by Nicole States, Instructional Developer, Reinert Center
We live in a world that celebrates constant motion, where productivity is a badge of honor and “busy” is a personality trait. In this culture, it’s no wonder Generative AI (GenAI) feels both thrilling and threatening.
For many of us, our livelihoods and everything we value about learning – slow, deliberate thinking, the careful process of understanding – feel like they’re under threat. It’s scary. It’s unknown. We want to protect the integrity of our fields and share our love of learning, and we also fear for our own security and purpose as educators. However, if we respond to GenAI and other cultural norms combatively, we might create a larger gap between students and us.
Instead, checking in on who our students are and the world they’re living in is an alternative. Many of our students didn’t grow up in the same society we did, and pretending they did can make it harder to teach them. We need to understand how today’s society shapes the way our students show up in the classroom. One example of a cultural shift lies in how we talk about work and success.
“Hustle culture,” “the grind,” “girl bossing”, whatever you call it, it’s all rooted in the same belief: that every moment should be productive. NPR’s Code Switch (Rosario, 2020) traced the word “hustle” back through its history and transformations, showing how it went from survival and side gigs to a cultural badge of honor.
Today, hustle culture is everywhere. Students see influencers their age or younger earning money- some before they can even drive. The message is clear: if you’re not “successful” before 18, you’re falling behind.
That belief affects how our students show up in the classroom. Students feel they must be efficient, strategic, and outcome-oriented because that is what the world rewards. And learning doesn’t fit neatly into that model. Learning is slow. It’s messy. It takes time and practice and, often, failure. These aspects of learning do not fit easily into a world that rewards speed. Maybe that’s why tools like GenAI feel so appealing; they promise efficiency in a culture that equates efficiency with worth.
Let me be clear: I am not arguing that we must give up and embrace that GenAI will do everything in the classroom. But maybe the challenge isn’t about stopping students from using GenAI or rejecting efficiency altogether. Maybe it is about reimagining what “productive” learning really means.
What if we made space to show students that learning isn’t a race? That thinking deeply is not inefficiency, but it is an investment. What if we created classrooms that reward curiosity, connection, and creativity as much as correctness? That doesn’t mean ignoring the risks or limitations of GenAI. It means meeting students in the culture they live in and inviting them to rediscover the value of slowing down and working together.
As instructors, we can teach the importance of and model what it looks like to pause, to question, to slow down. If we don’t, it won’t be GenAI that disconnects us from our students; it will be our unwillingness to understand their world.
Reference
Rosario, I. (2020, April 3). When The “Hustle” Isn’t Enough. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/04/03/826015780/when-the-hustle-isnt-enough
The Notebook 