Over the last two years, teachers and schools have felt immense pressure to incorporate AI literacy into their curricula. In the fall of 2024, California became the first state to pass a law mandating AI literacy instruction in schools, and several others have since followed suit. In the summer of 2025, the Department of Education released the "AI Action Plan for Education," which stated in part: "The Action Plan encourages schools to teach AI literacy and supports the responsible integration of AI in classrooms. AI is seen as a key education tool to enhance individual student preparation for the real world and to bolster the United States as a leader in AI."

Most major AI companies have pledged significant capital to train teachers or educate students in AI literacy. Google alone has committed over 40 million dollars toward these initiatives, while OpenAI, Microsoft, and NVIDIA have all launched similar donation programs.
But do we actually know what "AI literacy" means? Sam Wineburg doesn't think so. Sam is a professor emeritus of education and history at Stanford and the co-founder of the Digital Inquiry Group. He previously led a landmark study for the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) that exposed how standard school methods for teaching web literacy were failing K-12 students.

In part one of this two-part miniseries, Wineburg shares his observations on how educators have gotten "literacy" wrong in the past. He suggests there are more responsible ways to adapt to transformative new technologies than to hastily stand up literacy guidelines that may repeat old mistakes.

We’re pleased to share powerful reporting from our friends at the show Click Here, from Recorded Future News and PRX. They tell true stories about the people making and breaking our digital world. Over the past year, they’ve been documenting the digital – and cultural – erasure of Uyghurs in China.

As part of that series, they follow one man who set out to preserve his culture the old fashioned way: by opening kindergartens that celebrated the Uyghur language. And then, almost overnight, those doors were locked. And the school’s founder went from teacher… to enemy of the nation. Sean Powers reported the story and Dina Temple-Raston Dina, the host of the Click Here, brings it to us.

It’s not too late to take our listener survey about the Homework Machine series. We will enter you in a drawing to receive one of two $25 gift cards.

The timing of the arrival of AI has been bad for many schools and teachers. In the Fall of 2022, schools were just emerging from the extraordinary challenges brought by the pandemic. Teacher morale and turnover are at historic lows. Some school districts are on a good footing, and have the resources and stability to adapt, and even experiment with using AI to support learning, but many teachers tell us generative AI has just been one more thing they have to deal with, often without the support they would like.

At a moment when unprecedented sums are being invested in AI development — including many billions devoted to AI powered education technology — teachers wonder if our priorities are in the right place.

This episode was produced by Steven Jackson and Jesse Dukes. We had editing from Ruxandra Guidi and Alexandra Salomon. Reporting and research from Holly McDede and Andrew Meriwether. Reporting and research for the series from Chris Bagg, Andrew Parsons, Natasha Esteves, and Marnette Federis. Sound design and music supervision by Steven Jackson.

Production help from Yebu Ji. Data analysis from Manee Ngozi Nnamani and Manasa Kudumu. Administrative support from Jessica Rondon. Special thanks to Josh Sheldon and Eric Klopfer.

Original music for this series was created by Steven Jackson, Andrew Meriwether and Jesse Dukes, as part of the music project Cue Shop. Thanks to Will Grueb, Andy Wilds, and the MIT Music Department for letting us use the MIT Harpsichord.

The research and reporting you heard in this episode was supported by the Spencer Foundation, the Kapor Foundation, the Jameel World Education Lab, the Social and Ethical Responsibility of Computing initiative at MIT, and the RAISE initiative, Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education also at MIT. We had support from Google’s Academic Research Awards program.
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