Why does it Matter? How do we, as School Librarians, answer this question?

Why does it Matter? How do we, as School Librarians, answer this question?

Celebrating 3 years of chat and 15 years of friendship! Thanks to everyone for listening and making this podcast worthwhile. Today we discussed Pope Leo's first encyclical, Tolkien and our clarity of purpose. A great question or statement that stood out from this conversation is: how do we focus on what we allow our minds to dwell on… an appropriate thought in today’s world of AI and social media. After some reminiscing with Darryl, we got down to laying the foundation for our next episode, which is the school librarian's vital contribution to the educational process in terms of Dallas Willard's 4 factors involved in the domain of thought, namely, (1) ideas, (2) images, (3) information, and (4) our ability to think. Links * Keynote for the UK School Library Association 2021 Conference | Inquiry: An Educational and Moral Imperative [https://fosil.org.uk/forums/topic/sla-2021-inquiry-an-educational-and-moral-imperative/] (includes links to the IFLA School Library Guidelines and the IFLA/UNESCO School Library Manifesto). * SJSU 2026 | ALiVE Library | Teaching Inquiry as Conversation [https://fosil.org.uk/forums/topic/sjsu-2026-alive-library-teaching-inquiry-as-conversation/] with David Loertscher now includes a link to the recording. Details of the book may be found here [https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/teaching-inquiry-as-conversation-9798216194705/]. * Article for The School Librarian (74:2) | Inquiry: Fundamentally Creative and Fundamental to Creativity [https://fosil.org.uk/newsroom/article-the-school-librarian-12/]. * Forum post [https://fosil.org.uk/forums/topic/chatgpt-et-al/page/3/#post-90535] with links to infographics for Magnifica Humanitas [https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html] (Magnificent Humanity): On safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence. * Tolkien/ Gandalf quotation: “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.” * Neil Postman: “The question is not, Does or doesn’t public schooling create a public? The question is, What kind of public does it create? A conglomerate of self-indulgent consumers? Angry, soulless, directionless masses? Indifferent, confused citizens? Or a public imbued with confidence, a sense of purpose, a respect for learning, and tolerance?” * Matt Seybold’s The American Vandal [https://theamericanvandal.substack.com/] podcast. “The durability of a totalitarian state depends upon systemic assaults on mass literacy followed by continuous suppression of conditions for its reemergence.” * An article for ACCESS (37:4) | Constructing an Instructional Identity and Destiny From the Stories We Tell and the Songs We Sing [https://fosil.org.uk/newsroom/article-asla-access-6/]. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit elizabethhutchinson.substack.com [https://elizabethhutchinson.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Generative AI through Inquiry (Part 4)

Welcome to FOSIL, Education and School Libraries Podcast, where Darrly Toerien and I (Elizabeth Hutchinson) talk about what we feel is important in school libraries and education now. Today’s discussion continues from last week’s podcast, which was part 3 [https://open.substack.com/pub/elizabethhutchinson/p/generative-ai-through-inquiry-part-c17]of this conversation, where we focused on the INVESTIGATE and CONSTRUCT stage of FOSIL. This week, we focus on the WONDER stages in relation to learning. Highlighting the importance of students being able to create their own questions and that access to AI does not help in this area… we explain why we think this… “Only a person who has questions has knowledge” (Hans-Georg Gadamer). Links talked about in this podcast Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 1960. PPT presentation for the ALiVE! Library conversation with David Loertscher: SJSU 2026 | ALiVE Library | Teaching Inquiry as Conversation [https://fosil.org.uk/forums/topic/sjsu-2026-alive-library-teaching-inquiry-as-conversation/]. This includes a preview of Chapter 2 of our book, Inquiry as Conversation [https://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/69f0bbae005c8e00017343cf] (or QR code below). Of relevance to the Podcast, the preview includes the following: * Inquiry as Conversation Is Driven by Questioning * Inquiry as Conversation Leads Beyond Questioning to Interaction This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit elizabethhutchinson.substack.com [https://elizabethhutchinson.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Generative AI through Inquiry (Part 3)

Welcome to FOSIL, Education and School Libraries Podcast, where Darrly Toerien and I (Elizabeth Hutchinson) talk about what we feel is important in school libraries and education now. Today’s discussion continues from last week’s podcast, which was part 2 [https://elizabethhutchinson.substack.com/p/generative-ai-through-inquiry-part]of this conversation, where we focused on the CONNECT stage of FOSIL. This week, we focus on the INVESTIGATE and CONSTRUCT stages in relation to Gen AI. Highlighting the importance of students being able to think, write and analyse information for themselves. We cover age restrictions, duty of care and what we really want our students to engage in learning. Links talked about in this podcast * Frank Landymore, Analysis Finds That Google’s AI Overviews Are Providing Misinformation at a Scale Possibly Unprecedented in the History of Human Civilization [https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/google-ai-overviews-misinformation] (8 April 2026) * BBC, Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory [https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2025/new-ebu-research-ai-assistants-news-content] (22 October 2025) * Pedro Noguera, dean of the USC Rossier School of Education, Educators should seriously consider a pause on AI in classrooms [https://thehill.com/opinion/education/5822215-court-rulings-ai-education/] (04/09/26) * The AI School Librarian, Should Schools Pause AI? The Question We Cannot Ignore Right Now [https://aischoollibrarian.substack.com/p/should-schools-pause-ai-the-question?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=3cg80k&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email] (17 April 2026) We would love to hear what you think of this podcast… Do you find it useful? Are they enjoyable? Informative? Please do comment below… share your thoughts on our discussion. What do you think Generative AI is bringing to your school? Do you have any questions you would like us to consider? All comments welcome! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit elizabethhutchinson.substack.com [https://elizabethhutchinson.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Generative AI Through Inquiry (Part 2)

Welcome to FOSIL, Education and School Libraries Podcast, where Darrly Toerien and I (Elizabeth Hutchinson) talk about what we feel is important in school libraries and education now. Today's discussion continues from last week's podcast, which was part 1  [https://elizabethhutchinson.substack.com/p/generative-ai-through-inquiry]of this conversation, where we discussed the importance of preserving human voice in education. In this chat, we cover the importance of helping students cultivate curiosity about learning without AI, so that when they do use it, they have an understanding of where it may be taking them. We ask 3 questions for school librarians to consider:- * Am I teaching something? * Am I teaching something using AI? * Am I teaching AI? This focus leads our conversation forward where we consider the importance of FOSIL’s CONNECT stage… I’m afraid we enjoy our conversation too much and once again we ran out of time. We hope you enjoy listening to where this took us. Next time we will focus on the INVESTIGATE and CONSTRUCT stage in relation to Gen AI. Links talked about in this podcast * Alfred Guy quotation from Inside Yale’s Quiet Reckoning with AI [https://thenewjournalatyale.com/2025/10/inside-yales-quiet-reckoning-with-ai/]. * For Jane Rosenzweig, see Writing Hacks [https://writinghacks.substack.com/] (her Blog) and The Important Work: Teaching Writing in the Age of AI [https://theimportantwork.substack.com/] (which she curates). * Paulo Freire quotation from Pedagogy of the Oppressed in “Human Beings! Human Beings!” An Open Letter to Educators on the Dangers of AI [https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/human-beings-human-beings-an-open-letter-to-educators-on-the-dangers-of-ai/], by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. * BBC news article about AI assistants misrepresenting the news is Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory [https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2025/new-ebu-research-ai-assistants-news-content]. * Sam Altman Addresses BlackRock U.S. Infrastructure Summit | March 11, 2026 | AC15 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrJ1PpK5BJg&t=12s] (see from 10m22s for the bit about intelligence being a chargeable utility). We would love to hear what you think of this podcast… Do you find it useful? Are they enjoyable? Informative? Please do comment below… share your thoughts on our discussion. What do you think Generative AI is bringing to your school? Do you have any questions you would like us to consider? All comments welcome! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit elizabethhutchinson.substack.com [https://elizabethhutchinson.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Generative AI through inquiry (Part 1)

Welcome to FOSIL Education and School Libraries, a conversation about liberal education, signature inquiry, and how generative AI fits, or doesn’t, into real classroom practice. This episode follows on from last week’s podcast, Clarifying the purpose of education [https://open.substack.com/pub/elizabethhutchinson/p/clarifying-the-purpose-of-education?r=3043nd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true], explains the Year 9 Signature Work inquiry: an interdisciplinary, schoolwide project embedded in English that builds thoughtful reading, writing, and speaking skills and culminates in a spoken presentation and Q&A. It contrasts authentic human texts (like Laudato Si’) with AI-generated summaries, raising concerns about AI’s tendency to flatten voice and strip nuance. We argue that tools must be judged against clear educational aims: supporting student attention, authentic authorship, and the dialogic process of learning. * Eric O. Springsted -- discussing Simone Weil’s notion of attention in Attention, Availability, and the Reading of Books [https://attentionsw.org/attention-availability-and-the-reading-of-books/] (2025). * Janet Salmons and the flattening of language in Finding Your Voice in a Ventriloquist’s World – AI and Writing [https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/01/28/guest-post-finding-your-voice-in-a-ventriloquists-world-ai-and-writing/] (2025). * Claudio Nastruzzi and semantic ablation in Why AI writing is so generic, boring, and dangerous: Semantic ablation [https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/16/semantic_ablation_ai_writing/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky] (2026). * Jane Rosenzweig (2022) on why we are not doing the thinking if a machine is doing the writing in The Fight About AI [https://isrf.org/blog/the-fight-about-ai] (2025) by Christopher Newfield. Please subscribe so you don’t miss our next episode, which explores practical ways (or limits) for using generative AI at each stage of inquiry. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit elizabethhutchinson.substack.com [https://elizabethhutchinson.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]