‘Star Trek’ didn’t replace teachers or ban screens; nor should we

A second grader shares a story he wrote with a teacher.

Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

From the first shows in the late 1960s, “Star Trek” presented a positive vision of humanity’s relationship with technology.

On the Starship Enterprise, crew members use the latest tech to travel and communicate and understand one another, alien civilizations and the universe itself. Artificial intelligence (AI) is omnipresent; the ship’s computer can answer any question. As the series matured, it imagined holographic environments indistinguishable from reality. But even hardcore Trekkies often forget a crucial detail: There were children on those spaceships. Those children were taught in classrooms where learning is guided by teachers with technology everywhere but never the driver of instruction.

Contrast that with many American classrooms today. For part of the day, it’s as if the pandemic never ended. Students are tethered to screens, cycling through multiple disconnected tech products, with the teacher reduced to a silent monitor behind a desk. For another part of the day, classrooms resemble the traditional model, with students engaged with their peers, teacher and academic content.

The rapid introduction of AI has not corrected this divide but has intensified it, layering more automation and simulation onto the first scenario while doing little to support the second. The result is a fragmented learning experience that isolates and confuses students, strains teachers and undermines coherence across the school day.

This is not a technology failure. It is a design failure, driven by an impossible dilemma facing education leaders. They are asked to innovate, personalize learning, use data to improve outcomes and help students and teachers become AI natives. At the same time, they are expected to protect student privacy, limit screen time and cultivate critical thinking and human connection.

At their most extreme, these contradictions push schools toward two losing paths. One is to blindly embrace ed tech and AI, allowing machines to instruct children in place of teachers. The other is to reject modern technology, removing devices and reverting to a predigital vision of the classroom built around paper, pencils and chalkboards. The first risks dehumanization; the second guarantees irrelevance in a technology-driven world. In either case, students lose.

“Star Trek” rejects the idea of impossible dilemmas. In one of its most famous leadership moments, the Kobayashi Maru, a performance test designed so that failure is inevitable, Captain Kirk refuses the premise. Rather than play a game where the only possible outcome is losing, he uses human judgment and leadership to rewrite the rules.

When it comes to ed tech, AI and classroom design, Kirk’s lesson is clear. Winning for kids requires rewriting the rules of a losing game. That means seeing education leaders not as buyers of ed tech solutions or enforcers of bans, but as designers of learning environments that equip teachers and students with all the tools that they need to improve teaching and learning. 

In pursuit of that vision, we offer three “Star Trek”–centric recommendations that may seem counterintuitive coming from leaders of ed-tech organizations.

First, classrooms should focus on the human experience, centering teachers and students. Just like in “Star Trek,” technology should function as infrastructure rather than instructor. It should be part of the environment, not the focus of attention, supporting teaching and learning quietly and reliably without displacing teacher judgment or control. This means prioritizing coherent instructional systems that provide teachers with the curriculum and assessments they need to deeply understand each child’s learning needs and adjust their strategies in real time. For example, the latest tech can take all sorts of student information, from writing to speech and analyze it much faster than humans, providing powerful insights into student knowledge, thinking and growth.

Second, for students, we should emphasize human relationships over time spent on devices. Rather than forcing students to spend hours with chatbots, technology should facilitate and promote in-person activities such as play, discussion and debate. Six years after the pandemic, many parents have reasonable questions and concerns about the role of technology and AI in their children’s lives. We should respond not with bland assurances, but with intentional classroom design that clearly values students’ interpersonal growth, using technology only when it genuinely enhances learning. We can then be clear with families about these benefits, explaining the rationale for adopting any digital tool and the research-based evidence behind its use.

Third, both education and technology leaders need to recognize that we are at an inflection point and should behave differently and more responsibly. Ed tech companies, whether for-profit or nonprofit, are driven by growth incentives that reward speed over results. Too often, that pressure shows up as inflated promises, black-box systems and AI tools positioned as instructional supports even if they don’t work. At a minimum, these companies must be transparent about how their technologies work, prove the accuracy and quality of their outputs and account for their impact on teachers and students. At the same time, districts should streamline bureaucratic approval processes for education tech and AI that can take years to navigate in a rapidly changing world. Responsibility cuts both ways.

We are living in a sci-fi moment. As “Star Trek” aficionados, we believe we are on the cusp of a very Trekkian choice with AI, one where we can launch into space or stay tethered to Earth. Instead of being governed by fear, let’s make responsible, human-centered choices about how AI is used in schools, so teachers and students can boldly go where no one has gone before.

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Arun Ramanathan is CEO of PowerMyLearning, a nonprofit that works with districts to improve math achievement. Abbas Manjee is chief academic officer at Kiddom, an education technology company.

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