Stop Fixing the Peg. The Hole is the Problem.

Jun 2
3 min read

Every week, my social feeds fill with reflections from educators:

"Today we explored how AI will impact teaching and learning..."

"An insightful workshop on the challenges of ChapGPT in assessment..."

"We're developing policies to manage AI use in classrooms..."

It’s all well-meaning. But I can’t help feeling we’re missing the point.

AI isn’t the problem. AI is the mirror.

It's holding up a reflection of how outdated, irrelevant and inflexible our schooling structures have become.

And what do we do? We focus on how to fit the new AI peg into the old education hole.

But here’s the hard truth: The hole is the problem.

The System is Outdated, and AI Just Exposes It

For over a century, we’ve built schools around structures designed for efficiency, not for human learning:

Siloed subject areas.
Bells telling students when to start and stop.
Age-based year levels.
Compliance-driven assessment models.
Timetables built for factory workflows, not curiosity.

When AI can easily generate an essay, solve a math problem, or summarise content, it doesn’t expose a failure of students.

It exposes a failure of our system’s imagination.

If AI can do the work, why are we still asking humans to do it?

Because we haven’t redesigned the hole.

What Real Innovation Looks Like

In a recent article, Shane Altmann, Principal of Faith Lutheran College Redlands, offered a confronting reflection on this exact problem.

He listed the familiar norms of schooling, the structures we rarely question:

The 8:30am–3pm day.
50-minute lessons.
Siloed disciplines.
Year levels based on birthdate, not capability.
Timed recess and lunch breaks.
Parent-teacher interviews a couple of times a year.

These aren’t inevitable. These aren't rules. They're just habits. They’re just the comfortable, familiar hole we keep trying to patch.

But Shane went further. He imagined what school could look like:

Flexible hours with students coming and going.
No classes, no rigid timetable, just opportunities to engage with learning when ready.
No year levels, learning driven by interest and capacity.
Collaborative teaching teams always present.
No lunch times - you need a feed, need the bathroom - go for it. Need a brain break - of course! Off you go!
Community spaces replacing hierarchical staffrooms.
Family engagement is a natural flow, not a scheduled event. Parents roll in and out of the place as they feel they need and are able to. Parents are active contributors to their children's development.

To some, this sounds like chaos.

To others, this sounds like learning designed for humans.

This is the kind of thinking we need more of.

Enough Pegs. Let’s Talk About the Hole.

Every time we run a PD session on new advances in our world, like AI, without questioning our structures, we’re rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.

We need more conversations, more workshops, more leadership reflection on redesigning the hole - not just whittling the peg.

I hope and dream to see:

Schools sharing what structures they’re questioning.
Leaders reflecting on what risks they’re taking to innovate time, space, assessment, and purpose.
Systems celebrating experiments in breaking down silos and redesigning learning ecosystems.
Educators openly wrestling with how to make school fit the learner, not force the learner to fit school.

This isn’t about criticising people who are trying. It's about lifting our gaze higher.

AI is just one signal. The deeper work is redesigning the very foundations of schooling.

The Real Leadership Challenge

As Shane challenges us:

“Are you doing your job properly if you’re not actively, deliberately, desperately fighting for these kinds of changes to our product, our system, our ways of being?”

Innovation isn’t a tech device. It’s not a policy document.

Innovation is the courage to reimagine the hole.

Until we do that, new technological advances like AI will keep holding up an uncomfortable mirror. And students will keep disengaging from a system that no longer serves them.