Addressing the gaps and the silences: My last post was on 5 January. And then… nothing. What happened and what happens next?

To be fair, my going silent online wasn’t a complete surprise. Some of you may not have even noticed. I hardly posted during the final quarter of the Australian school year – Term 4, 2025 – and it was ‘crickets from me’ in Term 1, 2026. Just a long stretch of online quiet.

When asked about this quiet – unusual for me – I tried to explain that season of silence away with the usual teacher shorthand:

“My plate’s too full.“

“I’m really busy at the moment”

“I’ve got marking to do”

“I’ll write when things settle down.“

“I’ll get to it next weekend”

But if I’m honest, that wasn’t the whole story. While some of those excuses had an element of truth to them, something else was happening.

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The internet gets a bit loud at times… (and I’m a bit tired of it!)

Over the last few months, the online education space has felt increasingly crowded with voices that speak quickly, confidently, and relentlessly about AI and education – often without much reflection.

You’ve probably seen the online Greek chorus of …

• Instant experts with polished frameworks and no classroom context. (Who are these people?)
• Tech types (too often ‘bros’) hustling product dressed up as pedagogy. (A tool isn’t a pedagogy!)
• Consultants selling themselves and calling it “thought leadership”. (For these types AI and the challenges faced by schools represent a ‘gold rush’!)
• Education commentators telling K-12 teachers what to do… while rarely setting foot in a school classroom and making sweeping statements without acknowledging the nuances and differences of teaching and learning experiences across contexts.

It’s not that these people are malicious. In fact, I suspect much of there offering is well-intentioned.

Also, to be clear, there are also some amazing people who I greatly respect who are generous in sharing some fantastically high-quality work online. (I’m sure you know who you are – and I am absolutely NOT taking a shot at you! Thank you!)

But, that said, a lot of the online AI in education offerings are little more than puffery and self-promotion.

And a lot of it is slop.

Teachers searching for answers to big educational questions in the milieu of social media shares can get a huge amount of poor advice.

In light of those points, at some stage in the last few months I found myself thinking: the world really does not need another voice – my voice – adding to this constant noise.

So, perhaps with a hint of disillusionment, I went quiet.

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Grumpy Vince

What emerged in that quiet space was my alter-ego. I didn’t plan for his arrival. Apparently, he just turns up.

I call him Grumpy Vince.

Grumpy Vince (generally speaking) doesn’t make an appearance in my classrooms — although to be honest, he pops in when he thinks he’s needed. I even refer to him in the third person with my students at times.

I’ve still been teaching, working with colleagues, developing PLNs, reviewing documents, preparing for a student immersion to Cambodia. building relationships, planning lessons, marking work, giving feedback, laughing with students, and generally navigating the chaos of school life.

But in my commutes, at my staffroom desk, in some of my strategic meetings, over my morning coffee, in my head? Grumpy Vince moved in for a bit too long.

He sat brooding with me, muttering his dark commentary, as I’ve observed education discourse around AI drift into shallow pools of hot takes, ascribe deep insights into the ill-thought-through binaries and sloppy logic of social media… or worse, sit in stagnant pools of performativity. (Grumpy Vince needs to be reminded at times of the wonderful things also going on in schools at times!)

All of this, by the way, while I was grappling with the daily realities of teaching secondary History at an auspicious (and frankly unsettling) moment in global politics and public discourse. It’s been an easy space for Grumpy Vince to make a home. Side bar: History is feeling very “present tense” right now.

And in a world like this, I wasn’t ready to post quick takes.

I wasn’t ready to contribute to the churn. Less churn might be better for all of us.

So I went quiet.

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But here’s the problem with silence…

Silence doesn’t stay neutral.

Silence creates a vacuum.

And vacuums get filled.

Over the past few weeks, a few colleagues and friends have said some things to me – mostly kindly, but some quite directly – that landed with more force than I expected.

In a nutshell, their core messages might be summarised as…

“Too few K–12 classroom teachers who are actually working at the bleeding edge of AI use in schools are sharing what they’re learning.“

Teachers need to hear from teachers.

They want thought-through reflections by other teachers as they grapple with an arrival technology in their classrooms.

Not some polished version that has ‘all the answers’. Not a product pitch.

We need to share the mess in the middle that is the reality of secondary teaching with AI – an arrival technology and arelational presence in the classroom.

The messiness of the missteps. The adjustments. The small wins. The ethical tensions. The student surprises. The moments of genuine learning – and the moments that reveal what really matters. The humans in the loop.

Tipping me over the line to blogging again was when some of the feedback got more pointed. Offered kindly over a beer and a wine by someone I really respect and trust was a challenging piece of advice.

To paraphrase that advice (basically) was:

“It’s time to get rid of Grumpy Vince. Put on your big boy pants. Start sharing again.“

Ouch.

Also… fair.

“Because if experienced and reflective classroom practitioners don’t speak into this moment, then the loudest voices will shape the narrative – and the experiences of kids in schools – by default.“

That’s not a great option for anyone.

I was reminded in this conversation of the second part of a famous quote by Bishop Desmond Tutu. Silence isn’t neutral. It’s picking a side.

“If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.“

I suspect there are a few elephants out there that might want to put their feet on some mouse tails at the moment.

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But there’s probably another deeper “why”…

I think we’re seeing a time in which we really need to be wary about AI in K-12 being divided into two lanes.

I’ve always hated such adversarial binaries. We’ve seen these false binaries develop around explicit instruction and inquiry teaching.

In this binary, in lane one, there’s the faction in the blogosphere who see AI – especially the offerings of ‘big tech’ for education – as a tool, a digital practice, just another product, an affordance… sometimes a savior, the future of education. While there is some truth in the conceptualisation of “AI as tool”, I feel it fundamentally misunderstands the true nature of Generative AI and underestimating the impacts of this arrival technology on school-based education.

In lane two, there’s the ‘no tech crew’. The ‘pen and paper is the only way to go’ crowd. The ‘reject the tech’ faction appears to see the challenge of adapting our ways of teaching and learning with AI as just too large. Too disruptive. Too ambitious. Not necessary.

As I did with the explicit instruction vs inquiry debate, my response is that nuance and context matter. These binaries are flawed. I think, again, the sensible way forward is by navigating a moderate middle course that’s based on research, reflection, and rigour.

Education is a deeply human, social, relational process.

Not the passive reception of facts.
Not a compliance exercise.
Not a performance.

Meaning-making.

And in an AI-disrupted world, the urgency isn’t to teach faster, post faster, or keep up with every new agentic tool. It’s about leveraging the affordances of the new technologies in our schools so that we can teach and learning more intentionally, more humanly.

Slow teaching…

To build student agency.
To cultivate discernment.
To keep the “why” in view.

Those are not abstract ideas for me – they’re the spine of my practice and my research: teach students how to use these AI safely and ethically, teach for discernment and critical thinking, and teach for the whole human.

That’s still the work. That’s the conversation that is still relevant. Still important. Still ongoing.

And that’s why the blog matters – at least to me.

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Finally: A seasonal reflection – from Dormancy back to New Leaf

One of my very first blog posts spoke about the seasonal nature of my work in the classroom. If my teaching has seasons, perhaps my writing does too.

In some ways, the last few months were a kind of blogging dormancy.

Not dead.
Not absent.

The life was there – just underground.

Reading. Testing. Watching patterns. Noticing what’s emerging in students. Sometimes seething in dissatisfaction. Doing the grind of reading and reflecting. Letting questions take form and shape before they ripen rather than exposing them to sunlight too early.

In some ways, I felt I was ‘over’ blogging and sharing. I saw an ’empty’ landscape and mistook it for a lack in growth, a barrenness.

But dormancy is not the end of the cycle. It’s what makes new growth possible. And right now feels like New Leaf season.

Not because I suddenly have more time.

Not because the world is less complex.

But because the work has continued and the moment is too important to let the conversation be dominated by those who don’t have to live with the consequences of what they recommend.

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What to expect from here

So, dear readers – for better or worse – I’m back.

Not as pundit. Not as influencer. Not as a vendor of some product, platform, or of some techno certainty.

But…

• As a classroom teacher doing some study into the messiness of how we teach and learn with AI as an arrival technology and as a relational presence within schools.
• As someone trying to do the day-to-day work of classroom History teaching in the VUCA world.
• As someone trying to keep history education honest, reparative, and alive.
• As someone trying to use AI as a learning partner without surrendering the human core of teaching.

I’m going get into this blogging again, I want it to be guided by something a statement of what education ought to be like a Dewey’s Pedagogic Creed and to stay true to my own Easter 2025 nod to it – an ethical orientation.

I don’t want my blog to be just another content churn.

My guess is, therefore, that I’ll likely be pretty active in sharing ideas, experiences, reflections and learning in this blog during Terms 2 and 3 of the Australian school year (roughly April – September) but be a little less vocal at other times of the year.

In an era where anyone can publish anything instantly, there’s a time to share and a time to stop and think.

I hope to make some good choices. Thanks for staying with me.