AI in – A student-run marathon offers a sharp lesson for classrooms: AI may help finish work faster, but education’s purpose is the hard thinking in between.
Dodger Stadium will be waking up early this Sunday, and thousands of students will be out there with blisters, nerves, and determination.
In the middle of all that training sits a question that feels unusually relevant to today’s classrooms: if a Waymo could drop students at the finish line. would the race still mean the same thing?. In the Los Angeles Marathon with Students Run LA. more than 3. 000 students—mostly from Los Angeles Unified School District—spend months running before they feel fully awake. learning to manage soreness. and pushing through the psychological grind that starts long after the “easy” miles.
That lived experience is being used as a metaphor for a wider educational reckoning: the rise of AI tools that can solve problems. draft essays. summarize readings. and even complete tasks with minimal effort.. For many students, AI doesn’t just speed up schoolwork—it changes the nature of what schoolwork is.. And while faster answers can look like progress. the deeper worry is whether students are still doing the kind of practice that builds real skill and confidence.
The point isn’t anti-technology.. It’s about purpose.. In marathon terms. the goal may be to finish 26.2 miles. but the purpose is something else entirely—proof of endurance. growth alongside friends. and learning what you’re capable of when the route gets hard.. That distinction matters because education has long relied on “inefficient” effort.. Wrestling with algebra. drafting arguments that don’t hold together yet. revising writing. grappling with literature from different eras—these are not just hurdles.. They’re the mechanism for building expertise and agency.
Misryoum’s editorial lens on the AI moment is simple: when AI removes struggle. it can also remove the training effect.. Learning science research discussed in the commentary suggests an unsettling pattern.. Students who get assistance can look better at first. but when the support is removed and a new creative task arrives. performance can fall sharply—especially for students who come to believe the AI is more creative than they are.. The implication is psychological as much as academic: if learners outsource the hard part. they may lose both the skill and the belief that they can develop it.
There’s also an equity dimension that shouldn’t be treated as an afterthought.. The commentary describes a widening gap where lower-income students and some racial groups report using AI chatbots more heavily for schoolwork.. If one group uses AI primarily as a tool while another uses it to complete most assignments. the classroom can unintentionally become a place where some students build muscles of sustained thinking and others do more “finishing” than practicing.. Over time. that can translate into uneven preparation—students may look productive now. but their future performance may not reflect the same foundation.
This is where the “Waymo” metaphor sharpens.. A ride to the finish line might reduce physical pain, but it also removes the training miles that produce strength.. In school. the risk is that students will confuse outputs for learning: a completed worksheet. a polished paragraph. a correct answer—rather than the understanding that supports long-term mastery.. When education becomes primarily about generating results, AI feels like an extraordinary shortcut.. But when education is meant to build the capacity to think. create. and persist. the shortcut can start to feel like a misunderstanding of what the race is for.
What should schools do with that insight?. Misryoum sees a practical direction: redesign learning so the “hard part” becomes unavoidable in productive ways.. That could mean requiring more process-based assessment—how students draft. revise. explain their reasoning. and demonstrate growth—not just what they submit.. It can also mean structuring tasks that are genuinely difficult but well-scaffolded. so students experience challenge as training rather than as a dead end.. The goal isn’t to make school painful.. It’s to make school meaningful.
Marathon runners don’t just pass time on the course; they build resilience in real conditions.. Likewise. students need more than AI-access to succeed—they need experiences where their effort matters. their thinking is demanded. and their progress is visible even when they don’t “win” the fastest.. The commentary’s closing image of students arriving at Dodger Stadium early—confused by spring-forward sleep loss yet still likely to refuse the Waymo—lands because it captures buy-in.. They understand the difference between getting to the end and becoming the kind of person who can handle the journey.
For education leaders and policymakers. Misryoum’s takeaway is clear: in the age of AI. the hardest question is not whether technology can produce answers.. It’s whether schools can protect the purpose of learning—so students don’t just finish assignments. but build the capacity to face what comes after the bell.