New Brunswick added AI to its school curriculum this fall. The debate there is about age and speed. Here is the question that matters more for your child, and three things to ask the teacher about any AI tool.
New Brunswick added AI to its school curriculum this fall. The debate there is about age and speed. Here is what the research says matters more, and what to ask your child’s teacher.
Common questions
Is AI in the classroom good or bad for my child?
What should I ask my child’s teacher about an AI tool?
Will using AI stop my child from thinking for themselves?
New Brunswick added AI to its school curriculum. The question for parents isn’t the screen. It’s what the tool makes your child do.
What did New Brunswick decide?
New Brunswick’s English-language schools now teach about AI in every grade. The youngest students use no AI tools. They talk about how they feel about tech. They also ask whether what they read is true. Older students use a short list of tools, with a teacher watching. The list includes Canva for design and Suno for making music. High school students also get Microsoft Copilot. Teachers have their own tool, Gemini Notebook, that students do not use.
Districts check the tools and set age limits. Some send consent forms home to parents. Education Minister Claire Johnson says the plan covers “safe and ethical AI use in schools and development of AI literacy.” She says it does not displace the “fundamentals of literacy and numeracy.” Jordan Smith coordinates AI for the Anglophone East district. He wants students to look at the technology “with a critical eye.”
Not everyone is on board. Clint Johnston heads the Canadian Teachers’ Federation. His message: “Slow down, give proper support and training to educators.” Ben Humphreys, a parent, co-founded Parents for AI Caution in Schools. He worries “things were going too fast.” André Côté of The Dais called the plan “an important first step.” Superintendent Randolph MacLean says “we don’t have all the sides figured out yet.”
We’re really intentional with the tools that we’re learning, they’ve all been risk-assessed and there’s an age restriction on all of them.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
What makes a tool teach?
The plan drew praise and pushback. One worry is that kids will lean on AI and stop thinking. Both sides are arguing about the screen. Our view is that the screen is not the point. It is only how a lesson arrives. What teaches is the work the tool asks the child to do.
Roediger and Karpicke (2006) had students either reread a passage or recall it from memory. Right after, rereading looked better. Days later, the students who recalled it remembered more. Cepeda and colleagues (2006) pooled many experiments. Practice spread out over time lasted better than practice crammed together. VanLehn (2011) compared tutoring software. Tools that helped at each step beat tools that only checked the answer. Kluger and DeNisi (1996) found some feedback helped, and some made performance worse.
The same screen also carries tools that skip the hard part. Some hand over answers. Some pile on points and badges. Some count minutes in the app as if that were learning. A points system makes a child feel like they’re learning. Real mastery makes them feel capable. Those studies point one way: the child’s own work does the teaching. How well any AI tool builds in that work is still open. The CBC reports we read do not say how any approved tool is built. We will not guess. Our research page on screen time and digital wellness has more.
Key takeaways
- What changed: New Brunswick schools that teach in English now cover AI in every grade.
- The screen is not the teacher: What teaches is the work a tool makes a child do.
- Ask three questions: Does it make your child recall, practice over time, and see next steps?
What should you ask about your child’s AI tool?
You do not have to be for AI or against it. You need to know what the tool asks of your child. Ask the teacher three things. Does it make my child recall answers, or hand them over? Does it bring old material back over days, or cover it once? When wrong, does it show my child the next step, or only mark it?
Some tools are for making things, like a poster or a song. That is a different job from practice. Both have a place. The trouble starts when one gets mistaken for the other.
Then check at home. Ask your child to explain what they learned, with the tool closed. If they explain it well, the tool did its job. If not, ask for more practice and less tool time. AI will keep showing up in school. Bring the same question every time: what does it make my child do?
It’s very much a Rubik’s Cube that we’re all working on at the same time
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
You get to decide what a tool is for in your child’s life. Your child is able to do hard thinking. Your child deserves tools that ask for it. The trouble is the idea that a screen equals teaching. Our free Grit Download is about sticking with work when it gets hard. Get the free Grit Download.
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Your school district must evaluate your child free of charge if you ask in writing, whatever your income and whatever the outcome (US, 34 CFR 300.111 and 300.301(b)). That route takes time and answers a different question than you do. This one starts today, from what you already know.
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A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations (an IEP or 504 plan), or you suspect a vision, hearing or medical cause, pursue a professional evaluation too. That is the only route to those supports.
References
- CBC News (September 20, 2026) — New Brunswick is weaving AI into its K-12 curriculum, drawing praise — and pushback
- Yahoo News Canada, syndicated CBC report — New Brunswick is weaving AI into its K-12 curriculum
- CBC News (May 14, 2026) — Province plans to have AI curriculum for N.B. schools this fall, but opposition has concerns
- CBC News (October 8, 2025) — Many N.B. classrooms carefully edging toward integrating the power of artificial intelligence
- Roediger HL, Karpicke JD (2006), Psychological Science 17(3):249–255 — Test-Enhanced Learning: Taking Memory Tests Improves Long-Term Retention
- Cepeda NJ, Pashler H, Vul E, Wixted JT, Rohrer D (2006), Psychological Bulletin 132(3):354–380 — Distributed Practice in Verbal Recall Tasks: A Review and Quantitative Synthesis
- VanLehn K (2011), Educational Psychologist 46(4):197–221 — The Relative Effectiveness of Human Tutoring, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, and Other Tutoring Systems
- Kluger AN, DeNisi A (1996), Psychological Bulletin 119(2):254–284 — The effects of feedback interventions on performance
