AI: Preparing Kids for the Future - Part 1| Ep. 114

TD Flenaugh and Tarquinn Curry discuss the impact of AI on education and career preparation. Curry, an educator and parent, emphasizes the importance of teaching students to use AI responsibly and effectively. He shares his journey from teaching biology to robotics and film production, highlighting the practical benefits of hands-on learning. Curry introduces AI tools like ChatGPT and prompts, stressing the need for students to develop critical thinking and creativity. He also mentions his role in promoting AI in schools and his recognition as an AI innovator. The conversation underscores the necessity of adapting education to prepare students for an AI-driven future.

Tiffany's Tips! This episode features another segment with Tiffany Curry, who is also Tarquinn Curry's wife!

Websites and AI tools mentioned during the interview:
- AI Classroom 2.0 (YouTube channel): https://www.youtube.com/@AIClassroom2.0
- ASU GSV (AI Innovator program): https://www.asugsvsummit.com
- CSTA (Computer Science Teachers Association): https://www.csteachers.org
- ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com
- Google AI Studio: https://makersuite.google.com (for prompt engineering and AI experiments)

Transcript

TD Flenaugh: 0:03

TD, AI is taking over all over in education and all over the world. Artificial Intelligence is a tool that is being used to help elevate human production, and it also is changing the face of production and even replacing some jobs, we have an educator today and parent, Tarquin curry, who's going to tell us about artificial intelligence and how to prepare our students and our children to make sure they're successful, even with advancing technology. Hi. Thank you so much for joining the following for learning podcast. We have this podcast to help parents and caregivers with having the resources, strategies and tools needed to make sure that their children are on track for learning and to stay on track for success. Thank you so much for joining us today. Mr. Curry,

Tarquinn Curry: 0:58

thank you for having me on the podcast. Appreciate it. So we first always ask our guest, what is that thing that made you fall in love with learning as a child? Well, I was always a very curious child. Always curious, you know, things around me, something I see on the news, you know, something my teacher would say would always like spark curiosity. And I was always naturally curious. I always felt like I was more curious than the other kids around me. I was always wondered, you know, and I always felt different because I was into things that the kids my age weren't into. I was into, you know, more I guess you can say more mature concepts. I guess you could say, but I was just always interested in the world. And so, you know, my parents always had me reading at an early age. So I was read. And so I was just always a very curious child in general. So that was the spark for everything, Alright, so now, when you're saying you had some more advanced or mature kind of interest. Can you tell us more? I was always into history for one, right? So, okay, I'll give you so when I was a little kid, I used to live in Louisiana, right? And I have very vivid memories of being a four year old kid living in Louisiana. And, you know, we lived, you know, was very rural, very small city called Kaplan, Louisiana, and there was the black side and there was the white side. And I remember being aware of that as a young kid, right? And I also remember watching television, and the other kids, you know, watching the cartoons and right? And I would focus on the commercials, and I would, I would look at the commercials, and I would see that all of the positive images of, you know, people on the commercials were Caucasian and the negative was black. And I realized I said, as a four year old, I thought about that, right? And I was like, Well, why is that, you know, but everyone around me, like the, you know, the kids around me, they're not thinking about that, right?

TD Flenaugh: 3:12

Yeah, they're not adult. That's like critical media literacy,

Tarquinn Curry: 3:17

so, but I always, but I always, I just noticed that, and I thought about that, you know, you know, and all through, you know, middle school, you know, high school, you know, I just politics and stuff going on, and I was just curious and wonder, you know, I wondered about This, and I wondered about that. And so I just always was aware of things going on in the the bigger picture as far as things that the adults cared about, right? And I always felt like the kids my age, cared, you know, like you guys are into, like, just nonsense. Like, who cares? Like people would talk about stuff as a middle I don't care about that. Who cares, right? And so I, you know, but you know, you're a middle schooler, of course, you're gonna care about that. But I didn't, right, so I don't know. I was always, I guess, had an old soul in that, in that sense, so and so that just kind of, you know, let me, you know, in college and I became a lifelong learner, right? I was just just read and just curious. And once I, you know, I'm interested in something, I just go hard with it. I just got to figure it out. And I go down, I can go down a rabbit hole of a topic very easily, you know. And then that'll bring me back to the whole AI topic, you know. So, I'm I go down the rabbit hole of things.

TD Flenaugh: 4:42

Well, okay, and so how did the you know what? How does the those skills, the things you do now, and you're saying, AI, you got it. You're into AI. And I know you're also an educator. Later and getting involved in AI.

Tarquinn Curry: 5:01

So after high school, you know, I went to college.

Unknown: 7:14

and that's like people that aren't from LA, that's like 60 miles east of Los Angeles. And then after that, I start teaching middle school life science. So I saw him from high school biology to middle school life science, and then from that, I moved to Long Beach. Well, I met my wife, Tiffany, and then we moved well. We moved to the valley. It was called like San Fernando Valley, and from there, we moved to Long Beach. Audience members. TARQUINN is Tiffany Curry's husband. So they have their kids. She homeschools the kids, and he's he's the educator husband that you know, she talked about on the show. So we're so glad that you're joining us, and we're glad you know, the power couple has blessed us our podcast in in more ways than one. And then I started teaching middle school life science. And then from there, I start teaching that with robotics. So they, you know, I was asked, Hey, you know, can you teach robotics? And like, I've never taught robotics. So I started, I went to a course on how to teach robotics. So I just got into teaching robotics. And then I was like, You know what? I just think I would rather teach just robotics. I don't really want to teach science anymore, because I was tired of that. Was this, you know, I wanted to teach something that was like, practical. And I started seeing how the education system, I started seeing how the education system wasn't preparing these kids, okay, or preparing the kids. And I just felt like a lot of the stuff that I was teaching within biology

Tarquinn Curry: 8:46

wasn't practical. You know,

TD Flenaugh: 8:48

we go back real quick to the biology. Can you give me example of something that you're supposed to be teaching in biology that you didn't feel that was practical? The Rock Cycle,

Tarquinn Curry: 8:58

the rock like, Oh, when I say preparing the kids right. I get it right. Certain things you teach kids right, like teaching them facts of the different types of rocks. This is an igneous rock, this is sedimentary rock. And I just felt like teaching these random facts kids would be like, Mr. Curry. When are we ever going to use this in the real world? And I want to say, you're right. You won't. I can't tell you that. I gotta act like this matters. We all know it doesn't, you know,

TD Flenaugh: 9:27

because, yeah, that's okay, yes, okay.

Tarquinn Curry: 9:29

And so I and so I said, I love robotics, because, you know, they make something, and they get a tangible product, and kids are all hands on. So I'm sorry. I just started teaching robotics, and then after teaching robotics for about four or five years, I started getting into film production. So on the side, I started, I started a videography company, because I was always into videography and storytelling. I just felt as though teaching facts, and I would try not to do it that way, right? But the curriculum you're forced to, you know, I just felt like. We weren't preparing these kids, right? And so my whole thing was, like, I want to prepare these kids for the real world, you know, what's, what's they're going to get graduate high school. And so I just felt like the curriculum was just, you know, I mean, some of the, you know, I did like biology, we used to do labs. So I used to try to as many labs as possible, because the kids love the hands on, yeah, they want to do a lab every day. I can't do that. I don't have the money or the, you know, resources. So, but with robotics, it was like a lab every day, because it was hands on, right? And so, so I taught. I started teaching robotics, and then, since I was doing the film. I got asked to teach robotics and film. So my prince was like, I'll buy all this film equipment. And so I taught. So currently, as we speak, I teach robotics and I teach film. So I do film outside of the school for, you know, different nonprofits, I mean, video, videos, I'll, you know, do I've done weddings, I've done weddings, I've done a lot of different things, right? So I have a film company called Silver eye films, and so I teach film to the so we, in my school, we have a whole film production. We make videos for the school. And, you know, it's a whole thing, right? It's, it's a, it's a lot, right? So we have a bunch of cameras. I teach the kids how to, you know, how to edit and how to do lighting and storytelling, and we use AI for that as well. I use AI, use AI for that. Yeah, I'll get to the AI piece. And so where AI, I guess, comes in is when, you know, chatgpt first came out three years ago. In three years ago, 2022 I'm like, Oh, I heard someone talking about I'm like, Oh, this is interesting. Like, what is this? And then I started playing with them, like, Oh, my goodness, this is going to change everything.

TD Flenaugh: 11:58

The rewrite method and the rewrite method workbook are your go to resource for helping kids to learn to fall in love with writing. It has the tips, tools, resources, strategies and skill building activities to help kids fall out of writing Hoot and into Loving to write, get your book set today. This episode is going to include Tiffany's tips. She is a homeschooling mom. She's gonna give us some tips about what she does. She's a mom of three, and we're gonna get some tips from her on how to get our children the competitive advantage.

Tiffany Curry: 12:59

The book is called 30 million words building a child's brain, by Dr Dana suskin, yeah. And then the point is about taking turns. Let's say the example of getting ready to go, right? We could go, Oh, I'm gonna put my shoes on. I'm gonna put my right shoe on, then I'm gonna put my left shoe on. Can you put your shoes on and then engaging with them in that way, taking turns, doing things. Oh, now I'm gonna put on my jacket. Can you put on your jacket? All right, we're ready to go. Are you ready to go? I'm ready to go, you know, going back and forth and engaging in that way, doing things together and taking turns, or even, like, with the example of building blocks. Oh, wow, this is really tall. I wonder what will happen if you add three more, you know, and counting 123, more. I'm gonna add 212. Can you add two? You know? Yeah, coming down to their level and participating in what they're doing is also really helpful with the building their their awareness of engagement with other people and the world around them. Yeah? Because children, naturally are just in their own little world. Yeah, they just see what's right in front of them. So helping them realize that, you know, that engagement is really helpful. So those are some of the things that I've done with my own kids. Yeah, just even going on nature walks. And I used to love to do that with my kids. We would go on AJ Watson and just describe everything that we see and everything that we're doing, and all the animals and the trees and the leaves and everything that we observe in our environment, just describing it and talking about it. Yeah, that can be really, really powerful. For them in building that vocabulary,

TD Flenaugh: 15:03

I think it also just makes things fun, right? Because, rather than put your shoes on, let's keep walking, let's go. We're just finding joy in exploring and doing things together, like it's collaboration rather than domination, though,

Tarquinn Curry: 15:29

I knew at like, the week it came out, that it was going to change everything. Yeah, right. And so I just went down the rabbit hole. And I just looked at, I started looking at other AI tools, and then I started following different people on Instagram and Twitter and YouTube, and my algorithm just, you know how the hat works, right? Yes. And it just gets filled with right now, if you all I get is AI, everything, yeah. You know, YouTube, Facebook, it's all AI, so I just consume it. And then I started realizing, then I started using it in my actual school, right? I started looking at AI tools for teachers, and I'm like, This is amazing. It's cutting down on my grading, on my lesson planning. And I'm like, why is everyone not using this? So I started telling other teachers. I'm like, you know, you should, you could use this, right? They're like, what? They were amazed. I'm like, You don't know this. And, you know, other teachers, I noticed they weren't using any AI tools, and I would share it with them, and they would be in awe. And I'm like, Oh, this could really help teachers. And then, you know, I started a YouTube channel, nice, okay, it's called, I have a YouTube channel called AI classroom 2.0 where I just highlight

TD Flenaugh: 16:44

AI tools for teachers, so definitely be in the show notes. You know what I have to say as an English teacher, that English teachers, some of them, were very suspicious of it, even with when I said, Oh, I'm going to use it for parallel prompts, like, if I want them to write about an argument about something right, I want the students to choose what they care about arguing about right, what they want to persuade people about, but then, but I also like to give them some type of model or something. So I'm like, Okay, I use some models for them to and they're like, they kind of look at me in a weird way. So that that is, I mean, I don't know that was like, when it first came out. They're very, like, suspicious. And I'm like, Oh, well, yeah, I used to hand write my my things, but I already know how to write essays. So it's not like, like, it's helpful for the kids, but they were really, they were so, not everybody,

Tarquinn Curry: 17:44

so I've given so. So that leads into the fact that I started doing PDS, right, yeah, at my school for teachers, because I became known as the AI guy, right at my school. Then, you know, then I, I became, I was named an ASU GSV AI innovator, which is they pick a handful of teachers from around the country. And so I was, I got that honor, and I spoke in San Diego. I was, I got to speak in Cleveland a couple weeks ago about AI to the CSTA at the CSTA conference, I just got named as being a part of the California State AI group to create the framework for AI for the schools across state. Oh, you know, I'm getting on different you know. So I'm known as, like, the AI guy, I guess you could say right in my district, in my school, and I get a lot of teachers who give me a lot of pushback. Number one thing is plagiarism, on English teachers like this is gonna Yes. You know, yes. But the way I look at it is, this is where the world is headed. It is. And a lot of teachers, I'm kind of honestly shocked sometimes that what some teachers aren't aware of that you can do, or what kids are doing and where the world is headed. And I tell them, I say, if you don't prepare these kids for what's about to happen, you're setting them up for failure. Because yeah, a I take, I tell people this, like, right now college this is a perfect example. College graduates right now have a worse unemployment than people that don't have a college degree. For the first time ever there, the unemployment for new college grads is higher than people that don't have a degree, and the reason is because new college grads typically get entry level jobs, and AI is the best at entry level, right? And all these companies are using AI to do all the entry level right. And so a lot of kids are going to college there. They don't realize that what they're going to college for an AI can do it right, yeah, or and they are. They don't have any skill sets, right. And so my biggest thing is just preparing schools. TD. Teachers, parents like, and we'll talk about this later, like skill sets that kids need to learn in order to prepare for this AI world. Because I feel this is me. I feel like AI. People like, oh. People say, Oh, you're into the AI stuff. And what I look at it as, no, AI is the biggest innovation ever. Yeah, not one of the biggest people like I'm talking about, it's bigger than the cell phone, it's bigger than the internet, it's bigger than the Gutenberg Press. It's as big as the wheel in the 1000s of like. It's literally, because if, when people understand the scope of the the ripple effect that AI is going to change every aspect of life, right? You know, people are like, I'm not into AI. Where you're going to be, you're going to be forced to be into it, because it's going to affect your life. It's going to affect your job, it's going to, it's going to be in every app, it's going to, it's going to literally affect your livelihood, right? Um, every sector of society. I don't care if you're a doctor, I don't care if you're a doctor, I don't care if you're a lawyer, I don't care if you're in real estate marketing. I tell people that AI is affecting every sector, and so the schools tend to be last. Schools tend to be slow on the wagon, right? Very, very, very slow.

TD Flenaugh: 21:19

And the other thing about it is, you know, while we're trying to keep them from Ai, is like they have access to it already, so it's not something that you can really keep them from. The best thing that we can do is show them how to use it responsibly so they're not getting in trouble. They're not getting, you know, failing out of their college class because they think that they can use AI just to replace their work, right? Like, if they ask me for an essay on on, you know, the industrial revolution, that I can just ask AI to do it and then turn it in. Now, oh, yeah, some people still may be able to do that and make it undetected or whatever. But obviously, if my professor knows that I just turned it in and I didn't do any work on it, I'm going to be in trouble for that or whatever. So helping them to use it in a way that's more effective, or like responsible, is the best thing that we can do, rather than act like it doesn't exist. You know

Tarquinn Curry: 22:22

exactly. And you know, a lot of teachers try to or the ai, ai detectors don't work, right? There's lots of different ones. I tell people this all the time, and there's a million ways to get around that. And these kids are smart, yeah, I can get around that easily. Most in most kids that are savvy, they know how to get around that. So teachers, because of AI. I tell teachers, first of all, if you're if you teach English, never just give a kid an English assignment and say, Go do that home and come like that. That's not that whole framework that's gone. You can't do that anymore. Yes, right now, if you want them to learn, if you want them to write something, you must do it in class. But you must, I tell teachers, especially like high school, you must assume they're using AI, right? So have them so because they're using AI, tell them, Okay, go create this AI. Come back to the class. Let's critique what the AI gave us. Let's look at the bias in it, right? Let's look at ways we can critique the AI, but you can still create a lesson from that, right? But assume they're using it because, and it's another thing too. Yeah, this is why I get upset at teachers, because I'm like, do you I tell them? Do you realize that everybody in the real world is using this everyone? So we're telling our kids not to use it when jobs are going to expect them to know how to use it. It makes no sense, right? And you, because you,

TD Flenaugh: 23:44

you know, yeah, we just have to change up. Yeah, yes. I've been doing some some teacher research on that and and using it with different populations of students, like how to integrate into the writing process, yeah? So you, obviously, you know, have a lot of expertise. What are those skills? You mentioned it earlier that they we need to really be helping them develop so.

Tarquinn Curry: 24:13

So one skill is, all kids should learn. Know how to prompt. Kids need to understand prompting skills. It's, that's, it's a skill set. You know, a lot of did I tell people I can ask chat GPT to create me something, but then someone who knows how to prompt and how to craft a prompt knows that I need to, like if, for example, if I want chat GPT to give me a lesson from my fifth grade science class. The first thing I'm going to say is, I'm going to give it a roll. I'm going to say, act as a 25 year veteran fifth grade science teacher. Okay, AI will take on that role. You always gotta give the AI a role. You always gotta. You always so it'll, it'll take on that. Role, you always have to give the AI like, how do you want it produced? You want it in bullet points. You want as a paragraph. You want because it'll just assume. You always gotta give the AI context. Okay, you're a teacher. It knows you're a teacher, but you're teaching inner city schools in a rural school. You got kids that can that are grade level. You give it the context, you give it a role, you give so these are skills that kids need to understand. Because, yes, you know, everybody can ask the chat, you know, chat, TD or clod or Google, AI, studio, whatever. People who get the best results are those who know how to prompt. I taught a class this summer. It's the kids two week course, and that's the first. That's the first. Whenever I teach the courses on AI, the first day, all we do is prompting. Because everything is prompting, whether you're prompting for large language models like a chat TD or art generators, or you're

TD Flenaugh: 25:53

doing okay, you got to prompt it correctly. Okay,

Tarquinn Curry: 25:57

so there's video generators, it's all prompts. Everything is prompts. Coding. You got a prompt, right? We I teach, I teach kids how to code with AI. It's all prompting, okay? And so that's a skill, though, right? And you have to learn how to do that. So that I think I feel as though another skill that that because of AI, because the AI is going to become smarter than any human it are in about four years. It's projected that the AI will be smarter than the collective of all humans on Earth. Alright, guys, AI, then there's AGI, which is the next step, then there's asi.

TD Flenaugh: 26:37

All right, wait, what's a What's you said? The second one is age, artificial

Tarquinn Curry: 26:40

super intelligence, right when you get to the artificial general so it's eight artificial general intelligence when the AI is smarter than any human on Earth, okay, it's not quite there yet, because there's it's almost there. It'll be there by next year. And then there's a si, okay, that's when it's not just smarter than any one human. Earth is smarter than the collective of all humans on Earth, right? And that's going to happen in the next four to five years. So when that happens, like I our whole concept of learning has to change, because the skills that are going to be needed I and I tell parents what they're going to need to teach their kids. Kids are gonna need to know how to be critical thinkers and to be creative. And the creativity part is extremely important. Because if anyone like, right now, I can teach a seven year old, literally, to make a Pixar level cartoon quality. So if anyone can do that, I tell people this little if anyone could create an app, or if anyone can create a movie or a poem, or if any random person can create the best quality, what's going to separate creativity, right? So

TD Flenaugh: 27:53

they can't always read it, though, and that's, that's how I could see some of this stuff.

Tarquinn Curry: 27:59

Read it. What do you mean? Like,

TD Flenaugh: 28:01

you know? And because, well, no, like, you know, I'm still talking, you know, like, I'm still talking from an English lens, right? But so, like, for a long time, kids have been plagiarizing, you know, they'll just copy stuff off of the internet before AI, right? But it's like, that's but, but they can't reproduce it, obviously, like, a lot of times, if they're not developing their actual skills, then they're just having the AI do it or whatever. They can't reproduce it if I ask them to do it in class or whatever. And then also they can't even read that assignment sometimes, right? Like, so I'm like, Oh, you wrote, read this. You wrote this report. Go ahead and read it. And it's like, they're not able to a lot of a lot of times, you know, well, like they're skipping over words, yeah,

Tarquinn Curry: 28:45

that's why the type of assignments we give, okay, go create a podcast now. Go create a book with with art that reflects the text. Go, you know, one simple thing you can do with your Excel, with with kids, is you can have aI give you two sides of a debate and have the kids, the kids in class, or your or your kids, dissect both opinions, both sides of that debate, right? You can have you can have the AI, whatever the it produces. You can have the kids, okay, where's the bias in this? Because that's another thing that I teach, is that AI is bias. And can a kid detect the bias? Because AI is trained on certain data, right? If I tell an Art Generator to create a person, the default is someone who's Caucasian. By fault you have to as the default, or the default with anything is, you know, whatever the data sets you gave it. So Can kids see the that's an assignment of itself, okay? Can the kids see the bias and what the AI is producing? Right here? You tell it to write a report about whatever, and the assignment can be detective, you know, no, you know, detect the the bias in this.

TD Flenaugh: 30:10

Thank you so much. Thanks so much again for joining us on the following for learning podcast. And Mr. TARQUIN curry gave you all kinds of resources, your website, all of it's in the show notes. And make sure, again, you're doing something to give your kids the competitive advantage. Have a great week. Thanks again for supporting the falling for learning podcast. New Episodes go live every Saturday at 5pm you can watch us on youtube.com at falling for learning, or listen on all major podcast platforms such as Apple, Google, Audible, Spotify and much more for more resources, visit falling in love with learning.com. We really appreciate you. Have a wonderful week.