Schools are punishing kids for using AI. Companies are firing employees for NOT using it. We’re training an entire generation to fail
Our children are being scolded in the classrooms across America for using technology. Schools are banning the use of technology and kids are punished for discovering and exploring AI. While at the same time, corporate global is firing employees around the world for the perception that AI and technologies are not being used enough and as effectively as possible.
What is really happening here? How are we preparing our kids for the future? How are we helping our workforce of today?
Let’s address the herd of elephants in the room. Artificial intelligence is here and not unlike the early days of the calculator; educators are concerned by the idea that children are cheating. The kids are not learning basic skills in the same way that many of the older generations did. The idea that kids need to know something in great detail and depth is still prevalent. The challenge is that our children go from a model that tests their ability to retain information and tooling for the purpose of proving understanding vs outcomes. Do they know how to write a paper? Do they know how to do the math problem?
On the flip side, companies don’t care what you or the kids think or know. They care about the outcomes. The world is changing quickly from a “know” model to a “do” model. I’d say, we are mostly in a “do” model, which really means that most of us don’t know shit, we just do shit. The kids are smarter and more proficient with tools. The tools enable them to perform outcomes faster and build upon their natural tool use which accelerates their ability to get to some outcome. In other words, we are punishing our children for doing exactly what they will be asked to do the minute they walk in a corporate door.
What about YOU?
If you can’t use or understand how to use the newest technology, consider yourself a “techasoaurus-x”, yeah, a dinosaur. The same people accusing you of being aged and outdated are buying into the new age of outcomes.
The technology is advancing to a point where most people have access to it. Cell phones are near the level of water and food on Maslow’s needs hierarchy. This means more access to more tools for more people. This access has created great opportunities for technology advancements by those would otherwise have been blocked just by sheer economic availability. Even the most technologically illiterate of us know how to push the button to speak with AI.
Boardroom Theater and Getting to the 18th Hole
As Private Equities WACKA WACKA WACKA — PACMAN 
up companies, they put pressure on the acquired properties to cut costs on the technology side. These cuts come through leveraging technological opportunities and advancements. The people in the boardrooms know that ChatGPT is a thing,.
They sit at dinners, sip on wine or some alternatives and talk about the technologies they know exist but don’t know how to use or employ. They go back to the acquired properties and create a pressure cooker to place strategic advancements and investments on “that which they don’t understand,” demand outcomes, demand people cuts, right sizing the workforce and hire the best AI people that can be found.
A strategic investment in AI, is on par with the direction of the market and it also sounds good to either a held company or the market. Faster time to market, less overhead cost, and overall, less dependent on human beings. As a side note, the corporate overlords want kids that know how to do exactly what educators STOP them from doing. It isn’t cheating when we do it to make money.
Meanwhile, back in the company that you work for, the most senior leaders are reading three-to-five-word tropes on AI which wakes them to the realization that they are already behind with respect to capabilities and talent.
Regardless of if a company is PE held or not, the pressure on what used to be organizational Chief Information Officer’s is higher than ever. I know firsthand as I sit with business leaders frequently who either have to solve a problem presented to them in this space or are manufacturing a challenge that AI and their workforce must solve while keeping operational costs lower than ever.
The main problem with this approach is that investment dollars generally don’t come from the same place as operational dollars. When operational dollars are used to fund an AI experiment, something else has to give. Give = YOU
Fire all the old heads, bring in the kids and AI.
It is so much cheaper to just get the new AI, hire new talent that doesn’t know your company and solve your problems with no organizational or domain expertise.
If you tried to explain this to a CEO, PE advisor or Board member, you would get mostly ignored because they know that if they make the investments and the market is liking for it, they can get an easy quick win and the risk of failure is worth it. If something goes wrong, they blame the vendor they replaced their people with or they BLAME YOU. They go into the basements of golf clubs and complain about the stupid old or incompetent people and call it a WAR. It’s the “war for talent.”
You didn’t know you were an old soldier in a war, did you? Not only are we training our children to be mentally unprepared to enter this crazy business world, but companies have also declared war on each other and you and your children are either soldiers or mercenaries.
The difference between the soldier and mercenary is the soldier is told they are part of the brand, while the mercenary (consultant, advisor, contractor), is there for a lower cost, shorter duration alternative with no brand loyalty. The mercenary may have a more upfront cost, but the Board members and senior executives know that the soldier is generally stupid, and they (the corporate overlord) have at least some responsibilities to train their stupid employee.
The Whiplash is Real—And Its Breaking People
Let’s be clear about what’s happening here.
We’ve created a system where the rules change depending on which door you walk through. Schools tell kids that using AI is academic dishonesty. Companies tell employees that not using AI is grounds for termination. Parents are caught in between, unsure whether to encourage or restrict. Workers are scrambling to learn tools while being told they’re already obsolete.
This isn’t just a policy problem. This is a mental health crisis in the making.
The anxiety of not knowing which skills matter. The shame of being called a dinosaur when you’ve built a career on expertise. The confusion of watching your kids get punished for the exact behaviors that will determine their economic survival. The exhaustion of being in a “war” you never signed up for.
You are not failing. The system is incoherent.
What You Can Actually Do
For Parents and Educators: Don’t punish curiosity with technology—channel it. Teach kids to use AI as a collaborator, not a crutch. The question isn’t “did you use AI?” but “do you understand what it gave you and why?” Critical thinking isn’t dead; it’s more important than ever. Show your work means something different now—it means showing your prompts, your iterations, your judgment calls.
For Workers and Leaders: Stop pretending you have to know everything. The people winning right now aren’t the ones with all the answers—they’re the ones willing to experiment, fail publicly, and iterate. If you’re in leadership, create psychological safety for your teams to learn new tools without fear of looking incompetent. If you’re on a team, find one person who gets it and learn from them. No shame. No ego. Just survival and adaptation.
For Everyone in the Middle: Give yourself permission to feel disoriented. This is disorienting. The ground is shifting under all of us. But you have more agency than you think:
- You can learn one new AI tool this month. Just one.
- You can have honest conversations with your kids about the contradiction they’re living in.
- You can ask for training instead of pretending you already know.
- You can push back on companies that demand outcomes without providing resources.
- You can stop calling yourself old and start calling yourself experienced—because context still matters, even if the tools have changed.
A Call for Sanity
We need a new conversation—one that doesn’t pit fundamentals against innovation, or experience against adaptability.
Our kids need to learn how to think AND how to use the tools that amplify that thinking. Our workforce needs permission to upskill without being discarded in the process. Our companies need to stop treating people like disposable assets in a tech arms race that prioritizes speed over sense.
The war for talent isn’t a war. It’s a massacre. And we’re the ones pulling the triggers on each other.
What if we stopped?
What if schools and companies actually talked to each other? What if we admitted that most of us—from the boardroom to the classroom—are figuring this out in real time? What if we built systems that valued both the ability to use new tools AND the wisdom to know when and how?
The Bottom Line
We’re standing at a crossroads where the skills that got us here won’t get us there, but the skills to get us there aren’t being taught—or are being actively punished.
You’re not broken. You’re not obsolete. You’re not stupid.
You’re caught in a system that’s moving faster than its own ability to make sense.
So take a breath. Learn what you can. Teach what you know. Protect your mental health by recognizing that this confusion is a feature of the moment, not a flaw in you.
And maybe, just maybe, we can build something better than a war.
Because the future doesn’t just care what you can do. It should care whether you survive getting there.