AI Education and Young People: Why Student Voices Matter
Everyone is talking about the role AI should play in education.
Teachers are trying to work out how to use it. Schools are developing policies. Researchers are studying its impact. Policymakers are making decisions about how AI should be regulated and introduced.
But there is one group that should be part of these conversations from the beginning:
Young people themselves.
When decisions about AI education are going to directly affect students, their experiences, concerns and ideas need to be part of the conversation.
That is the thinking behind the Generation AI program, delivered in collaboration with the Fogarty Foundation.
Why young people need a voice in AI education
It is easy for adults to make assumptions about what students need from AI.
We might focus on academic integrity, ChatGPT use, assessment or whether students should be allowed to use generative AI at school.
Those conversations matter.
But young people are experiencing AI in ways that go far beyond schoolwork.
They are using AI tools, experimenting with them, testing their limitations and encountering AI-generated content in their everyday online lives.
They also have questions about the technology that adults may not be asking.
What happens to the information we give AI?
How much energy does it use?
How should AI be used ethically?
What happens when AI gets something completely wrong?
How much should we trust these tools?
And what happens when students start using AI in unexpected ways?
These are important questions for educators, researchers and policymakers to hear directly from young people.
What young people are actually thinking about AI
As part of Generation AI, consultations are being held with different groups of young people to hear their views, priorities and ideas about AI and education.
The first consultation involved young people from Mandurah CoderDojo.
The discussions covered a surprisingly broad range of topics.
Young people raised concerns about the environmental impact of AI models and the ethics of using them. They talked about AI hallucinations and shared examples of some of the strange answers they had encountered.
They also talked about how they actually use AI tools, including experimenting with them and testing what they can and cannot do.
That last point is particularly interesting.
Young people aren't simply passive users of technology.
They are exploring it, questioning it and finding ways to test its boundaries.
That curiosity is something educators can learn from.
AI education shouldn't be designed without students
There is a risk that conversations about AI in education become entirely adult-driven.
Adults decide what AI students should use.
Adults decide what students shouldn't use.
Adults decide what the risks are.
Adults decide what AI literacy should look like.
But students have a different perspective because they are the ones growing up alongside these technologies.
That doesn't mean students should be responsible for deciding everything about AI in education.
It means their experiences should be one part of the evidence used to make those decisions.
If we want AI education to be relevant, we need to understand how young people are actually using these tools, what they are concerned about and what they think schools should be teaching them.
AI literacy needs more than technical skills
Listening to young people also reinforces an important point about AI literacy.
AI education isn't simply about teaching students how to use a chatbot.
Students need to understand the technology they are interacting with and develop the judgement to use it thoughtfully.
That includes questions about:
how AI systems work
why AI sometimes gets things wrong
privacy and data
environmental impacts
ethics
bias
misinformation
critical thinking
when AI is useful
when students should think for themselves
These conversations become much more meaningful when they connect to the experiences students are already having.
Young people can help shape the future of AI education
The Generation AI consultations are designed to do more than simply collect opinions.
The goal is to make sure young people's perspectives reach the people making decisions about their future.
The consultations will contribute to a Youth Insights Paper that can be shared with researchers, educators and policymakers.
That creates an important bridge between young people's experiences and the systems making decisions about AI and education.
And this approach matters beyond one program.
Schools, universities, researchers and policymakers should be asking young people what they think about the technologies that are changing their education and their lives.
Not because young people will always have the answer.
But because they have experiences and perspectives that adults don't.
We need to listen before we decide
The conversation about AI in education is moving quickly.
There are debates about whether AI should be restricted, encouraged, taught explicitly or integrated into existing subjects.
But before making decisions about what AI education should look like, we should ask the people who will actually experience it.
What do young people think?
What are they worried about?
What do they want to understand?
How are they already using AI?
What do they think schools need to prepare them for?
Young people shouldn't just be spoken about in conversations about the future of AI and education.
They should have a seat at the table.
That is how we move from making assumptions about what students need to actually understanding what they need.
Giving young people a voice in AI education
Through Generation AI, Paris McNeil is working with the Fogarty Foundation to bring young people's perspectives into conversations about the future of AI and education.
The consultations are designed to capture student insights and ensure those perspectives reach educators, researchers and policymakers making decisions about the role of AI in education.
