I’m sometimes amazed at how incredibly quickly a blatant like can become universally accepted.
There was a doozy recently where Donald Trump announced that Tylenol (the US version of Panadol), when taken by pregnant mothers, was responsible for autism in their kids. Fortunately, that one didn’t get much traction in Australia.
But even so, all of Tylenol, Panadol and the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration felt compelled to make statements pointing out the actual evidence… and lack of it in Trump’s blithering decree.
Some lies are less obvious, and they can sometimes achieve genuine traction. One I’ve noted over the last few years is that vaping is less dangerous than smoking. It’s patently untrue, but even a little traction is going to lead to significant deaths and abundant human suffering.
Here’s another lie we need to mercilessly murder before it gathers any momentum – that AI will save us from our teacher shortage crisis.
I’ve heard prominent people in Australian school policy formation falling for this nonsense just because some greedy Duolingo CEO thinks it’s time to let his platforms take care of content delivery to kids while teachers handle the social skills.
That you CAN even teach social skills out of context is a lie that needs to die.
You don’t learn resilience and cooperation skills because a teacher walked you through a resilience PowerPoint preso and forced you to construct a poster about it. You simply got a little better at posters!
You develop these critical human dispositions by solving a Maths/Geography/Literacy/Whatever Subject You Like problem in the company of your peers. Even better is when that problem was posed by a skilled and qualified teacher who is designing for just the right level of intellectual and social challenge.
You have my permission to load the idea that AI is the future of teaching into a cannon and to fire said cannon at the sun.
Keep fighting that good fight,
P.S. Think about the moment a student feels safe enough to speak up. Or when a staff member finally feels supported to respond, not react.
That’s what happens when culture changes.
The Bullying Breakthrough Online Workshop is designed to help school leaders create that shift, and move beyond awareness and into action that lasts.
Join me on Wednesday 29 October 2025 and discover how leading with culture can transform the way your school handles harm.
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