The Evidence of Your Eyes and Ears

This week we’re taking a break from the evolving civic situation in the U.S. to shine light on global stories in education that you may have missed.

Nepal’s National Teachers’ Strike Lifted: Teachers and Students in Nepal are resuming classes more than a month after teachers began demonstrating across the country in protests that included clashes with police over issues of teacher pay, sick leave, grading systems, and other issues. Negotiators had faced setbacks after several rounds of contentious negotiations with the country’s teacher unions. Educators have been turning up the pressure on the Nepalese government to enact legislation directed by the country’s 2015 Constitution that transfers control of the nation’s schools to regional and local authorities.

“AI tools are going to do to students’ critical thinking skills what social media has done to their attentive skills.”

AI in Global Classrooms: National Experiments in China and Estonia: Prompted by emerging policy statements on AI use in U.S. classrooms, we take a look at how other countries are faring as the pressure to adopt AI tools and lessons increases with the ubiquity of AI products. In China, AI in schools is almost old news; we’ll take a look at their aggressive stance on implementing the technology and compare it to that of Estonia, which has recently announced a partnership with OpenAI for the use of a custom version of ChatGPT for education within its public secondary schools.

Ashlie Crosson Named National Teacher of the Year: The Council of Chief State School Officers has announced the 2025 recipient of the National Teacher of the Year award. This year’s winner is Ashlie Crosson, an English teacher and media & journalism advisor at Mifflin County High School in Pennsylvania. Congrats, Ashlie!

Discussion Questions

High stakes make schools a precarious place to “move fast and break things,” but there are sometimes costs to falling behind. What is the appropriate pace of educational change?

When we worry about being “left behind” in the race to adopt artificial intelligence tools in our schools, have we considered the net impact of AI, or are we focused on individual benefits and risks? 

As we adopt more AI tools, do we risk learning becoming “artificial”?

What does it mean to “personalize” the educational experience?

For a full list of episode sources and resources, visit our website and click on Archives.