Balancing AI and the Human Touch in Education

This week in the media there has been lots of talk about AI and education. Let’s talk about how AI can help schools, focusing on both workflow and well-being. It’s something we’re all thinking about, right? AI can be a fantastic tool, but it’s not a magic fix for everything—especially when it comes to real, meaningful learning.

In a school context, we often think about how AI can save time. Take admin tasks—meetings, emails, scheduling, report writing. AI can help lighten that load. For example, AI could manage meeting schedules, automatically finding time slots that work for all staff members, or even summarise key points from meetings so that teachers don’t have to spend extra time on minutes. This gives school leaders and teachers more time to focus on what really matters—teaching and connecting with students.

But here’s the thing: AI isn’t perfect. It doesn’t always get things right. Imagine asking an AI to help with an English essay, and it gives you something full of clichés or even misinterprets a text. This is where students need to step in, using their critical thinking skills to verify what AI offers and make it their own. AI can be a great starting point for brainstorming ideas or structuring an argument, but it’s the students’ insights that make the work original and thoughtful.

For example, if a student is writing an essay on Macbeth, AI might suggest key themes like ambition or guilt, but then the student should add their unique take—perhaps connecting it to modern-day leadership dilemmas or showing how Shakespeare’s language reflects Macbeth’s moral decline. That’s where the magic happens: when students build on AI’s basic ideas and transform them with their own perspectives.

For teachers, AI can assist with things like marking grammar or spelling, but it’s not a replacement for thoughtful feedback. Teachers still play a critical role in guiding students through deeper reflection and learning. For an English teacher, this might mean using AI to help students clean up sentence structure or punctuation, but still spending time on those rich, meaningful discussions about how a character’s motives unfold or why an author chose a specific narrative style.

And then there’s the big concern—cheating. We can’t deny that AI tools might tempt students to cut corners, but that’s part of the learning process too. We teach them how to use AI responsibly. It’s like showing them that just because you have a thesaurus, it doesn’t mean every word you choose will fit perfectly. AI helps, but it doesn’t replace their own effort to express themselves clearly and thoughtfully.

For school leaders, AI can be a game-changer when it comes to managing workload. Take scheduling meetings, for instance—AI can automate the process of finding available times across busy teacher calendars, so you’re not stuck in a loop of back-and-forth emails. AI can even handle staff surveys, pulling together well-being data into clear reports so leaders can quickly spot trends without spending hours sifting through responses. Imagine being able to spend that saved time planning well-being initiatives for staff or having more face-to-face conversations with students!

However, AI alone is is not going to fix well-being challenges. Yes, it can reduce stress by handling some of the repetitive tasks, but the heart of education is still the teacher-student relationship. AI might help you identify where a student is struggling, but the real progress happens in those one-on-one conversations between teachers and students. That’s where you build trust, check understanding, and help students grow.

So, what’s the takeaway? AI is an assistant, not the main event. It’s there to support you, lighten the load, and give them more space to do what they do best—teach. It’s about creating more room for meaningful interactions, critical thinking, and well-being. As AI continues to evolve, let’s make sure we use it to support, not replace, the human heart of learning. When used responsibly, AI can enhance education, but it’ll never replace the human touch.

If you are interested in working with me on your Leadership and Well Being journey in 2025 be in touch. I would love to have a chat. Just sign up here and be in touch. Remember LUMINA has an office in Sydney and Wellington.