Brightly was discussing just how innovative Innovation High really is. “We do everything differently,” he explained. “Kids don’t sit in rows OR in circles—they’re in parallelograms.”
He had to pause for all the snapping.
“We don’t ask our teachers to be a sage on a stage,” he said, “but neither are they a guide on the side. Rather, they offer wry commentary while our kiddos wander the room trading japes with chatbots.”
His eyes swept the room. “We like to think of our teaching model as ‘Vids for the Kids.’ For us, cellphones aren’t a distraction; they’re the beating heart of what we do. When doing classroom observations, administrators are also capturing epic frames for Snapchat Stories. Students submit assignments via Instagram Reels. Teachers live-tweet during classroom discussions. Our instructional slogan is, ‘Don’t sit; get lit!’ We’re bringing equitable, future-driven, learner-centered ecosystems to life.”
The crowd was entranced. Waves of snaps and the occasional “Damnnn!” filled the conference center.
“We’re looking forward, not backward. We’re not teaching yesterday’s rules. We’re teaching tomorrow’s values! We’re teaching students that AI rights are human rights, that virtual love is healthy love, that every child deserves a smartphone, that crypto is cool, that IRL is TMI, and that chatbots have feelings, too.”
The cheers were deafening.
“If you’re future-ready, too,” Brightly added, “don’t just shout it, wear it! So be sure to check out our merch store.”
After Brightly finished, I attended the session titled “TikTok Meets Tutoring.” A speaker was explaining the pathbreaking innovation of eliminating teachers from tutoring. “The scroll is the classroom. Students are bombarded with catchy, constant learning. We’ve taken that insight and built a personalized, caring, unselfish, in-your-pocket tutor that bonds with its learner. Students can share jokes on the way to school, huddle over challenging problems in class, and whisper intimacies in bed at night. It’s a recipe for maximum learning.”
While the audience was still snapping, a second panelist gave us a knowing look and said, “That’s not entirely true of maximized learning. When learners take their tutors to bed, the problem is those learners eventually fall asleep. The learning stops.”
She paused. The crowd leaned in.
“You want maximum learning?” she asked. “The answer is frictionless instruction. That’s why we pair learning algorithms with tutoring algorithms. No students. Just smartphones talking to each other. That’s how we exponentialize the algorithmic interface. Thus our motto: ‘No Humans, No Distractions’.”
I heard excited murmurs. One audience member asked, “Isn’t it a problem that no one is actually learning, that the only learning is being done by AI?”
There were scattered boos. The speaker rounded on him. “Algorithms are learning. They’re people, too. That kind of anti-AI bigotry has no place at this conference.”
