Learning to Read the Water

What happens when a student submits an essay containing a word he can't pronounce, can't define, and can't defend — and still looks you in the eye and tells you that you must be a really good teacher?

That's not a cheating story. That's a cognition story. And that's why Through the Undertow exists.

In this pilot episode, we introduce the central metaphor of the show: generative AI as an undertow — not a wave, not a villain, but a current running beneath the surface of learning that moves students away from independent thought without them feeling it. We talk about cognitive erosion, what it looks like in a real classroom, and why the ban-it-or-embrace-it debate is mostly the wrong conversation.

This show lives in the harder and lonelier place in between. Welcome to the water.