The High Schools Going All-In on AI

Ryan Knutson (0:08)

A few months ago, my colleague Sam Schechner flew to Estonia in Northern Europe.

He was there to visit high schools. A Spanish teacher let him sit in on the class.

Sam Schechner (0:19)

He had set up the class in the computer lab, and he introduced me to the class and said I'd be observing.

SPEAKER_3 (0:28)

The whole text that you have there, just copy-paste that into JAT, and you all, I have also attached.

Sam Schechner (0:36)

And basically, he showed them some sort of game-like activities that he'd created with JAT GPT for them to practice their Spanish.

SPEAKER_3 (0:45)

And then give JAT GPT the prompt that you have there. Yes, my dear, it's the same one.

Indrek Lilomägi (0:51)

Yes, so you should have.

Ryan Knutson (0:55)

Sam, how did you find yourself in a classroom in Estonia?

Sam Schechner (1:00)

Well, they are doing something that I thought was unusual, interesting, and a little bit scary. They are giving every high school student in the country, or at least to start with every 10th and 11th grader, their own JAT GPT account.

Ryan Knutson (1:19)

Why?

Sam Schechner (1:20)

Well, yeah, that's the funny part. They're doing it because they're worried about the impact that AI could have on learning.

Ryan Knutson (1:26)

Estonia started thinking about the project in 2024 After one survey found that 90 percent of the country's high school students were already using generative AI for learning.

Sam Schechner (1:37)

They figured that not doing anything was the worst choice of all, and so instead, they're launching a national experiment to figure out what the best thing is to do. And I wanted to figure out if there's a way to-

I guess, at a basic level, if there's a way to keep learning in an age when machines can do your thinking for you.

SPEAKER_3 (1:59)

You don't have to worry about the grammar, because the chat will tell you if you have made a mistake, and you can correct it afterwards.

Ryan Knutson (2:15)

Why does what's happening in Estonia matter to people who are not living in Estonia?

Sam Schechner (2:20)

Estonia, right, it's a small country, it's bordering Russia, it's a different language, it feels pretty far away. But this is really the first big deployment in high schools of ChatGPT.

The entire idea of school and how we encourage learning, and what even we want people to learn is at stake here. And so it's a glimpse maybe of what could happen in a school district near you.

Ryan Knutson (2:55)

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knutson. It's Thursday, September 24th.

Coming up on the show, inside Estonia's high school experiment with AI.

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Ryan Knutson (4:00)

Estonia's decision to bring AI into classrooms is not the country's first rodeo with new technology.

Sam Schechner (4:07)

Estonia, since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in the 90s, was early to put the Internet in classrooms. They had something called the Tiger Leap.

SPEAKER_6 (4:17)

Estonia's Tiger Leap foundations launched a program introducing IT science and computer programming at schools from the first grade.

Ryan Knutson (4:24)

During the Tiger Leap, new shows in Estonia showed kids rushing toward computers.

SPEAKER_6 (4:30)

Its designers point out that Internet and modern technologies have become an integral part of daily life.

Sam Schechner (4:35)

They're extremely proud of this. This is part of the country's kind of founding legacy. They see themselves as a digital country. And so when the AI revolution comes about, the natural instinct is, okay, we're going to have to grab this bull by the horns.

This is what Estonia does.

Ryan Knutson (4:53)

So last year, Estonia decided to launch a new experiment. They're calling it the AI Leap.

The country's partnered with OpenAI and recently with Google to give tens of thousands of high schoolers access to free chatbots.

Indrek Lilomägi (5:09)

This is a small gym we had.

Sam Schechner (5:13)

Not that small.

Indrek Lilomägi (5:14)

Yeah, but for thousands of students.

Ryan Knutson (5:18)

One school that's part of AI Leap is located in Tallinn, Estonia's capital. During his visit, Sam met with the school principal.