AI in the Classroom: Are We Upgrading Education or Downgrading the Human Touch?
Not long ago, a university laboratory was a place defined by the smell of chemical reagents, the scratch of pens on notebooks, and hours spent looking through optical microscopes. Today, a student can walk into that same lab, open a laptop, and let an Artificial Intelligence algorithm simulate the entire experiment in three seconds.
Technology has moved from the margins of our lives right into the center of our classrooms. For the current generation of university students, AI is no longer a futuristic concept—it is a daily study partner. We use it to debug our Python code, translate complex foreign texts, and organize messy research data. On paper, this is the ultimate democratization of knowledge. But on the ground, the reality feels a bit more complicated. The biggest promise of AI in education is efficiency. In scientific research and laboratory settings, digitalization has broken down massive barriers. Algorithms can analyze thousands of data sets in real-time, helping young researchers spot patterns that would otherwise take months to find. It acts like a super-powered assistant, handling the repetitive, time-consuming parts of science so that human minds can focus on actual creativity and big-picture questions. However, this rapid transition hides a subtle trap. When an AI tool can write a flawless essay, solve a complex higher-mathematics integral, or predict a physics simulation instantly, the human brain gets lazy. The critical muscle of “struggling” with a problem is being bypassed. True learning rarely happens when the answer is delivered instantly on a screen; it happens in the frustrating, messy process of trial and error. Furthermore, there is an invisible element that no language model can replicate: the human connection. A screen cannot replace a professor who notices a student’s hidden potential during a rough lecture. It cannot replicate the late-night debates between roommates trying to crack a logic puzzle together, or the shared joy when a peer finally passes a difficult national certification exam. These deeply human interactions are what actually shape an academic journey. Technology should serve as a bridge, not a substitute. The goal of integrating AI into our universities should not be to turn students into passive consumers of machine-generated data, but to empower them to become sharper thinkers. We must treat AI like a high-tech microscope: a tool that helps us see the world more clearly, but never a replacement for the human eyes doing the looking. As we reshape education for the digital era, the challenge is not just teaching students how to code or use prompts. The real challenge is ensuring that as our technology becomes smarter, we do not lose the raw curiosity, persistence, and human empathy that made us want to learn in the first place.
AMONBOYEVA SHAHNOZA, UZBEKISTAN FACULTY OF COMPUTER ENGINEERING IN URGENCH STATE UNIVERSITY
Omonova Dinora Anvarjon qizi Samarqand viloyati Narpay tumani beklar mahallasi nurli tong koʻchasi
Life Lessons Hidden Between the Pages
Life is the greatest teacher. However, it often takes years to teach us its most valuable lessons. A book, on the other hand, has the remarkable ability to gather those lessons within a few hundred pages. Every book is a priceless treasure that preserves humanity’s experiences, dreams, joys, and sorrows. When we open a book, we do more than read words—we step into different lives, understand different cultures, and discover new truths about ourselves and the world.
To me, a book is far more than paper and ink. It is a silent teacher, a faithful friend, and a lifelong companion. Every page I turn reveals another lesson about life. Sometimes a single story teaches me the value of patience; sometimes one sentence inspires me to become a better person. It is in these quiet moments that I realize the true power of books.
Reading broadens our minds and deepens our understanding of the world. It teaches us not only to gain knowledge but also to think critically. People who read learn to see situations from different perspectives, respect the opinions of others, learn from mistakes, and remain compassionate even in difficult times. These qualities are the foundation of a strong and successful society.
The characters in every story have something meaningful to teach us. Some inspire us with their courage, others remind us of the importance of kindness, honesty, and integrity. Their happiness makes us smile, while their struggles touch our hearts. Through their journeys, books awaken empathy, compassion, and humanity within us. These are among the greatest lessons life can offer.
Today, technology has become an inseparable part of our daily lives. Information is available everywhere, yet people often have little time to think deeply. Books encourage us to slow down, reflect, analyze ideas, and search for truth. That is why reading remains just as valuable today as it has always been—perhaps even more so.
Books have taught me that true wealth is not measured by material possessions but by knowledge, wisdom, and character. An educated person has the ability not only to improve their own life but also to make a positive difference in the lives of others. Every book we read brings us one step closer to becoming wiser, kinder, and more responsible human beings.
I firmly believe that the life lessons hidden between the pages of books never grow old. Time passes, generations change, and technology continues to advance, but the influence of books on the human heart remains timeless. Books help us discover who we are, inspire us to pursue goodness, and give us the courage to follow our dreams.
Whenever I close a book, I realize that I am no longer the same person who opened it. I carry with me new ideas, deeper understanding, and stronger determination. That is the greatest miracle of reading—it transforms people. And people who transform themselves have the power to transform society and shape a brighter future. For this reason, I believe that every page is a lesson in the school of life, and every book is a priceless treasure that illuminates our hearts and minds.
Tree and field, the wild snow calmed by stillness and just waiting. Crystals. Shining. Millions. The outskirts on one side have birch, hundreds of them. The other?- sumac that remains red always save for a few that just become like some skeletal flowers and how strange they seem. The birds of the sky, sometimes, such as they are and be and go. In the summers a swath cuts through making a pathway around and through the pastoral settings.
But in winter then, everything looks and is pretty level. The wagon with its sturdy wheels and faded red paint upon wooden slats, is just stationed there like something from a painting. Old branches of trees in the back. It waits. Maybe forever, but certainly for now. All this under the skies tall and ancient, capricious clouds, the vagaries of landscape life,- sun moon wind silence rains hail or nothing at all…just the calm quietude of stillness for a while.
Screenshot
Brian Michael Barbeito is a Canadian poet, writer, and photographer.
He sauntered into the classroom, nose in the air, bobbing his head, eyes gazing over other students, expecting me to sign an add slip, which I did since it was a small class I feared might be cancelled. As a writer, I needed the work as an adjunct instructor.
He didn’t seem a hipster per se, although he did sport a bleached dreadlock bun, oversized square glasses, drooping pants. I figured him for one of the theater majors who often enrolled in the course attracted by dramatic monologues and performance as part of the syllabus. Budding poetry and prose writers alike were drawn to the Asian and European forms of poetry, sudden fiction, and memoir.
Just as I was passing out the day’s activity sheet and about to introduce the process of peer review, the students were all abuzz, so much so that I turned to one and quietly asked: “What’s up with all the fuss?”
She whispered back: “He’s a local rapper. He’s even been part of the lineup at Paramount Theatre for Oakland’s Hip HopAthon.”
That’s when I instead distributed the survey, “My Expectations for This Class” to be filled out, shared, discussed.
During discussion, theater folk predictably revealed they wanted to be performative in class and that this and their other classes could enrich each other. The emerging poets B-Bluzee were open to just about everything as were the storytellers.
He called himself B-Bluzee or something like that I couldn’t wrap my head around, probably because I’d grown uninterested in rappers, having been outspoken against rap lyrics demeaning women. This rapper, I came to call Blue, announced he enrolled to practice his act and make new rhymes, punctuated by “You feelin’ me?” as he looked past me and to the class as if an audience.
Some students chimed in with “Yas. aight, feelin’ you,” as if looking forward to, I imagined, a poppin’ class with some free entertainment.
Determined not to let Blue run the room, after class I handed him the syllabus and some rules of order: “Your assignments are nearly overdue having entered late, and your allowable absences for the term are practically used up.” Following his deadpan stare, I went on: “You, like everyone else, are expected to participate in aspects of creative writing meant not so much for the stage but more for the page, including being open to the work of established writers as well as to other students’ work.”
Blue said little, or maybe said nothing. What I remember best are the wings on his jacket, back to me, as he drifted out of the room. I figured he would not return.
Return he did, but at his leisure. After I said: “Blue,” to get his attention, he corrected in a snappy head turn: “B-Bluzee.” “Blue,” I continued, “your signature on the attendance sheet is artistic,” and continued with the off-the-cuff remark of “Just like tags on the campus pedestrian tunnel wall sprayed in silver huffer paint.”
He never turned in assignments or responded in workshops after that. Even the MMA fighter never missed a day despite late nights, black eyes, split lips. Nor did the single mother struggling with childcare, or others facing life’s unsung but ongoing challenges.
And then came time for final presentations of what students chose as their best writing to present as their portfolio in self-published chapbooks to exchange with each other and to turn in for a grade. This time I hoped Blue would finally participate, come to the front of the class and perform as others had, performance supposedly being his thing. I coaxed him: “C’mon Blue. Your’ve got a captive audience here.”
He just shook it off with a shoulder shrug, pulling his hoodie up over his head and down past his eyes, slouching at his desk. At the end of that last class, I distributed a final survey titled “The Grade I Deserve and Why” students could pick up at my office for my written response.
As I read them at home later that night, I was touched by the thoughtfulness in their narratives about their own work and working with others. Then came B-Bluzee’s, an unexpected reply written in graffiti style lettering with a thick silver marker: “Fuck It. Gimme an F.”
And at that, really feelin’ blue, I wrote heavy-handedly in blood red: “OK—you got it.”
The Naked Couple at the Window
The complimentary champagne cocktail couldn’t begin to take the edge of things, leaving me feeling downhearted and disenchanted by the whole arts scene in the city where The Woman I Love and I had relocated. What a night at Bazaar Cafe on the outskirts of San Francisco, feeling like quite the wallflower. Who wouldn’t, as the other three poets featured sequestered in a corner reminiscing college days and amusing current students there to perhaps get a bit of extra credit.
“Stop beating yourself up,” The Woman I Love insisted. “Your stuff is better than all of theirs,” she reassured; but it didn’t help much as I carped on about having sold only one book and to the owner who liked that we both had roots back East.
As if this wasn’t enough, The Woman I Love decided to take one of her disastrous shortcuts through a neighborhood where we’d never been with its plethora of older highrises. Stuck in traffic, the light on the fritz, people were not playing well with everyone off to somewhere to do something that must have been terribly important made clear from the incessant bleating of horns and finger flying birds at windows.
Slumped riding shotgun, no radio station could drown out the self-obsessed clamor of thoughts in my head or cacophony of the street. It was then I looked upward toward the stars, perhaps for a bit of hope or calm; but there was not a one to be seen under the umbrella of city glow from ambient light. There was, however, something else that caught my eye—a second story apartment with blaring wall-to-wall and ceiling-to-floor lighting that seemed so barely furnished I wondered whether anyone lived there. Just then up from the couch, backs to the window, two figures rose, a fit and trim man and woman likely in their early twenties—both stark naked.
They stood there for a time. No hand holding, hugging, kissing. Then they moved in sync in glissades like practiced performers, one sliding along from the right, the other from the left until meeting center stage in front of the window where they did not touch, arms dangling at their sides, but only stared into the sea of cars below. The Naked Couple at the Window stood for a few mesmerizing minutes doing absolutely nothing, until they slid back to their original position in front of the couch before moving effortlessly en pointe toward a darkened room across the open space, turned back around, dipped in ballet révérence, then switched off the lights.
“Did you see that? I asked The Woman I Love.
“Did I see what? Those damn robo-taxis jammed up in the next lane?”
“No. Did you see The Naked Couple in the Window?”
“Are you being a Peeping Tomacita again?” was her only response as she released her white knuckle grip from the steering wheel to applaud traffic lights finally functional.
“C’mon, you really didn’t see that?”
The Woman I Love took my hand in hers and answered, almost in a condescending whisper: “Time to go home and maybe write one of your more wacky poems or wild tales about being stuck in traffic and gawking at The Naked Couple at the Window.”
People’s Drug
Melody took her usual seat at the counter near the prescription window of People’s Drugstore in Washington D. C.’s Georgetown neighborhood for her Sunday morning order of rye toast and black tea.
Saturday nights, the People’s corner was a hot spot she sometimes visited to get psychedelics from kooky weekend dealers. In those days she fit in with the eccentric cast of characters, smoking her Virginia Slims, sporting a boyish pixie, wearing false eyelashes, mod dresses, colored tights in chunky heeled ankle boots. Like most young people then, she was open to new experiences, especially if a bit taboo.
The waitress, always in uniform with her enamel name tag as Alice, knew just when to offer her more hot water for her teabag, never commenting on anything. Until one day, nodding toward a man on the opposite side of the oval counter, Alice questioned with an air of suspicion: “Are you okay with that guy taking pictures of you?”
At first Melody shrugged it off, since she never paid attention to or spoke to other patrons, not even regulars and certainly not this gawky and ill-kempt man, but then some huff washed over her. She slid off her stool, circled over to him, taking him by surprise as he looked longingly into her eyes behind muted shades. Then in a snit she snatched his camera, pulled out the ribbon of film, took it back to her seat, stubbed out her cigarette on it before dropping it into the teacup Alice instantly filled with hot water.
Melody doubled Alice’s tab to make an appreciative tip for her and made her way out as Alice played a song of the times on the countertop juke box, “These Boots are Made for Walking.” That was Melody’s cue to point back at the guy clasping his camera to his chest as she chimed in on the song: “and they just walked all over you.”
It cannot be told by drowning someone in false words, by smothering them in gifts, by laying red carpets along their path.
Never with splendor— love is not wrapped in shining paper.
To love is to sit at the edge of the soul, without a rope of safety, with a lamp that gives no light, and descend into a mysterious well.
To love is to wander fearlessly through the hidden chambers of faces where fragile dawns tremble.
In that dark silence, to hear what is left unsaid, to see what mirrors do not reflect, to become the sun that enlightens hearts with sincere glances mistaken for faintness.
Even if centuries pass, though fragile and trembling, it is the majestic mountain whose name never changes, the one you always seek refuge in— to love.
Nidia Amelia García, from Buenos Aires, Argentina, is a writer and an active member of Juntos por las Letras (Together for Letters). She has participated in numerous virtual events in Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Spain, Colombia, Portugal, Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and elsewhere. She has also contributed to literary anthologies such as “Books of the Immortals” and “Anthology of the 50 Poets of the World 2022.”
