Every early educator was once new to the field, and every young child will eventually encounter artificial intelligence somewhere in their life. On This Week with EdSurge, two guests examine what the adults responsible for those youngest learners actually need in order to do their jobs well. Nicol Russell, chief academic officer at Teaching Strategies, has spent 20 years watching where that support breaks down. Dr. Nneka McGee, founder of Muon Global, has spent her time studying what happens when the newest technology meets the youngest students.

Treating Early Educators Like Professionals

Russell built her career as a teacher, a center director, and a state administrator in Arizona, and she has watched talented educators leave the field for reasons that had little to do with the children in front of them. Her latest piece for EdSurge opens with a teacher who stayed for fifteen years, and through that story asks a harder question about who gets treated as disposable and who gets treated as a professional making a career choice. She also points to new research connecting teacher retention to how curriculum, assessment, and coaching work together, or fail to.

AI Literacy That Starts With a Conversation

McGee caught up with our team at ISTELive in Orlando, fresh off a session where she asked a room full of educators to sculpt Play-Doh robots. She has spent years studying how artificial intelligence shows up, or does not show up, in early childhood classrooms, and she argues that adults are not quite having the right conversation about screens. Her approach treats five year olds as capable of understanding the tools already sitting in their homes, as long as the introduction starts with people instead of devices.

Listen to the Episode:

Stories Mentioned in This Episode

We Talk About Whole Children. What About Whole Educators? by Nicol Russell

AI for Young Learners (Jump Start Guide) by Nneka McGee

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