Two educators are reckoning with who is really in charge: technology or the teacher. First, a teacher notices her students are quietly forming their professional knowledge on TikTok and decides to lean in rather than fight it. Then a high school engineering teacher builds an AI grading tool so efficient that it sent feedback to students without him ever reading it, and confronts what that actually means for his role in the classroom. Together, they raise urgent questions about judgment, accountability, and what teaching is really for.

• Pre-service teachers are forming their professional knowledge partly through TikTok and social media reels, including content from former teachers who left the profession, raising questions about how teacher prep programs should respond.
• Evi Wusk argues that the information gleaned from social media is already shaping how future teachers think, so the more productive move is to help them engage with it critically rather than dismiss or ignore it.
• Steven Swanson built a fully automated AI grading tool that sent feedback directly to students without his review, and after a student thanked him for words he never wrote, he rebuilt the tool to put himself back in the loop.
• Swanson describes specific assignment types where AI grading adds value versus where it falls short, including the risk of missing opportunities to learn who students actually are as people.

What TikTok Is Teaching Future Teachers That We Aren't by Evi Wusk

I Built an AI Grading Tool. Then a Student Thanked Me for Words I Didn't Write. by Steven Swanson

ISTE+ASCD Live '26 in Orlando, Florida

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Host: Ira Apfel, Editorial Director, EdSurge

Guests:

Evi Wusk, Ed.D., teacher educator and author of What TikTok Is Teaching Future Teachers That We Aren't

Steven Swanson, high school engineering teacher and author of I Built an AI Grading Tool. Then a Student Thanked Me for Words I Didn't Write.

Schools have been quietly chipping away at recess for nearly a decade, and a sweeping new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics says it is time to stop. Meanwhile, the federal government has issued a formal advisory on screen time and children, raising urgent questions about how schools, parents, and tech companies should respond.

This week, EdSurge reporters Lauren Coffey and Nadia Tamez-Robledo bring both stories together around a single urgent question: what does it look like when kids get less real-world experience and more pressure?

• The American Academy of Pediatrics updated its recess guidelines for the first time since 2013, expanding its recommendations to include middle and high school students.
• One Massachusetts high school cut chronic absenteeism from 35 percent to 23 percent in a single year after introducing movement breaks, suggesting that belonging and physical activity can drive school attendance in meaningful ways.
• The screen time advisory issued by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy calls for bell-to-bell phone bans, warning labels on apps, and the elimination of recommendation algorithms for children, but researchers caution that the evidence linking screen time to negative outcomes is correlation, not proven cause and effect.
• Experts warn that broad phone and screen restrictions could inadvertently affect students with IEPs and disabilities who rely on assistive devices, a tension the advisory acknowledges but does not fully resolve.

Recess Took a Break in Some Schools. A Push Is On to Bring It Back by Lauren Coffey

Surgeon General Advisory Wants Kids to Live Beyond the Confines of Screens by Nadia Tamez-Robledo

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Nadia Tamez-Robledo, Reporter, EdSurge

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