Listen to thisEditorial Comments are provided by the writer in their personal capacity and without prior sight of journal content.
The weight of the world’s happenings feels heavy, like a concrete block that requires multiple cranes to move just an inch. I’ve never actually seen a concrete block that needs more than one crane, but I hope your imagination will allow the analogy to play out. Here’s the thing: I am concerned that our imaginations are being stifled, that many believe they’ve hit their capacity, and I don’t blame anyone. Waking up to daily news of wars breaking out, lack of water in regions where it was abundant, polar vortexes hitting regions that rarely see snow, mines collapsing, governments’ oppositional leaders being ‘forcibly taken’ and so forth, makes it difficult for brains to move past the immediacy of what needs to be done. Yet, creativity, joy, and community exist. The tension of sitting on one’s couch to watch the Grammys, for example – to honour those who have made millions laugh, cry, ponder, and relax – seems juxtaposed with doing what I was taught as a CYC graduate – to advocate, stand up, call out/in, and resist.
In case your imagination is similarly stuck like mine, here’s an image artificial intelligence (AI) produce when I used the prompt, “Can you create an image from the following paragraph?” and then added the words above.
AI is a full can of worms, I know this, just as you do. The water and electricity it requires, the impact on communities that ‘host’ data centers, the algorithmic bias and discrimination, potential misinformation and security, and the cognitive dependence. Yet, so many young people (and adults) are using AI regularly. It’s not uncommon to hear a new parent share how they checked a symptom or behaviour on AI before concerning themselves with long emergency room wait times, to witness a teenager consult AI on how to best write an email, or for young children to use AI to create colouring pages that reflect their imagination and is not in pre-created colouring books. Anderson (2024) reflects on Dr. Ying Xu’s work out of the Harvard Graduate School of Education where she expresses how “children can actually learn effectively from AI, as long as the AI is designed with learning principles in mind” and further shares how “AI has the potential for personalized learning and to help students develop skills for this AI-driven society”.
I’ve been pondering this a lot – the use of AI. Opland (2023) provides a lens that maybe I can lean on, that generative AI may act as a catalyst for imagination – as a space that we can “envision new possibilities, even those that challenge the status quo or defy current understanding”. In addition, if the young people (and their families) are using AI, what is the role of CYC practitioners in learning about AI? Saqlain (2024) discussed the use of digital technology in CYC, so I’ll let you return to his work. What I do want to draw attention to is that the intentional use of AI within CYC student learning environments may be worthy of investigation. I have some ideas … maybe we can chat!
References
Anderson, J. (2024). The impact of AI on children’s development. EDCAST. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/edcast/24/10/impact-ai-childrens-development
Opland, M. (2023). The power of Imagination in a world of generative AI. Medium. https://medium.com/@mopland/the-power-of-imagination-in-a-world-of-generative-ai-d7017de9c8dd
Saqlain, N. (2024). The use of digital technology in child and youth care practice. CYC-Online, 304. https://cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cyconline-jun2024-saqlain.html
