When AI makes the work faster, are we still doing the thinking?

Today on On The Way To School, I’m talking about one of the biggest tensions I’m noticing as educators and leaders increasingly use AI:

The output can move faster than our thinking.

AI can help us research, organize, synthesize, build presentations, and get to a finished product in minutes. That productivity is real.

But sometimes the time we save is actually thinking time—the time we need to wrestle with an idea, develop an argument, notice nuance, and actually know what we’re putting in front of other people.

I experienced this myself recently. AI helped me organize something I was working on, but when I got into the meeting, I had to reorient myself to the structure and argument. I knew the content—but I hadn't necessarily built it in the same way I would have if I had done every step myself.

So maybe the question isn't whether we should use AI.

It's whether we're using it in a way that preserves our own command of the work.

Sometimes the best AI workflow is:

Use it. Step away. Think. Come back. Edit. Simplify. Own it.

And please—if AI gives you 30 slides when you needed 10, don't blame the AI. 😂

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