What makes a great teacher in the age of AI?

The world is on sensory overload. Pro Max. On steroids.

So much so that, at times, it feels as though our brains are fried—buzzing with the constant stimulation delivered by a single gadget: our phones.

AI is a willing collaborator. Ask it a question and you’ll get a million answers. (No guarantees about their accuracy, though—AI has an uncanny ability to sound confidently correct, even when it isn’t!)

Give it enough agency and it can even compose your thoughts for you.

So, in this slippery slope—or should I say landslide—of information, where do the disseminators of said information stand? More importantly, how do they adapt?

In a nutshell: What makes a great teacher in the age of AI?

My two cents

I believe the following traits are more valuable than ever in a teacher:

• Leading with empathy
• Being an always-learner
• Valuing curiosity over pre-packaged information
• Becoming a student’s safe space to learn, fail and stand up again
  Leading with empathy

Empathy is something our world seems to be running dangerously low on. Whether in friendships, families or workplaces, it feels as though we’ve slowly misplaced the ability to truly understand one another. I can’t quite put my finger on when, how or even why it happened, but I do feel its absence.

In the classroom, both the teacher and the student arrive carrying their own baggage. If we expect students to be empathetic towards their teachers, then teachers must lead by example. When a classroom is built on trust, collaboration and empathy, students feel safe enough to participate, take risks and grow. In my experience, that is when you truly get the best out of them.

Being an always-learner

Being a teacher is a see-saw of knowing a lot, but not knowing it all. You know a great deal, but you certainly don’t know everything—and acknowledging that is important. It isn’t uncommon for me to tell my students, “I don’t know the answer to that yet, but I will the next time we meet.”

Far from making me less of a teacher, I think it makes me a better one. It is a fallacy that a teacher must know everything; in fact, a teacher who is a continuous learner brings so much more to the class.

Valuing curiosity over pre-packaged information

A teacher can present facts, figures and beautifully designed slides, but if none of it sparks curiosity, then it was just a waste of precious hours and minutes. This is where education needs to shift—from rewarding memory to nurturing curiosity. The most successful classrooms aren’t the quietest ones; they’re the ones filled with questions.

Becoming a student’s safe space to learn, fail and stand up again

Almost everyone I know has had that recurring dream: you arrive for an exam completely unprepared. You wake up in a panic, only to realise it was just a dream. It makes for a funny story later, but it also reveals something deeper.

Psychologists believe these dreams aren’t really about school. They reflect how deeply the stress and pressure of our education system become embedded in our psyche. For many of us, examinations were our first experience of being judged and fearing failure. Those emotions don’t simply disappear; our brains continue to use exams as a familiar symbol for the pressures we face in adulthood.

So here’s a crazy thought: what if education became joyful? What if a single grade wasn’t seen as the ultimate measure of four years of a student’s journey? Isn’t it a little strange that an entire year of learning, growth, mistakes, resilience and discovery can be reduced to a single letter or number?

Students carry the weight of those grades so heavily that, in heartbreaking cases, the pressure becomes unbearable. Clearly, something isn’t working.

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts a teacher can give a student is the reassurance that failure is not the opposite of success—it is its companion. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn, and every setback teaches lessons that perfect scores rarely can.

So, coming back to the original question, what is the happy equation between AI and the teacher?

I believe the answer lies in seeing AI as a collaborator rather than a threat. AI can provide information in an instant, but education has never been just about information. The best teachers do something far more powerful—they recognise potential, encourage curiosity, challenge assumptions and help students turn knowledge into understanding. As technology transforms our classrooms, it is these deeply human qualities that will ensure teachers remain at the heart of learning.

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