 100%, which was mind boggling to me that they never heard about this thing. And in 20 minutes, they knew they understood it well enough to get 100% on a quiz. But then I asked the kids, like, what did you do? What did you do? And the girl who got 100% said, oh, I asked it for flashcards. I asked it to give me metaphors. I asked it to quiz me. And then this boy on the other end of the room said, "you can ask it to do that?"

Casey Cuny: [00:14:22] Love that. And so what I've seen is that there is a major gap. Like we just kind of assume teenagers are techie and they are in a lot of regards, but they're also really just good at scrolling. And this AI is so different. And I and a lot of this is going to take metacognition and inquiry. And I do worry that we don't teach kids those things, right. We always have that same experience where we ask as a teacher, are there any questions? And then it's just silence, right? And but when you engage with AI, you have to you have to be inquisitive and you have to be thinking about your own thinking and thinking about what you're not understanding in order to ask that next question. So I think it's going to I do think we've got to teach kids how to use it well, right. And to use it to learn, not just to cheat. So I do think that it could level the playing field like never before for our most vulnerable students. But I think we have to in a lot of ways teach how to use it. Or it could just exacerbate existing inequities like never before.

Peter Creticos: [00:15:19] I want to dig into a phrase that both of you used, and that's critical thinking. I'd like you both to talk about what that means. What is critical thinking? When we talk about it, it's somewhat performative. If you can show that you can take something through some sort of logical process, that that's critical thinking. But it's deeper than that because it's it's getting into the underlying meaning of whatever it is that you're you're looking at, at least in my opinion. You know, and I'm an old philosophy major and I and I remember, you know, when I was pulling apart an argument by, by Hume and it was like this moment and it was far deeper than, than the simple words. It was getting into the construct of his logic and how he was approaching the his worldview and how he was expressing it and so forth. For me, the practical value of that is that I remember that lesson when I approach other issues or I approach other problems in terms of trying to understand both the, the simple evidence of the problem, but also what are the underlying factors and how do you dig into that and understand that?

Patrick Gittisriboongul: [00:16:24] So I think it goes back to to what Casey was mentioning earlier, like he was talking about, you know, teaching kids metacognition kind of getting that quote unquote out of body experience. But at the same time, I do think that, like when I did my dissertation on critical thinking, I was looking at it from like the type of skills that we want to build, what I, how I define it, I think it really is around like this idea of, you know, questioning the sources, making sure you have evidence, reasoning, discernment. Right. I think discernment is part of critical thinking as well. And so like how we help build that and foster that, questioning the content, questioning the outputs, questioning how you're doing it, providing the type of evidence what kind of reasoning is it proficiency. Like synthesizing the information? I argue with AI every day. "No, I don't like this output. No, I don't like the tone of this. No, the language here is wrong for me. It doesn't solicit the type of of like, empathy that I want." So it's a combination of really being, I guess, healthy skeptics of, of the content that is being presented. But Casey put it on like Metacognition to me is one of the biggest areas around critical thinking.

Casey Cuny: [00:17:40] I would echo all of that, and to me, critical thinking is a set of skills or mental skills. And I always tell my students no one was born able to analyze. This is something you have to practice. You have to see models. You know, we know about neuroplasticity. It's all about neural pathways and that practice and effort. But then that's where I bring in. I think the biggest piece, and I love that you brought up the three R's, Patrick, because I'm so big on that. But I've kind of shifted it. I call it rigor through relationships. Another thing I tell my students all the time is critical thinking is hard. It's hard work. It's uncomfortable. You know, I always tell my students I love skateboarders whenever I get skateboarders in my class, and I tell them I love having skateboarders in class. They look at me like I'm crazy and I go, no, you guys don't realize you're incredible learners because you know that it takes pain and it takes falling and it takes struggle. And then that great achievement when you finally, like, unpack and you know, Hume. Right? When you finally get it. It takes those relationships to be able to say to kids like, "I want you to synthesize something out of these three sources," and it's going to be hard, and it's going to be a mental workout in here. And I'm going to, you know, coach you up. And but the teenagers aren't going to do that unless they've got a teacher in front of them who they believe cares about them, who they believe is rooting for them. But I can come in, you know, I'm doing a new thing with it's a AI word of the week where I'm giving them terms to use, and one of them is challenge my thinking. Another one is evaluate this because so often kids are like, what do you think of my idea? You know, and then the AI is like, great idea. You know, and so.

Patrick Gittisriboongul: [00:19:13] It's so confident.

Casey Cuny: [00:19:14] Yeah. And so to your point, Patrick, about you've got to we've got to teach them to be critical of their ideas. And AI can really help with that. You know, if you push it to, to, you know, challenge my thinking on this plan. Where are the holes? Where are the gaps? What am I missing? You get great output. There was interestingly, I don't know if you guys saw that thing from Anthropic where they released that study on they measured the AI output in relation to the person's education level. And so if you had a PhD, the output from the AI was really high level. And the it was literally a line, a direct line to the right going up. And I've been saying this for a while that I think I tell my students, quit making your AI dumb because they'll say, make it shorter, you know, or just give it to me in bullet points. And I'm like, you guys, knock it off. You're going to create a dumb AI. And I do think that is something we have to consider. But but in many ways, it's going to be an incredible side tutor and scaffold to, to push those neural pathways, you know, and maybe get rid of some of the rote stuff that we were having to do to get to the critical thinking so we can actually just push kids all the way up to critical thinking quicker.

Peter Creticos: [00:20:28] So. So here's the rub, though. What you're teaching, what you're talking about to me is are essential skills. Have you thought much about whether these are valued skills? As students leave the classroom and encounter either further education or jobs, and I remember a lot of times in math school and sorry, Patrick, about this, but you know, you know, you know, I'd be given these trigonometry problems and I'm going, what am I going to use this for? Years later, I was at a machine shop. They carve out a metal precision prototypes for the aerospace industry, and I watched the machinists. None of them having a college education go through the exercise of figuring out how to make the part. They were using advanced Trig in that process. And it was it was stunning. They basically had to reteach it to themselves in order to be able to function within the machine shop. So it seems to me that these, you know, what you're talking about are essential skills in terms of AI. But but it's easy to get lazy. And part of that is, is because what gets demanded of them down the road, you know, in terms of work or further schooling, doesn't require them to exercise that muscle that you're starting to develop.

Patrick Gittisriboongul: [00:21:46] When you say essential skills and valued skills, the way that I operationalize that is that these are the knowledge and skills related to like to work in an AI-powered world, versus the knowledge and skills that AI is not going to be able to automate, right. So they can't replace. So when we talk about collaboration, communication, creativity, you know, World Economic Forum has talked about all these skills as well. Flexibility, integrity, persistence, problem solving, that kind of stuff. I think that's still the skills and mindsets. Those are the essential skills you have to build. I think the valued skills that you define, Peter, I think that is missing in the AI world, if you will. Is this idea like that? I have to do okay on a daily basis. Conflict resolution. Contextual awareness. EQ or emotional intelligence. Making sure that I exhibit a lot of empathy. Having interpersonal skills that we exhibit now virtually, but also in person. The valued skills is going to be those human core, those distinctively human skills and mindsets that come from going to school, that relationships. It comes from building those positive relationships, like the reason why kids come to school when you ask them, you know, and you can probably I can ask my 20 year old son as well, why do you go to school? Is because they want to see their friends. They want to participate in sports, right? They they have this class with an awesome teacher, right, like Casey over here that they want to learn from. So those are the skills and mindsets that AI is never going to be able to automate valued skills, I think more importantly is where adults, you know, the caring adults, the the teachers in the room have to continue to foster that because that's what we want. That's what that's the kind of valued skills that I see in the marketplace that I think is going to be a valuable to any type of organization.

Casey Cuny: [00:23:44] It's all about the the hybrid approach of of the human and the AI together. And my analogy is that you know, AI is like Doctor (Mister) Spock and in Doctor (Mister) Spock's incredible. And it'll give you great insight, but Captain Kirk is still going to call the shots, and we'll always need a Captain Kirk in the equation. You know, and and so I think that's one way to think about it. But the other thing is, I agree with you 100%. Those human skills, those people skills, you know, are going to be so important, which I actually am a little worried about because we have gone away from that a lot. Like I have so many kids who there's there's been a kind of a lot about like, well, if kids don't want to talk, then don't let them - they don't have to talk and stuff like that. And which is fine. I actually help my students with those anxieties, push through those anxieties. And I've got some incredible stories about that where kids went from non-verbal to actually standing in front of our board a month ago and giving a speech two years later, which was incredible. But I think we're going to have to refocus on some of those human skills. But then, you know, because I think it's important as not everything and it's not going to do everything. It's just it is an incredible tool, you know, if we know how to use it. Well.

Patrick Gittisriboongul: [00:24:49] You know, the Microsoft you know, they did a work trend index. They, they do this every year. But I think in their most recent index report one of the questions that they asked, which is a global study, is what is your primary reason for choosing to turn to AI over a colleague or manager? And I think one of the reasons why I think the most frequent responses is it's 24/7 availability. So like that's that's 42% of the responses came in as a 24/7 availability. So like if you can have a chatbot cloud code, you know, ChatGPT or whatever it is, have 24/7 availability, Think about what you can get done overnight. That's the part where I think that like those capabilities you know, it's it's interesting how how it's going to disrupt the workforce as well.

Casey Cuny: [00:25:40] Well, as a teacher, like I have my kid just the other day, they walked in and I had a QR code up as they were going to go put their phones away in the pockets. But before they did, they scan the QR code. They did an entrance ticket on a standard. We were working on my app that I got that I designed here, gave me instant results and created mixed ability groupings, so I instantly put them into different groups. The insights I got from that AI right then and there inform my teaching. We then did a little mini lesson, and then I followed it up with an exit ticket at the end with my app, and boom, we saw a growth and and it was incredible. And my mom was telling me, she's actually a librarian at my old high school, and she was telling me that the teacher had one of her teachers had such a rough morning because the copier jammed and he had to rush to his class. So she was helping him. And what he printed out was a stack of paper exit tickets. By the time she got them to him, the class was over. And then he had to cut them. And I was just sitting there going, gosh, I feel so bad for this guy. Like, I had instant, actionable information because like you said, 24/7 availability, that then me as the teacher, I'm still there in the equation as the expert then could adjust instruction going forward. So I do think things like formative assessment and UDL and PBL [Project Based Learning] can become practical and and applicable daily like never before if we teach teachers how to use this effectively.

Patrick Gittisriboongul: [00:26:58] Yeah, I think that is brilliant. I think every teacher having their own AI assistant that helps them work better, faster, more efficient, those are the that's where I see in terms of the shifting landscape of how AI can really enhance teaching and learning in public education.

Casey Cuny: [00:27:15] And like you said about the verbal stuff, I think that's the next phase. So I envision where the kids come in and we're reading 1984 right now, and I say, hey, you're putting put on the headset, you're going to have a five minute interview with the AI about chapter two that you were supposed to read last night, and then instantly in my ear, I'm getting, okay, 80% read it, but 20% didn't. But of the 80 that read it, they missed the symbolism of the bird in the woods. And so instantly I'm adjusting. And we've known forever. Right. And education and research that the the speed of response to feedback response and the actionability of it is key. And and in the old method, I would have had to take that stuff home and over the week read through it. And it'd be like a basketball player taking a shot and waiting a week to find out if it went through the net, to then the coach giving them some feedback on their form. I mean, they don't remember, but now I can address it immediately. You know, I have a lot of colleagues who are just not interested, you know, or worried or concerned or talk about teachers getting replaced and things like that, which I don't think is ever going to happen, but ever. Yeah. No one's going to send their kid to school with a robot, right? I just don't see that happening. It is worrisome how I think we're about to hit what's called the disillusionment trough.

Patrick Gittisriboongul: [00:28:26] Oh, yeah. Gardner's model: peak of inflated expectations.

Casey Cuny: [00:28:31] Over the last two years I've been giving these talks, and a year ago I had teachers leaning forward and interested. And now I'm not getting that. I'm getting a lot of crossed arms and concern and and I and I see almost like a backlash coming.

Patrick Gittisriboongul: [00:28:46] Casey, like you're bringing up another topic for me in my mind is that I really want to connect AI to something even deeper as well. Is really around economic mobility, right? And so that idea of economic mobility, social capital like the work from Raj Chetty, has really inspired what I do as well in terms of like how I lead this organization, because I think what like those adult outcomes shaped by the environment, by the context, by the opportunity that they have, like that kind of stuff around making sure that kids have the AI literacy, those AI skills can only help with economic mobility and that social capital. Because this matters. Because students who already have access to like, let's say, the pro version of ChatGPT or the plus version of ChatGPT or even the cloud version of it, who can afford that $20 a month? Like they have a different experience? And make no mistake, like, you know, like some of these tools, I know that they're capitalistic in nature, right? They they're going to have different experiences from platform to platform, but it's an accelerator for students who already have access to that kind of coaching, those networks, that type of hidden curriculum, of being able to vibe code their own app. We have to foster that here in Lynwood as well, because we have, you know, again, I mentioned earlier about the exponential needs of our community. That's just not not just unique to us. We want AI to kind of be that lever, right? We can't treat it as an add on. We got to kind of embed it into what we do embedded into the classroom like you're already doing. Casey I love that. That's brilliant. Like you can take that, take that show on the road and continue to build the capacity of teachers to really then focus on what the dialogue, the conversation, the relationship building that kids really need. Because that, to me, is how we are able to kind of help with economic mobility, because we have to pair that with human relationships and that social capital that we want kids to build.

Casey Cuny: [00:30:34] Yes, exactly. I'm so with you on that. And that, you know, like, for instance, I did a Socratic seminar recently and they had to handwrite their first answer. And then when they had an answer down, then they had to raise their computer up, open the Chromebooks. Now go to ChatGPT and talk back and forth about it. And if English isn't your first language, use your home language. And this was the game changer. The thoughts were there, the thinking was there. It was the richest Socratic seminar I've ever had on that topic. And again, it wasn't that AI did cognitive offloading, it was that it was there as a thought partner, and especially for my English language learners, it propelled their thinking because they weren't they weren't stuck in the barrier of of language blocking their thinking. I do really worry that we're entering a world where, you know my kid who's got the $20 a month subscription and grew up here in the suburbs, is going to have this insane advantage now going forward like never before. Sadly, in some ways, because other kids aren't going to get that exposure. And so I actually tell teachers wherever I go that I actually think it's a moral imperative at this point that we teach kids how to use AI. We cannot put our heads in the sand on this anymore because it potentially limiting a life changing resource from them. And again, we're probably the first adult in their lives who's going to show them how to use it responsibly.

Peter Creticos: [00:31:50] One of the groups we haven't talked about is where parents fit in all this. And I wonder where where each of you are in that in terms of your engagement with parents. If the teachers don't understand what's going on, I suspect that many parents are much further behind than the teachers. Patrick, your school district has an adult program, and so that's that may give you a leg up in terms of working with the parents. Just as a classroom teacher, I don't know. I mean, how would you engage parents in this process?

Casey Cuny: [00:32:20] We're about to do a parent night where we're going to try to educate some parents on this. And we've we've done a lot of videos home. But it's definitely there's a gap there. At least in my own as a teacher in the classroom, I'm sending a lot of communications home with parents, even trying to get them to use it like, hey, your students get their homework was asked five questions about the text we read. It's a current event, so maybe you could go ask ChatGPT five questions too, and then have a good conversation with your kid, because I'm again trying to show some of these parents are nervous about AI, understandably. In fact, I'm nervous about it, too. I don't want to give the idea that I'm all rose colored glasses on this. I'm terrified about some of this stuff. And and I do think there should be age limits and things like that that we haven't talked about. So I think just getting parents to open their minds to the power it can give their kids in terms of tutoring and help at home and things like that, I think would be very valuable.

Patrick Gittisriboongul: [00:33:08] Yeah, I agree with Casey. So we've done, you know, parent university, same thing, parent training, parent nights. I think they really helped shape kind of the norms. We've done the same thing with cybersecurity and social media, making sure that parents are aware of of how kids are using it and what tools are being used. I would say, you know, for me and for what we want to do with parents is we really want them to continue to encourage that type of habit of thinking that really asks their children and asks their kids, like, how do you know that? Why do you think it's true? Like, I think having to foster that critical thinking at home as well is something that we want to foster as well. So I would say parents are even using it today. Peter. So like I get emails from parents that look like it's been written by AI. So I think it's still it's like the tail wagging the dog. So we kids are already using. Kids are way ahead. We got to make sure that parents are aware of what's going on.

Peter Creticos: [00:34:04] When the other projects we're engaged in is we're doing an evaluation of a Digital Navigator program on Chicago's South and East and West sides. This is a program that's in low income neighborhoods, primarily African American and Latino neighborhoods, and it's geared towards bringing adults up on digital skills. And one of the unanticipated results of this project is that engaging the parents of children in the in the school system as part of, as in terms of educating them in these digital skills, has resulted in several of the parents becoming more engaged with the school and actually becoming parent mentors in the classroom. It eliminates that barrier to participating in with their children. It seems to be building some self-confidence on the part of the parents where they want to become further engaged with with the school, and now they've introduced an AI component to this. And it's going to be interesting to see how how that translates into other kinds of engagement with the school.

Patrick Gittisriboongul: [00:35:10] When I showed parents how their kids are using AI, and I showed them like the outputs of these tools. I literally got gasps from the parents like, oh my God, you can do this. Many of the moms in the room said, hey, okay, can I can you have it write me a love letter to my husband? So that was like a good use case for some of the moms in the room wanting to write a love letter to their husband. But but I think when it comes to parent trainings, when it comes to to looking at, you know, how they engage, you know, and really work closely with their child and work closely with, you know, the school? In many ways, I love that. I think that there is oftentimes kind of this, this notion that that parents aren't as engaged at a high school level or depending on how, you know, the age, age of, of a kid kind of determines the engagement or involvement of a, of a parent. I think that that more and more you got to balance that out, because you also kind of want to give kids agency. You know, that kind of motivation instead of having, you know, at the same time, helicopter parents, right. Sometimes we can do that as well. Like for me, you know, being able to to balance out parent engagement, that capacity is very important.

Casey Cuny: [00:36:27] I think change is difficult and change is hard and that this is a rapid change. I mean, like, I think probably like not anything in recent memory at all. And so I think I understand all the hesitation. But I actually see like an incredible opportunity here in education, like a really golden opportunity. I just think we have a potential to upskill teachers across this country faster and with more efficiency than ever before. And I think at the same time, when used well, we have a chance to help our most disadvantaged students with a way to level the playing field for our English language learners and our students who have learning disabilities. I think it's important, though, to acknowledge the fears and concerns first. And then I think it's really important to to really paint a picture of where this could go, though, if used responsibly and used well as a framework and as a tool to boost good teaching and to increase engagement, to promote critical thinking, to really get to an age of inquiry, which we always wanted. You know, I show a quote in one of my speeches where it's a quote about the use of inquiry in education, and it looks like it was written about AI, but it was written in 1910 by John Dewey. And so I think in some ways, we have a potential here to realize the dreams of the American education system like never before. And it's going to be hard work. But but I have a lot of faith because I, the only people I like to hang out with more than my students are teachers. They're the most brilliant, caring, hardworking people I've ever interacted with. And that's been I've had the chance to meet with all these business leaders now, and I still it's still the teachers. The teachers are incredible. And I think I think there's a bright road ahead if we're well supported and and so that's where my vision is.

Patrick Gittisriboongul: [00:38:12] I think every generation of educators and teachers and administrators, whoever it is, we all face technological shift. That really forces us to ask, like, what is the purpose of school? And so, like for us here in Linwood, I think the purpose hasn't changed. We're here to continue to, you know, cultivate talent unlock that brilliance in our students and then to make sure that our students think deeply, communicate clearly, and that they get prepared for life. Right. And so I think AI does doesn't ever replace that mission. Right. And so that kind of idea that we brought up earlier about relationships. I think if we continue to let technology drive what we do, then I think that's the problem. But if we anchor ourselves in like purpose relationships, making sure that, like, you know, the model that I often give that maybe I'll leave you guys with is, you know, we want to make sure that every kid finds their purpose, has a plan, and has a path. So that for me is is really where, where education lives.

Peter Creticos: [00:39:17] That does it for today. Thank you to our guests, Patrick [Gittisriboongul] and Casey [Cuny]. Also, thank you to Susannah Broun, who directs and edits this podcast series. A Chicago-based international musician, Ronnie Malley, performed the music on this podcast. Support for today's podcast is provided by the Board of Directors of the Institute. You can learn more about the Institute at www.workandeconomy.org. And your comments and of course financial support are welcome. Finally, you're welcome to contact me directly at creticos@workandeconomy.org. Thank you for listening and have a great day.