A Letter from Your Teachers: Learning to Think in the Age of AI

Dear Students,

We are teachers from many schools and colleges who gathered recently to talk about one question:
How can we help you learn and flourish in the age of artificial intelligence?

Though we come from varied backgrounds, we share the same hope — that you will use AI wisely and well. We’ve spent our lives studying how people learn and watching students grow into capable, curious adults. We have seen again and again that the deepest learning comes not from ease, but from effort.

Artificial intelligence is a remarkable achievement. It can write, calculate, translate, summarize, and even simulate creativity. Used well, it can expand your reach and accelerate discovery. But used carelessly, it can quietly erode the very capacities that make you a thoughtful, self-reliant learner and a responsible future professional.

To understand why this moment matters so much, let’s look back at another time when machines changed what it meant to be human.

When Machines Took Over the Muscles

Two hundred years ago, the First Industrial Revolution changed the world. Before it, nearly every task demanded human or animal strength: farming, forging, weaving, building. Work was exhausting, but physical activity kept people fit and engaged with the physical world.

Then came steam engines, mechanized looms, and factories. Machines took over the hardest physical labor, and for the first time in history, many people didn’t need to toil from sunrise to sunset just to survive. Life grew more comfortable — but something subtle changed. As physical labor declined, so did natural physical fitness.

Within a few generations, doctors began to see new ailments tied to inactivity. The same machines that gave us comfort allowed us to neglect our bodies. To stay healthy, we had to reintroduce physical effort. We built gyms, invented treadmills, and turned exercise into an activity of its own. We now take walks, count steps, and lift weights not because survival requires it, but because health does.

One of the lessons of the First Industrial Revolution is that every great technological leap that saves us effort also removes some form of practice that once made us strong.

Now Machines Are Coming for the Mind

The world is now undergoing a new revolution. This time, machines don’t just lift and spin — they think. AI systems can analyze, summarize, and even imitate reasoning. What steam power did for muscle, AI is doing for cognition.

This is exhilarating. Like the industrial machines of the 1800s, AI frees us from many repetitive and mechanical mental tasks. It can summarize readings, organize notes, generate examples, and even help you test your understanding. Used thoughtfully, it can make learning faster and richer.

But history reminds us that ease can lead to weakness. Just as the loss of manual labor made physical fitness something we had to pursue deliberately, the loss of intellectual effort could make cognitive fitness something we must choose to maintain.

If you let AI do your thinking for you, your ability to think will weaken — quietly, gradually, and inevitably. 

The New Fitness Challenge: Building Mental Strength

The human brain is not a computer. It is a living organ that reshapes itself through mental work. Every time you wrestle with a hard idea, stumble through a problem set, or search for the right words in a paragraph, your brain changes. These habits of the mind create physical structures in your brain: it either makes new neural pathways or strengthens old pathways. That’s how knowledge becomes part of you.

Educational psychologists call this productive struggle — the experience of grappling with something difficult but achievable. It’s uncomfortable, even frustrating at times, but that very discomfort signals that growth is happening.

In the same way that muscles need resistance to grow stronger, your mind needs challenge. If weights are too light, you get no benefit. If they’re too heavy, you give up. The right struggle — sustained, guided effort — is where learning happens. 

AI tempts you to skip that step. It can make every task feel easy, but in doing so, it can rob you of the essential process through which understanding and creativity are born. AI-generated work can give you the illusion of competence. You will think you understand something, and you really do not. You just have superficial knowledge, but you will not be able to analyze or apply it. 

As one writer, Ted Chiang, put it: “Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you’ll never improve your cognitive fitness that way.”

What Students Already Know

We recently came across a reflection by Moria Gleason, a 20-year-old English major at Hillsdale College. She wrote about why she refuses to use AI to write her papers:

“Writing an undergraduate paper isn’t about the actual paper. As an English major, I write to understand what I have read. Using artificial intelligence to write a term paper for my Shakespeare class wouldn’t only be dishonest — it would rob me of my education. The odds of my saying something novel about “To be or not to be” are about zero, and I know academia isn’t hurting for the musings of a 20-year-old student fueled by energy drinks in the library at 2 a.m.

I write not because anyone else needs to read my thoughts, but because I need to write them. Delivering a finished paper takes hours of reading, rereading, outlining, drafting, and editing. Even then, as one of my professors said, papers are never really finished — they are only due. Writing may be draining, never perfect, but it’s always rewarding.”

She goes on to say that years of challenging writing made her a better reader, a sharper thinker, and a clearer communicator. Her professor grades her thinking, not her typing — and that’s what education is meant to develop.

Moria’s insight captures what many studies now show: when students do the hard mental work first and then use AI for feedback, their performance and understanding improve, but when they let AI do the first draft, their learning declines.

AI as a Training Partner, Not a Substitute

Think of AI as your training partner, not your replacement. In a gym, a good training partner helps you push harder and stay safe — but you still have to lift the weight.

In learning, that means:

• Start with your own effort. Read, outline, write your first draft yourself. Try to solve that complex problem on your own without the aid of AI.
• Then invite AI in. Ask it to critique your ideas, test your reasoning, ask you questions, show you different perspectives, or let it tutor you on the difficult problem.
• Use it to challenge, not to replace. Let it raise the bar, not remove it.
  
  

Research by business professor Scott Latham found that students who used AI only to polish and reflect on their own work produced higher-quality writing than those who began with AI output. The difference wasn’t in grammar or style — it was in depth of thought.

That pattern mirrors what happens in physical training: you benefit most when the effort is yours.

Think Before You Trust

AI is astonishing, but it’s fallible. It can sound confident while being wrong. It can fabricate sources, misstate facts, produce persuasive nonsense, and cheer you on while you go down a pointless rabbit hole. Lawyers, journalists, and even scientists have learned this the hard way.

This is why your discernment matters more than ever. Before accepting what AI gives you, question it. Check its claims. Compare with credible sources. The skill of verification — knowing what is true — is becoming one of the most valuable literacies of your generation.

The world is overflowing with synthetic text, images, and voices. What sets you apart won’t be your access to information, but your ability to judge its truth.

Preparing for a Changing World

Just as machines once reshaped the economy, AI will reshape the careers of your lifetime. Some roles will vanish, others will be created, and many will change profoundly. We don’t yet know which jobs will endure — but we do know which qualities always matter: adaptability, agency, curiosity, creativity, judgement, integrity, and empathy.

These are human strengths. They grow not from convenience but from challenge, not from imitation but from reflection.

That’s why the best preparation for the future is simple: become a learner who enjoys the process, not just the outcome. Dive deep into your studies. Ask questions that AI can’t answer — “Why does this matter?” “How could this idea be wrong?” “What connects this to what I already know?”

Every time you engage deeply with a subject, you’re exercising your mind — and building the kind of flexibility that no algorithm can replace. You will become a leader in your field, not a follower. 

A Cognitive Fitness Plan for the Age of AI

Here are a few habits we encourage you to build — your “mental workout” for lifelong learning:

1. Warm Up with Curiosity – Start every assignment by asking what you want to understand before turning to AI. Curiosity activates deeper learning.
   
   
2. Do Your Own Reps – Work through problems and drafts yourself first. Real comprehension comes from effort.
   
   
3. Invite AI to Coach You – After you’ve worked, use AI to critique or extend your ideas. Ask it to play devil’s advocate or explain your reasoning back to you.
   
   
4. Find a Human Coach: Self-coached athletes don’t achieve as much as coached athletes. Find someone further along than you, someone who can mentor and guide you.
   
   
5. Cross-Train – Study across disciplines. The ability to connect ideas from history, art, and science strengthens creativity.
   
   
6. Rest and Reflect – Step away from the screen. Let your mind wander. Insight often emerges in quiet moments.
   
   
7. Work Out Together – Form study groups, solve problems, write together, and discuss learning with your peers. Make learning social. 
   
   
8. Track Your Progress – Test yourself. Have AI generate example test problems and answer the questions without the help of AI.  Or generate nuanced debate prompts, counterarguments, and questions that you must analyze, challenge, and refine. Then notice that your mind is getting stronger.
   
   

The Balance Between Ease and Effort

Modern life rewards convenience, but education rewards effort. Every major advance — from the printing press to the internet — has offered shortcuts to information. Yet understanding has always required something no machine can provide: attention, reflection, and struggle.

We don’t ask you to reject AI. We ask you to use it thoughtfully — as an amplifier of your effort, not an escape or shortcut from it. When you resist the impulse to let AI think for you, you build the very skills that will make you invaluable in an automated world.

The First Industrial Revolution taught us that when machines do our work, we must work deliberately to stay strong. The same is true today. You can’t outsource the exercise of your own mind.

Our Commitment to You

As your teachers, we want to make a promise in return.

We will respect your time and effort. We will strive to design assignments that are worth your struggle — tasks that challenge you to think deeply, not endlessly. We will avoid busywork that tempts you to turn to AI just to get work completed for a grade.

When we ask you to use AI in the educational context, it will be for a reason: to help you analyze, critique, or extend your own ideas, not to replace them. When we ask you not to use AI, it will be because the purpose of the task is to strengthen your mind through direct engagement.

We believe learning should be demanding, but never wasteful. The best assignments are like good workouts — they leave you tired, but stronger, clearer, and more confident in your abilities.

Our Hope for You

When we met for our retreat, what united us was not fear of AI, but hope for you. You are growing up in one of the most extraordinary times in human history. The same technology that could dull human intellect could also elevate it to new heights — depending on how you use it.

You can rise to that challenge. Learn to think with AI, not through it. Let it inspire, not replace, your creativity. Keep asking questions, even when the answers are instant. Keep learning, even when the path is hard.

Just as our ancestors rediscovered the value of physical fitness after machines took away manual labor, your generation must rediscover the value of mental fitness in an age when thinking feels optional.

Struggle a little. Stretch yourself. Do hard things.  Learn the joy of effort, because in the end, education isn’t about what AI can do — it’s about what you can become.

With respect and confidence in your future,

Jon Bergmann, Houston Christian High School

Lorena A. Barba, The George Washington University

Robert Talbert, Grand Valley State University

Charles R. Severance, University of Michigan School of Information

Juan Klopper, The George Washington University

Ryan Watkins, The George Washington University

The above teachers helped draft this document on October 16, 2025, at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation AI in Education Meeting in New York City.  The letter was based on an earlier document titled "An Open Letter to my Students" written by Jon Bergmann.  ChatGPT was used to enhance this document, beginning with a complete initial draft and followed by several iterations, each featuring a series of prompts to focus the narrative and improve the document's style.

Teachers can remix, adapt, and personalize the contents of this letter to produce their own letter for their own classes according to their own needs.  This document is dedicated to the public domain via Creative Commons CC0, Jon Bergmann - jonbergmann.com 

If you use this document, you may want to add this (or a similar disclaimer): This letter reflects the personal viewpoints of [Your Name] and does not represent official school policy or endorsement.

1. When we talk about Artificial Intelligence, we are referring to what is called “generative AI,”  Also called Large Language models (LLM’s).