I’m an education methodologist living in Ukraine, and lately I’ve been watching AI transform the world while schools increasingly try to keep it out of the classroom.
Some schools block internet access to prevent students from using AI. Others make children complete homework at school, under supervision, using nothing but pen and paper.
To me, this looks like trying to slow down a moving train with your bare hands.
AI offers an opportunity we’ve never had before: to fundamentally transform the teacher’s role. Instead of being the source of information or spending endless hours preparing lessons, teachers could help children discover knowledge, make sense of it, connect ideas, and use what they learn creatively.
But that requires a completely different approach to learning.
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, I was a school principal. For almost five years now, I’ve been rethinking the foundations of education. When simply being at school becomes dangerous, and institutions begin to falter, you start questioning things you once took for granted.
When you’ve spent the night sheltering from Shahed drone attacks, studying textbooks the next morning may not be realistic. Individual learning arrangements, flexible schedules, and uneven workloads stop looking like exceptions.
Why shouldn’t they become normal practice after the war, too?
I work with neurodivergent children, including autistic children and children with ADHD. One thing I experiment with is building learning around a child’s deep interests.
The principle is simple: use what naturally captures a child’s attention as the engine of learning, then build outward.
My own child, for example, learns English not through conventional school methods, but through Roblox chats, conversations with AI, and songs by his favourite rock bands. He explores the history of the 1950s–1990s through the evolution of rock culture.
Music becomes a gateway to physics, mathematics, literature, history, and languages.
Of course, following an interest alone isn’t enough. Without structure and guidance, learning can remain a collection of disconnected explorations.
That’s why I’m developing an algorithm for an AI learning guide: a system that helps children move from curiosity to research, critical thinking, interdisciplinary understanding, and eventually creating something of their own.
For the past year, my life has felt like an alchemist’s experiments in a solitary laboratory.
While explosions sound outside, I see the old world falling apart — a world in which people were trained from childhood to follow instructions. And I imagine an education system where freedom of choice and learning that follows a child’s natural inclinations are fundamental principles.
Every now and then, I emerge from my shelter and encounter the conservatism of parents and educators. I’ve been immersed in these experiments for so long that I find it difficult to judge how ready society actually is for such a shift.
So I’d genuinely like to hear your thoughts.
Could you imagine your child being taught primarily by an AI learning guide? Not as a supplementary tool, but as the main companion in their learning journey.
A human teacher would take on a different role: helping the child build a learning path, set goals, understand themselves, and navigate the difficult parts of the journey. Someone the child finds engaging, supportive, and safe — rather than simply an enforcer of the curriculum.
What would make you trust such a model — or reject it outright?