It is the most common question parents ask, and the most legitimate. Essays polished by AI, maths explained by AI, first drafts generated by AI — over the years, does a child’s own thinking atrophy? Cognitive science gives an answer more honest than yes or no: it depends on how. Cognitive load theory holds that working memory is strictly limited, and that learning happens when that limited capacity is spent on generative processing — organising for oneself, inferring for ones

On AI teacher training, the market’s default answer is: teach teachers to use AI tools. Run a workshop, issue an attendance certificate, expect the classroom to change. The answer fails quietly — because it trains at right angles to the actual gap. The real gap spans two professions. On one side, technical understanding: how models are trained, how data shapes output, why generative AI errs so fluently. On the other, cognitive development: what a ten-year-old’s working memory