Andrew Cantarutti on The Walled Garden: Critical Considerations for Classroom AI

AI tech has come knocking at the classroom door, and schools across the country are rushing to design their AI policies around information that seems to change by the day.

At this year's Heights Parents Conference on "AI and Our Sons: Optimism in Uncharted Waters," writer and educator Andrew Cantarutti shared the research and critical analysis necessary for school communities to consider the claims of AI ed-tech. In the end, he says, the question will be how best to raise citizens rather than simply users.

Chapters:

00:03:25 Turkish proverb: the trees and the ax
00:04:09 The attention crisis
00:08:46 AI: a different kind of technology
00:14:08 Adolescence and brain architecture
00:15:03 AI knocks on the classroom door
00:17:34 Walled Garden vs. Marketplace Mirror schools
00:21:03 Building AI literacy
00:27:04 AI's personalized education
00:27:47 Benefits of the traditional classroom
00:31:34 Our role as parents
00:34:25 Turkish proverb, decoded

Links:

The Walled Garden, Andrew Cantarutti's Substack

Attention Span by Gloria Mark
Empire of AI by Karen Hao
Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt in Essay Writing, MIT Media Lab, June 10, 2025

Center for Humane Technology, co-founded by Tristan Harris, former Google employee

Also on the Forum:

Classroom Habits of Attention in the Age of AI featuring Andrew Cantarutti

A Humane Way of Life: The Research Behind Home Tech Decisions featuring Clare Morell