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Yet even as machines grow increasingly “intelligent,” humanity continues wrestling with the deeper, older questions, perhaps the most fundamental of which relate to questioning the meaning of life.
Carl Jung argued that each era confronts its own symbolic challenge its own tension between the outer world of progress and the inner world of the psyche. Today’s challenge is clear: we live in a mechanised age that rewards efficiency, while our souls hunger for insight, integration and authenticity.
Education, therefore, must evolve not to compete with AI directly, but to cultivate the parts of the human psyche that no machine can touch: empathy, symbolic understanding, ethical discernment and the capacity for wonder.
AI excels at calculation, categorisation, and prediction what Jung would call functions of the thinking mind. But wisdom, in the Jungian sense, arises from the integration of the psyche’s many dimensions: the rational and irrational, the conscious and unconscious, the shadow and the Self. Where AI generates outputs, the human being interprets symbols, stories and experiences.
Wisdom grows from struggle, adversity and uncertainty and the confrontation with one’s own shadow all processes that no machine can live through on our behalf. To mistake efficiency for insight is to fall into what Jung called the spirit of the times the tendency to overvalue what is measurable and undervalue what is meaningful. AI may provide information, but only humans can discern value.
If information is instantly accessible, what is the role of the teacher now? Jung might say that the teacher’s vocation is shifting from the Keeper of Knowledge to the Wise Guide an archetypal presence more akin to the Sage, Mentor or even the Psychopomp who leads students through the labyrinth of their own development.
Teachers are no longer gatekeepers of facts; they are cultivators of consciousness. They help students to Confront uncertainty without fear, Reflect on their instincts and intuitions, Recognise projections and unconscious biases & Navigate the ethical terrain of a machine-driven society.
The modern teacher is not merely an instructor but a stabilising presence in a fragmented world a mirror and moral compass, reminding young minds what it means to be human.
Jung emphasised that the psyche is not reducible to logic. It is emotional, symbolic, irrational, mythic. This is where human beings remain irreplaceable. We should therefore promote these human capabilities in schools:
1. Emotional Intelligence: Empathy, compassion and attunement arise from lived experience, not computation. They emerge from encounters with the Other encounters that shape the Self.
2. Ethical Reasoning: Morality is not a formula. It requires judgement, responsibility and the courage to confront one’s shadow. AI can flag patterns, but only humans grasp the moral weight of action.
3. Creativity and Imagination: The unconscious is a wellspring of symbols, dreams, and archetypes. AI can remix what is known, but imagination births what is wholly new.
4. Individuation: At the heart of Jung’s philosophy is the process of becoming one’s true self individuation. This journey is intensely personal and cannot be automated. It demands inner conflict, choice and reflection, not calculation.
Schools must protect these distinctly human capacities, now as necessities.
We live in an era in which data is abundant but understanding is scarce a condition Jung warned would lead to spiritual disorientation. As information multiplies, meaning often dissolves.
Education must therefore teach students not just what to think, but how to interpret. To cultivate meaning, the goal should be not to memorise more facts, but to awaken the symbolic imagination the ability to garner significance from the chaos of experience. For this, students need Socratic dialogue to sharpen discernment, Reflective practices (journalling, mindfulness, dream work) to access the inner world, Interdisciplinary learning that reveals connections across fields & Time for stillness, countering a culture of acceleration.
However, AI should not be feared as a replacement for the human mind. Instead, it can be a tool that frees students to engage in deeper inquiry. When guided ethically, AI can personalise learning, serve as a research assistant and free classroom time for dialogue, creativity and exploration.
But students must also understand AI’s limitations its inability to feel, to suffer, to grow. It is a mirror of human logic, not a companion for the human soul. Teachers, therefore, play a crucial role in helping students form a healthy psychological relationship with AI neither idolising it nor fearing it, but integrating it as part of their expanding toolset.
AI is a marvel of engineering, but it cannot replace the ancient human journey towards wisdom, wholeness and meaning. Jung believed that every era faces a choice between falling into mechanised unconsciousness or awakening to deeper self-knowledge.
Education stands at this crossroads. If schools cultivate empathy, ethical reasoning and imagination with inner awareness, students will enter the world post-school not merely informed, but wise. AI will serve them, not define them. Machines may excel at efficiency, but only the human soul can seek truth. The future of education depends on preserving that flame
(The Author: Oliver Russell is Deputy Head of Strategy and School Development, Shrewsbury International School India- Views Expressed are personal)
