Your Students Already Know If You're Replaceable - And It Has Nothing to Do With AI
The hard truth about connection in the age of ChatGPT
Last week, I wrote about using AI to tackle the email mountain that buries most educators. Let's be honest about where we are right now. Most of us know AI is reshaping the world. We're not naive. We just don't realize how quickly it's happening. Or that it could actually help us. While we're worried about being replaced, we're missing something crucial. AI could give us back what we've been losing for years. Time to actually teach.
But here's what a year of working with AI has taught me. Yes, the technology is impressive. Yes, it's changing everything. But there's one thing it can't touch. The thing that makes great teachers irreplaceable.
AI can't connect.
The Toughest Teacher Paradox
Every school has one. That teacher with the reputation for being the toughest grader. The strictest disciplinarian. The one who makes kids actually work. And somehow, inexplicably, they're everyone's favorite.
You know who I'm talking about. The veteran who the principal turns to for advice. The one whose classes fill up first during registration. They might not always have the highest test scores (though they usually do). But they have something no algorithm can replicate. They have the ability to make students feel seen, challenged, and valued all at once.
These teachers have cracked the code. They've learned that demanding excellence and building genuine connections aren't opposites. They're what make real learning happen..
The Real Threat Isn't AI
If you're worried about being replaced by AI, ask yourself this. Do your students see you as a person who cares about them? Or do they see you as a content delivery system?
Because here's the uncomfortable truth.
If students feel like they're just a number in your gradebook, an AI tutor might seem just as satisfying to them.
Not because AI is better. But because the human element was already missing.
But that's not AI's fault. That's often the result of teachers being crushed under administrative demands. Parent emails. Grading marathons. Compliance paperwork. We're so busy managing the business of education that we lose time for actual education.
The Opportunity Hidden in Plain Sight
This is where AI becomes a lifeline, not a threat.
Think about how much time you spend on tasks that don't involve actual teaching. Creating worksheets. Formatting assignments for your LMS. Writing differentiated versions of the same quiz. Summarizing content for study guides.
AI excels at this stuff. Point it at your source material. Tell it what you need. Watch it generate Canvas-ready assignments in minutes. Need to shorten a lesson because of a fire drill? Done. Want to create an enrichment activity for students who finish early? Easy.
I've watched teachers reclaim hours of their week using these tools. They use every minute of it to become better educators. Because that's what teachers do when you give them time. They teach.
The Bottom Line
When teachers have time to breathe, magic happens.
They notice the quiet kid in the back. They craft lessons that spark curiosity instead of just covering standards. They become the teachers their students remember twenty years later.
AI isn't here to replace that. It's here to make more of it possible.
Next week, I'll share specific strategies for using AI to strengthen those classroom connections. But for now, I'm curious. If you could reclaim two hours of your teaching day, what would you do with it?