Artificial intelligence should be used to help teachers improve classroom instruction rather than placed directly in the hands of young children, according to the owners of a New York-based school, who have warned that the rapid adoption of educational technology could undermine essential aspects of childhood development.
Doug Schachtel and Babur Habib, co-owners of Tribeca Community School (TCS), said schools must distinguish between technologies that support teaching and those that expose children to digital interactions before their developmental impact is fully understood.
“For young children, AI belongs in the teacher’s hands, not the child’s,” they said in an interview with TechObserver.in, arguing that technology should primarily help educators plan lessons, adapt instruction to individual needs and identify pupils who require additional support.
They said introducing conversational AI directly to children as young as five was premature, particularly when evidence of its benefits and potential risks remained limited.
Their concerns echo a wider debate over how schools should respond to the growing availability of generative AI tools. UNESCO’s 2023 guidance on AI in education recommended an age threshold of 13 for classroom use and called for stronger safeguards, data protection and teacher training.
For Schachtel and Habib, however, the question goes beyond the age at which children should begin using AI. They argue that schools have frequently invested in digital technologies without adequately examining whether those investments improve learning.
“Technology isn’t the problem. Buying it without evidence is,” they said.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has found that moderate use of digital devices for educational purposes is associated with better academic performance, while distraction from devices is linked to poorer outcomes.
Its 2022 assessment found that students who reported frequent distraction during mathematics lessons scored, on average, 15 points lower than those who experienced little or no such distraction, after accounting for socioeconomic differences.
The school owners said such findings underline the importance of maintaining the fundamentals of education, including effective teaching, sustained attention and individual support, rather than treating digital tools as substitutes for established learning practices.
The growing ability of AI to perform routine cognitive tasks has also raised questions about what children should learn in school. Although creativity, analytical thinking and emotional intelligence are becoming increasingly important, Schachtel and Habib cautioned against treating these skills as alternatives to literacy, numeracy and general knowledge.
“Creativity and critical thinking aren’t alternatives to the basics. They’re built on top of them,” they said.
They argued that children need sufficient knowledge to evaluate information independently, particularly as AI systems become capable of generating answers to complex questions almost instantly.
One concern is that students may become dependent on AI-generated responses without developing the reasoning skills required to solve problems themselves.
A study published in 2025 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that high-school mathematics students given unrestricted access to a GPT-4-based assistant performed better during practice but scored 17% worse in a subsequent examination without AI assistance than students who had not used the tool.
The negative effect was largely avoided when the AI tutor was designed to provide guidance rather than direct answers.
Schachtel and Habib said such evidence showed the need for AI tools that encourage children to question, explore and reflect rather than bypass the effort involved in learning.
Beyond academic performance, they also raised concerns about the effect of excessive screen exposure on children’s social and emotional development.
“It isn’t only a screen problem. It’s a displacement problem: screens crowding out talk, play and sleep,” they said.
They argued that young children require regular interaction with adults and opportunities for unstructured play, both of which could be reduced when digital devices occupy too much of their time.
The challenge, they added, cannot be addressed through restrictions at school alone. Parents also need to establish healthy technology habits at home, protect children’s sleep and remain involved in their digital activities.
A 2025 British study involving 1,227 pupils from 30 secondary schools found no evidence that restrictive school smartphone policies were associated with better overall mental wellbeing, although pupils in schools with restrictions spent less time on phones during the school day.
Despite their reservations about children’s direct exposure to AI, Schachtel and Habib see considerable potential for the technology to reduce teachers’ administrative workload and allow more time for individual instruction.
A 2025 survey by Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation found that US teachers using AI at least weekly reported saving an average of 5.9 hours of work each week, largely through tasks such as lesson preparation, administrative work and adapting educational materials.
The school owners said such gains could become more significant over the next decade as AI takes over routine tasks and enables teachers to focus more closely on individual pupils.
They also acknowledged the potential of AI-based tutoring systems. Research at Harvard University has shown that a purpose-built AI tutor improved learning outcomes among undergraduate students compared with conventional active-learning instruction.
However, they cautioned that findings involving university students could not automatically be applied to young children, whose learning depends heavily on relationships, play and interaction with caregivers.
As AI becomes more widely integrated into education, they expect teachers to spend more time designing learning experiences, providing individual guidance and communicating with parents. But they maintain that human relationships should remain at the centre of early childhood education, regardless of technological advances.
“AI will take over the paperwork. It must never take over the relationship,” they said.
