"What are three important, realistic things a teacher could do differently to help you or kids your age learn better?"
I texted this question recently to my two sons. Both attended Massachusetts public schools K-12, as I did. My oldest quickly fired back three ideas:
"Having two teachers in the room is a huge help to everyone's learning"
"Teachers providing sheets that are designed for taking notes for the lesson that day"
"Providing a schedule to everyone of the due dates of projects/assignments/exams at the start of the year"
Let's start with #2 and #3, since they're easier. A good, thoughtful syllabus, refined every semester, with materials for note taking pre-developed and distributed to students each week, seem like pretty reasonable requests to me. But doing this type of planning work well takes both time and skill. On top of everything else, planning and prep work takes up a lot of time. Time that teachers never have enough of.
Now onto his #1 item, which is funny because I asked about things "a" teacher could do…
Would two teachers in every classroom help with planning and prep? Absolutely! Could it help improve learning for the students in those classrooms? Of course! Is it feasible to think we'd ever get to a point where all communities can afford to put two teachers in every classroom? Of course not! Not even close. Different types of team or shared teaching can absolutely contribute to better learning. But any practical education administrator knows that putting two teachers in classrooms is prohibitively expensive at any type of scale, with a few exceptions.
It would be easy to dismiss the suggestion — it's just not realistic. But it begs other important questions:
"How can we provide more support to every single teacher in every single classroom, in a way that's far more efficient and cost-effective than hiring?"
"How can we empower every single teacher to focus more time on instruction, using the same tools and resources that are already available to us?"
My younger son followed up with his ideas a few hours later:
"Building better connections with the students; when students have good connections with teachers they care to listen and learn more"
"Behavior should be part of the class grade because if you're focused on not getting distracted or talking to people you will be more focused on learning"
"More class participation so everyone can be involved more"
Again, these suggestions make sense, but all require time, effort, and skill by teachers.
"Can AI help?" … "Sure, AI can probably help." … "Ok, but how?"
I founded DirectEd to answer that question. AI, when used well, can be a force multiplier. We help educators use AI well, multiplying teaching capabilities and supporting more and better time focused on what actually matters: teaching, learning, and student outcomes.
I'm currently scheduling district engagements for 2027. I'm personally involved in each one — building the diagnostic and the planning assistants, leading Build Day, and training and supporting the district's own coaches, who lead the work in their schools. Feel free to reach out for a diagnostic or an initial conversation.
