Have you ever heard the statement “You can lead a horse to water, but can’t make it drink”? 

For me, this statement encapsulates the modern dilemma of education, even in an ideal world. We can give students the “tools” we think they need to succeed: surrounding them with educated teachers, providing access to technology other parts of the world could only dream of having, etc. Yet, even with those resources, students still aren’t engaging. In fact, quite the opposite! Many of them are using artificial intelligence (AI) instead. Why is this the case?

I believe the answer arises when we look at the ideology schools perpetuate in today’s society, in combination with the societal ramifications young people are living through. 

In K-12 education, public schools have multiple incentives to graduate as many students as possible. These include publicly displayed graduation rates, which determine where parents send their children, as well as other factors like burdens to the taxpayer at the tune of $18 billion a year. There is also a lack of funding to hold kids longer than the four years, specifically in special education cases, according to the National Education Policy Center and state budget analysis.

All of these pressures attract the ideology of grade inflation, which both pushes faculty to pass students that don’t deserve it, while also pressuring students to pass their classes at all costs, which in some cases involves cheating. There is no love of learning fostered here, unless a specific teacher goes out of their way to show you their passion. You can see that energy and fall in love with it, but this requires a teacher that can motivate you. They don’t force you to drink the water, rather they inspire you to.

So, why isn’t the love of learning fostered? Once the formative years of education have passed (Pre-k-8th grade) , it is extremely difficult to catch a student up on the years of repetition one must go through to build that desire. The same muscle memory concept can also be applied to the way that students internalize wanting to get good grades and pass the class, rather than bring and express their own unique selves in the assignment. But at the same time, neither assignments nor the grading system as a whole are set up in a way for this process to occur.

Rather, we must start designing assignments that have the goal of sharing a student’s original thinking and ideas. It must get them invested in the subject and make them proud to be learning, rather than a bore for a grade. This means more flexible assignments that leave the possibility for students to pursue  fields that are interesting to them. This also helps teachers and students build better relationships, as they will get to know more about each other. That’s what education is all about.

Teaching methods themselves must also change. The concept of information dumping through lecturing is simply out of touch with the interests and attention spans of today’s students. Instead, we should bring students into the conversation rather than pretend like they don’t know how they learn best. Working on examples for next year’s class and critiquing the assignment itself with the professor are practical ways to get a student involved in the class, while also futureproofing assignments. But there is only so much we can do at the university level. The complete comprehensive approach to these problems also requires us to address the lack of love for learning in K-12. 

Only from a solid base of knowledge and critical thinking skills will we be able to think critically about how to best use AI in class, and more importantly, if that’s even a rabbit hole worth going down.

Justus Swan still thinks we’re totally doomed, but maybe some high quality sublimation will come out of it.

A version of this article appeared on p. 16 of the February 19, 2026 edition of the Daily Nexus.