Global Teacher Professional Development Forum discusses AI's impact on teacher professionalism: beware of education to the "AI power"

"As AI becomes widespread, teachers are facing the risk of 'deprofessionalization,' and we must safeguard this professionalism." On November 2, at the Sixth Global Teacher Professional Development Forum held at Shanghai Normal University, multiple experts and educators jointly explored how teachers should develop in the AI era. Beyond embracing technology, we must also be wary of the "AI power" of education. As one scholar noted, only when education is greater than 1 can AI rapidly improve the quality of education; if education itself is less than 1, then education under this AI power will instead "shrink" and "depreciate." Give learning back to students and fully unleash their subjectivity. "We cannot just tell students to study hard and get high scores; we must help them find themselves, accept themselves, and master themselves." Cheng Jieming, professor emeritus at the Faculty of Education of the University of Hong Kong, believes that the mission of education is to "release and strengthen human subjectivity," and that human subjectivity is especially important in the AI era. "In the AI era, learning should be given back to students. Students themselves possess the ability to learn; the key is whether we can be good supporters and enablers." What he worries about most is applying AI within the old educational framework. "If AI is merely fitted into the traditional educational framework, it will only push the ills of traditional education to the extreme." He gave an example: some schools purchased heavily promoted AI systems, installed cameras in every corner of classrooms to collect data on every move of teachers and students, and even counted the number of times students raised their hands. "This is truly absurd!" Liang Xiaoyan, lead education specialist at the World Bank, likewise placed "protecting students' necessary cognitive thinking processes" in an important position when discussing instructional design principles. "This part cannot be done by AI on students' behalf; the subject of thinking must be the learner." She stated that AI can be assigned the role of assisting goals, but this does not remove the thinking investment necessary for students' growth. In addition, Cheng Jieming believes that students should be encouraged to use AI, and that if they are given enough space for autonomous learning, many surprises may emerge. He mentioned a student forum he once attended, where students talked about using AI for daily assisted learning and also extending it to areas of personal interest and toward practice—for example, some students built a platform for elderly people living alone, reminding middle-aged children every day to ask, "Have you checked in on your parents today?", and used AI to help family members who had no time to read carefully distill the long heartfelt words written by the elderly. "Young people are AI natives; they grew up in an environment surrounded by AI. Whether they can do well in the future depends on their ability to harness AI, so we should encourage use while minimizing harm." Between the pros and cons brought by AI, "training tailored to the individual" is more important. Beyond AI's transformation of educational philosophy, for teachers as individuals, is AI a helper or an opponent? Wu Di, a professor at Central China Normal University, based on surveys of teachers in the eastern, central, and western regions, pointed out the two-sided nature of AI. The favorable side is clearly visible: it reduces teachers' administrative burden—"repetitive tasks can require less investment, and non-repetitive tasks can improve efficiency"; it expands teaching resources and learning contexts; and with learning big data, it helps understand the individualized situation of each student in the class. However, the unfavorable side is equally prominent. Wu Di stated that the first and foremost is the erosion of knowledge authority: "Today's students will question teachers more and more, because there are too many channels for obtaining information, and teachers' status as knowledge authorities is beginning to decline." The second is the erosion of professional judgment and professional autonomy: "The suggestions given by AI differ from teachers' judgments, causing teachers sometimes to be confused and even to doubt themselves." What makes frontline teachers most anxious is the weakening of emotion: "AI may reduce the proportion of time for real teacher-student interaction." Wu Di mentioned that teachers may worry, "Will the warmth that education should have decline? Will the humanistic value of education be somewhat squeezed?" To adapt to AI's development, "training tailored to the individual" for teachers is very important. Wu Di said frankly that previous national training programs and provincial training programs conducted "large-scale, homogenized training" for teachers, which "can provide as much information as possible to all teachers in a short period of time," but different teachers have different needs, different foundations, and different confusions about AI. "If the same courses are provided to all teachers, it is difficult to achieve good results." After the format changes, how exactly should training be conducted? Ding Gang, a professor at East China Normal University, gave a thought-provoking example: at the World Data Conference, he saw a renowned teacher investing heavily in AI, with the rationale "I am a model teacher, and I want teachers across the country to be able to learn from my teaching experience." Ding Gang believes this is a very wrong concept: "AI is not for promoting one kind of experience, but for sharing diverse evidence and multiple experiences to enrich each individual teacher." Be wary of education's "AI power" and focus on person-to-person relationships. "Without students, how can there be teachers?" The end point of technological discussion ultimately returns to person to person. Zhou Zuoyu, director of the UNESCO International Research and Training Centre for Rural Education, defines the teaching profession as a "relational profession." In his view, teaching is a profession of people, a profession for people, and also a profession of getting along with people. "Where is the core of education? Safeguarding the human heart." In his sharing, Zhou Zuoyu cited a BBC survey: among industries most affected by AI, teachers were named most often, but the unemployment rate was actually only 0.4%. The abilities least susceptible to AI—communication skills, negotiation skills, the art of being worldly-wise, compassion, and creative aesthetics—are precisely improved through person-to-person interaction, and all are closely related to education. At the same time, he also mentioned the "AI death spiral" that education may face at present: teachers use AI for lesson preparation, question setting, homework correction, and homework feedback; meanwhile, students' homework is also done with AI. This situation is a cycle that education must be highly vigilant about. In addition, Zhou Zuoyu borrowed a metaphor from Tsinghua University professor Yang Bin to point out one of education's deepest current hidden worries—"the AI power of education." He pointed out that in the current environment, if the old, spoon-feeding educational philosophy is handed unchanged to AI to amplify, education will only go further and further down the wrong path. "If education is less than 1, then the higher this AI power, the smaller education becomes, right? The negative impact of AI on education will only be greater." Zhou Zuoyu also reminded that to respond to the educational changes brought by AI, it is necessary to distinguish "good for" from "good at." He believes that now "good at" is pushed to the extreme, and everyone has forgotten who we are, where we come from, and where we are going. "Well-being and happiness are our ultimate goals."