AI offers us education without any community - Taipei Times

Daniel Eyrich's recent response ("Redefining academic rigor in the age of AI," page 8, June 8) to my Taipei Times essay made an important point: Teaching is a human activity. Artificial intelligence (AI) can provide information, correct grammar, summarize texts and simulate conversation, but it cannot replace the human encounters at the heart of education.

I agree. However, the danger is not simply that AI might make education less human. It is that many educational settings had already become less human before AI arrived.

This matters especially for Taiwan. Taiwan is investing seriously in English learning, internationalization, digital education and AI talent. These are necessary goals for a society facing global competition, technological change and geopolitical pressure.

However, the deeper question is not only whether students can use English or AI. It is whether education helps them listen, speak honestly, disagree responsibly and build trust.

For nearly 30 years, I have taught psychology and peace studies in English in Japan, South Korea, the US and Poland.

I have seen students discover that another language can serve as a bridge to another person's world.

However, five years ago, when I taught English language classes for first and second-year law students at a leading Japanese university, I encountered a different problem. The students were bright, disciplined and courteous. Yet many approached English less as a living language than as another institutional game.

They worked hard, but often not to communicate. They worked to discover what the teacher preferred, avoid mistakes and secure better grades. They were diligent students doing what the system had trained them to do. After two years, I stopped teaching English language courses, not because I had lost faith in language learning, but because I saw how easily education could become a performance for approval rather than communication.

Later, as a community psychologist, I came to see the problem differently. It was not simply the students or even English instruction. It was the ecology of learning. Students were adapting intelligently to an environment that rewarded performance over participation, correctness over curiosity and grades over growth.

Community psychology begins with a simple insight: Behavior cannot be understood apart from the settings in which it occurs. If a classroom rewards pleasing the teacher, students learn how to please the teacher. If it rewards silence and risk avoidance, students protect themselves by saying as little as possible. Then we should not be surprised when students struggle to speak honestly, disagree constructively or engage others across differences.

AI is revealing because it did not create the temptation to avoid genuine learning — it simply made avoidance easier, faster and more sophisticated. Students can generate model answers and polish essays with machines. If education is reduced to information transfer or language learning to grammar accuracy, AI often performs better.

Howerver, real education has never been just about information; it is about becoming someone who uses knowledge responsibly within the community.

Language education, at its best, is learning to listen, tolerate misunderstanding, ask better questions and discover that one's own worldview is not the only possible one.

Toshiaki Sasao is emeritus professor of psychology, education, and peace studies at International Christian University in Tokyo. He writes on community wellbeing, international education, social connection and emerging technologies.