By Brett Roer, Founder & CEO of Amplify & Elevate Innovation
I was on AmpED to 11 with Dan Fitzpatrick, an educator who has spent the last few years building one of the most connected global communities I have come across in this field. Dan is the author of The AI Classroom, co-founder of The Edgy Futurist podcast, and the kind of teacher who has made a habit of finding the other people around the world thinking about the same problems he is.
The part of our conversation I want to share here is what US school district leaders gain from connecting to that wider community. The thinking that matters most about AI in education is happening in a lot of places at once. The leaders I see making the strongest decisions are the ones who have built the habit of looking outward.
A Posture Worth Borrowing
Dan said something in our conversation that has stayed with me. He framed the current moment as a liminal one. We do not yet know which elements of teaching, learning, and educator roles AI will reshape, which it will augment, and which will look exactly the same in five years as they do today. What he was certain about was the human response to that ambiguity. People do not sit and twiddle their thumbs when their tools shift. They find new work to do. They find new problems worth solving. The shift in focus is the constant.
The posture I want to take from that is one of curious continuity. The work of educating students is not ending. The shape of how it gets done is moving, and the educators who pay attention to how it is moving in other countries, other systems, other districts are the ones who shape what happens next in their own buildings.
The Quiet Power of a Global Community
One of the things Dan said that I want to put in front of every educator considering AI work in their school is about isolation.
He said that you might be a lone voice in your school. You might feel like the only person thinking deeply about how AI should land for your students. That experience is common, and it is also misleading. There are thousands of educators in similar positions around the world right now, and the global community of practitioners thinking about AI in schools has made itself remarkably easy to find. UK educators like Ben Whittaker and Steven Hope. Matthew Wemyss in Romania, writing guides for students and teachers. Voices across Australia, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, parts of Africa, Asia. The conversation is global. Anyone with an internet connection can join it.
The practical move I recommend to district leaders is to find three voices outside the US to follow. Read what they are publishing. Listen to what they are working through. The thinking that lands in your district’s next AI policy meeting gets sharper when it draws on what is being tested somewhere with different constraints, different student populations, different histories.
What International Perspective Illuminates
The value of looking outward is not that any other country has solved this. It is that the comparisons surface what is specific to your own context and what is universal.
The questions Dan and I worked through with international educators in mind are familiar. How does AI serve students whose families have less access to broadband, devices, and home support? How do we keep human judgment at the center when tools are getting good fast? How do we prepare educators to make decisions about a category of technology that did not exist when they were certified? Those questions show up in every country we talked about. The answers different systems are testing give US districts a richer set of moves to draw from.
A specific example. The equity question around AI tools shows up everywhere, and the responses look different. Some systems are leaning into AI as a leveller for students who do not have access to private tutoring or expensive databases. Some are building public infrastructure for AI access at the system level. Some are layering AI literacy into existing digital citizenship work. A US district leader who has read across those approaches walks into her own equity conversation with more options on the table than the ones already familiar in her state.
A Move I Want Every District Leader to Borrow
One of the things I push on with the district leaders I partner with is to widen the circle they listen to before making big decisions.
The move is small and the payoff is real. Before a major AI procurement decision, find one perspective from outside your state and one from outside the US. Read what they have written. Listen to what they have published. Bring two questions into the next cabinet meeting that came from those sources. The decision your district makes still belongs to your community and your values. The reasoning behind it gets stronger because it draws on a wider field.
This is also how Brett-level expertise gets built. The educators and leaders I admire most in this work are the ones who have made it a habit to learn across borders. Their thinking is sharper because they are not relying only on what is already in their immediate network.
Augmentation, Not Replacement
The thread Dan and I worked on for most of our conversation was the augmentation versus replacement question, and the framing we landed on is one I have been carrying into district work since.
AI is moving fast and the temptation in the field is to talk about role replacement. The more useful framing is repurposing. What does a teaching assistant role look like when AI handles part of what the TA used to do? Probably it shifts toward more relational, more individualized, more high-judgment work with students. What does a principal’s communication workload look like when AI handles part of the drafting? Probably it shifts toward more in-person presence and more strategic conversations. The role is not going away. It is moving.
The districts that frame their AI strategy around repurposing rather than replacement give their teams a way to engage with the change that is not threatening. The teacher who hears “this will free you up to do more of the work you got into this profession for” responds very differently than the teacher who hears “this will replace parts of what you do.” Same technology, different framing, very different reception.
A First Move You Can Take This Month
If you are leading AI strategy in a district, the simplest first move from this conversation is the connection one. Find three voices outside the US who write about AI in education. Follow them. Read what they publish for two months. Bring one idea you would not have surfaced otherwise into your next cabinet meeting.
Your AI work gets stronger because it is now part of a wider conversation. The community is there. The cost of joining it is the time it takes to find the first three voices.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the global AI in education community?
The global AI in education community is the network of educators, researchers, and school leaders around the world who are publishing, podcasting, and connecting around how AI should land in schools. UK, European, Australian, Canadian, Middle Eastern, and many other voices contribute. Anyone with an internet connection can join the conversation through LinkedIn, podcasts, books, and online communities.
Why should US districts pay attention to international AI in education work?
The questions about AI in schools (equity, judgment, educator preparation, student wellbeing) are global. Different countries are testing different responses, often with different constraints. US districts that read across those approaches walk into their own decisions with a wider set of options and a stronger sense of which questions are universal and which are specific to their own context.
How should districts frame AI’s impact on educator roles?
Repurposing is a stronger frame than replacement. The roles that AI touches are likely to shift toward more relational, high-judgment, and strategic work as some lower-judgment tasks move to AI support. District AI strategy that uses the repurposing frame gives educators a way to engage with the change that is not threatening.
How can a district leader join the global AI in education conversation?
The simplest first move is to find three voices outside the US who write about AI in education and follow them on LinkedIn, podcast platforms, or their newsletters. Read what they publish for a few months. Bring one idea from that reading into the next cabinet conversation. The conversation widens from there.
Bring This Work Into Your District
I partner with school districts on AI strategy that draws on the wider global conversation and grounds decisions in the values of the local community.
If you are leading AI work in your district this year, I would welcome the conversation: brett@aeieducation.org.
