Artificial intelligence (AI) is shifting the goalposts of teaching and learning in ways that are at once compelling and concerning. As teachers experiment with AI in lesson planning, instruction, assessment, and administrative tasks, they are also grappling with how to ethically and judiciously access and use AI tools in professional and pedagogical capacities.
The accelerating integration of artificial intelligence in K–12 public education classrooms and systems is generating a range of policy, research, and advisory responses from education authorities, including teacher unions, around the world. K–12 educators bear unique responsibilities related to AI given their professional duty of care towards children and youth. Canadian education ministries and school districts are racing to throw up Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) policy guardrails as “the ground itself is shifting faster than the frameworks built to stand on it.”[1] Meanwhile, teacher union organizations are determining how to best advise members about potential benefits and risks of using AI in their work and classrooms.
Opinions on AI are often highly polarized. Critics caution about potentially harmful trade-offs of using AI to alter personalized and group instruction, streamline administrative tasks, and generate curriculum content. There are concerns that AI adoption is escalating the deprofessionalization of teacher work, privatization of access to resources, and the replacement of human-centric learning and experiences. As some within the public education field enthusiastically embrace AI, there is accompanying uncertainty and anxiety about “a future that is already being imagined without us.”[2]
It is important that teacher unions play a role in both envisioning and constraining uses of AIED. For one, teacher unions are the only bodies fully dedicated to centering teachers’ perspectives and needs as professionals, practitioners, and employees. Secondly, unions are well positioned to critically consider AIED through a social justice lens. Teacher unions hold a moral imperative to discern if AIED can be implemented in ways that are ethical, safe, inclusive, equitable, and environmentally sustainable. Thirdly, unions can serve as spaces for teachers to critically negotiate diverse perspectives on what place AI should (or should not) have in K–12 teaching and learning spaces. As Wayne Holmes wrote in a report for Education International, “Teachers and teacher trade unionists play a crucial role in ensuring that teaching with AI and teaching about AI supports human rights and social justice, strengthens education as a democratic and accountable public good, empowers teachers, and supports student agency.”[3]
Though many BC school districts are already actively using AI platforms and applications,[4] teachers are calling for more clearly articulated policy and guidance. This report offers an overview of what artificial intelligence is, how some BC teachers are using it, what potential concerns are emerging, and what existing research and policy resources might inform and support the creation of a robust union response to AIED.
Click here to read the full Research Note.
[1] Machado de Oliveira (2025, August). p.6. Standing in the fire: A speculative inquiry into meta-rationality and generative AI https://decolonialfuturesnet.wordpress.com/wp-content/ uploads/2025/08/standing-in-the-fire-interim-report-2025.pdf
[2] Morin, K. (2026, February 1). It’s time for the humanities and social sciences to carry hope into public life. Academica Forum https://forum.academica.ca/forum/illuminating-hope-13-karine-morin?utm_source=hootsuite&utm_medium=linkedin&utm_term=521deae9-1cf0-4621-8d96-877dcb56bd52
[3] Holmes, W., (2023). The unintended consequences of artificial intelligence and education. Educational International. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10179267/1/Holmes%20-%202023%20-%20The%20Unintended%20Consequences%20of%20Artificial%20Intellig.pdf
[4] For example, these recent Teacher articles illustrate ways AI is being taken up in BC classrooms: Smith, S. (2025, September 16). Beyond recall: Forging future-ready learners with concept-based teaching and AI as our ally. BCTF. https://www.teachermag.ca/post/beyond-recall-forging-future-ready-learners-with-concept-based-teaching-and-ai-as-our-ally