What Human Minds Can Do That AI Never Will And What That Means for Schools

School leaders love data. We collect enrollment metrics, benchmark against other schools, survey families, and track alumni outcomes. Data gives us comfort – the illusion that if we just gather enough information, the right decisions will become obvious. I've been a strong advocate for schools making data-informed decisions and good data absolutely drives better choices in many situations.

But there’s a limit.  Some of the most important decisions schools face can't be made by collecting more data. Strategic questions about a school's future direction or how to prepare students for careers that don't yet exist – these are the kinds of decisions that have to be made without the surety that data provides.

This is where human and artificial intelligence diverge. AI excels in high-data, stable environments where patterns are clear and variables are known. But in low-data, uncertain situations AI struggles. What schools need to develop, both for their own decision-making and in their students, is what Angus Fletcher calls "storythinking": the uniquely human ability to construct and test narratives about possible futures when hard data isn't available. 

The Mismatch Between What We Teach and How Minds Actually Work

Walk into many classrooms where critical thinking is a focus, and you'll see students learning to trace arguments to sources, analyzing by using a step-by-step methodology, and systematically verifying claims. Yet out in the real world, these same students and their teachers seldom use these tools.  That doesn’t mean that students should not be exposed to these processes, but it’s simply insufficient to prepare them for life outside of the classroom.

Tim Dasey, of MIT's Lincoln Lab, explains the limitations of our current approach. Critical thinking instruction focuses on deliberative analysis while completely ignoring the intuitive pattern recognition that actually drives judgment in the real world. Dasey argues that schools are teaching students to think like graduate researchers when instead they need to develop the skill for making decisions under uncertainty and constraints.

The result of our current school approach? Students who effectively can think analytically in lab-like conditions (the classroom) but can't make sound judgments when it matters. They've learned the mechanics of deliberation but rarely use them because few human decisions are made in this way.

When Logic Fails and Narrative Cognition Shines

Both logical thinking and AI excel in stable environments with abundant data. Give them well-defined parameters, clear cause-and-effect relationships, and sufficient information, and they can optimize solutions efficiently. This is why AI dominates chess, financial modeling, and medical diagnosis when symptoms clearly point to known conditions.

But when environments become volatile, uncertain, and ambiguous – when we’re operating in a fog – AI under performs the human brain. You can't optimize your way through a situation where the rules keep changing and you don't have enough information to calculate probabilities.

This is precisely where narrative intelligence dominates. Angus Fletcher, a professor of Narrative Science at Ohio State has mapped how our brains process information through story rather than the logic that is the focus of much formal education. While logic operates in the eternal present of "this equals that," narrative cognition allows us to construct and test possible futures through "what if" scenarios.  It’s the way of thinking that allowed our primordial ancestors to succeed in the unknown. 

Every time we plan our day, envision consequences, or solve problems creatively, we're engaging in what Fletcher calls "storythinking." We're moving beyond existing information; we're constructing narratives about possible futures and making decisions based on how different stories might unfold.

Why This Changes Everything for Schools

If a school is structured primarily around information transfer and analytical skill development, we're asking families to pay a premium so that their children can learn what can be done by a computer and done more quickly. As AI becomes more powerful, staying with this this focus ensures a weaker and weaker value proposition for independent schools.

But imagine if you could make a clear case to families that your school was preparing students for futures where their children will be able to navigate uncertain career landscapes, lead teams through complex challenges, identify opportunities others miss, and adapt quickly to unexpected circumstances. All of these capacities rely on narrative cognition, the ability to construct coherent stories about how actions lead to outcomes and how current challenges connect to future possibilities.

The competitive advantage that humans have over AI isn't that of logical processing power. It's the uniquely human capacity to think forward, creatively, and adaptively in environments where the rules keep changing.

From Critical Thinking to Good Judgment

We've spent decades emphasizing critical thinking in education – teaching students to analyze arguments, evaluate evidence, and reason logically. These skills matter. But they're not enough.

Critical thinking is analytical and procedural. Good judgment is interpretive and contextual. Critical thinking asks "Is this claim supported by evidence?" Good judgment asks "What does this situation actually require of me right now?"

The emergency room physician who recognizes a dangerous pattern in ambiguous symptoms, the project manager who senses a troubled project despite reassuring indicators—this is expert judgment built over years of high-stakes repetition. Schools can't replicate that.

But here's what they can do: create what Dasey calls "repeated cycles of decision-making in authentic contexts with immediate feedback."

This isn't common in most schools. Students typically encounter problems with clear right answers, work on assignments where the stakes are purely academic, and receive feedback days (or even weeks) later. They practice critical thinking, but are rarely called upon to exercise judgment.

Developing judgment requires something different – what Fletcher's research identifies as narrative intelligence. And narrative intelligence doesn't flow from analytical reasoning alone. It emerges from four primal powers: intuition, imagination, emotion, and common sense.

These capacities need authentic contexts to develop. Students need to make decisions that matter, see consequences unfold, and adjust their understanding in real time. Not once per semester in a capstone project, but repeatedly, across their learning experiences.

The question isn't whether schools can create emergency room-level expertise. It's whether we're creating enough opportunities for students to practice the kind of judgment that builds narrative intelligence and right now, most schools aren't.

The Experiential Imperative

Developing narrative intelligence can't happen through lectures or textbook exercises. It requires experiential learning – repeated exposure to situations where students must construct stories about what might happen next and make decisions based on incomplete information.

This means designing curricula around things like:

• Real community problems where multiple stakeholders have competing interests
• Business simulations where students make strategic decisions with uncertain outcomes
• Historical turning points where leaders faced genuine uncertainty about consequences
• Scientific research questions where methodology isn't predetermined

The key is that these challenges mirror the constraints experts navigate daily – ambiguity, competing priorities, time pressure, and incomplete information.

The Value Proposition That Actually Matters

Parents are confronted with a broad range of choices for the education of their children. Given the tuition of most independent schools, it’s not surprising that parents question the value proposition. Now that we are living in a world engulfed with AI and the fears that accompany it, schools need to be able to clearly articulate how they develop the cognitive capacities that remain uniquely human.  

Schools that successfully cultivate narrative intelligence will produce graduates who can navigate career changes, lead through complexity, identify opportunities, build relationships across differences, and adapt to unexpected circumstances.

The schools that understand this distinction will offer something genuinely irreplaceable: the development of students who can think forward, think creatively, and think in ways that remain meaningfully human in an increasingly artificial world.

That's a value proposition worth the tuition.

Moira will be at the 2025 TABS annual conference presenting on narrative cognition and experiential learning in the age of AI with Amy Jolly and Dr. Amanda Packard.