On Being a Bit Stupid

I used to think I was really smart. Not in an arrogant way, you understand – more in that quiet, comfortable way where you've done well in school, people ask your opinion on things, and you generally feel like you've got a decent handle on how the world works.

Turns out, I'm a bit stupid.

Okay, back up. Let me share what happened a couple of weeks ago. The husband was on washing up, I was on drying (we have legendary Sunday roasts, but they come with equally legendary piles of dishes...), and we were talking art. I mentioned, almost casually, that I'd probably be good at drawing if I really put effort into it because, you know, creativity runs in my family. My sister has a degree in Fine Art, I explained confidently. My Grandpa had a lot to do with the Mr Men & Little Miss books.

Husband just looked at me. That particular look spouses give when you've said something that reveals a fundamental misunderstanding about how reality works. Or, in other words, when you've been a bit stupid.

"You know artistic skill isn't genetic, right?" says he.

And I paused. Because suddenly I realised I had absolutely no idea whether artistic talent was genetic, learned, or some mysterious combination of both. Huh. Anyway, I panicked, laughed, and spent the evening doing a bit of research on whether or not art runs in the family, before returning to painting my latest D&D minis (because obviously that's where all my art energy goes these days).

But I haven't stopped thinking about the conversation since.

Fun Fact: Pine Nuts Come From Pine Cones

This connects to something that happened to me years ago in Xi'an. I was walking through the food market one winter evening – you know how magical those markets can be, with all the steam rising from the stalls and the mix of unfamiliar smells – when I absolutely lost my mind with excitement.

Someone was selling pine nuts, just casually plucking them out of pine cones with their fingers.

I stood there for probably five minutes, completely transfixed. Pine nuts come from pine cones. Of course they do. It's right there in the name. But somehow, in thirty-odd years of life, I'd never made this connection. In my head, pine nuts were just... things that existed in very expensive little packets at the local supermarket.

I couldn't find a photo of the pine nut stall but I did find the market street where we ate from every single place... despite having just completed a three day food tour. We basically rolled ourselves back to Shanghai.

My first reaction was embarrassment. How could I not know something so basic? But then came this rush of genuine delight. Because you know as well as I do that learning something new – especially something that seems obvious once you know it – feels incredible.

The AI of it all

Here's where it gets interesting, particularly when I think about our students. We live in a world where not knowing something feels almost... quaint. Don't know where pine nuts come from? Google it. Wondering whether artistic ability is genetic? Ask ChatGPT.

But something troubling is happening in this process. When my students have a question now, they're increasingly likely to get an AI-generated summary at the top of their search results. No exploration, no context, no journey from confusion to understanding. Just an answer, delivered with the confidence of certainty.

And AI, bless it, is remarkably bad at telling us we're wrong.

I've been experimenting with this lately, asking AI systems increasingly questionable things just to see what happens. They're polite, they're helpful, and they're often quite wrong – but they deliver incorrect information with exactly the same tone as correct information. They don't argue with my assumptions the way my husband did about artistic talent. They don't give me that look that says "hold on, let's think about this differently." This worries me because being questioned, being corrected, being gently called out on our nonsense... isn't that how we learn?

If a student believes something that isn't quite right – or completely wrong – and they're using a sycophantic AI system to do the learning, who's there to notice? Who's asking the follow-up questions that help them realise they might want to reconsider? And if students are increasingly getting their information from sources that don't question them back, where does that questioning come from?

Building natural skepticism

So let's look at some ways we can help students – and perhaps ourselves – develop the habit of questioning what we think we know. Because whilst it's lovely to imagine our students spending hours researching and fact-checking everything they encounter, that's not realistic. In real life, they're not going to pull out their phones and cross-reference multiple sources every time they read something online. What they need are mental habits that help them notice when something might be worth questioning.

So here are a couple of quickfire activities you can do in your classroom. Yes, it'll help with AI literacy, but even more than that, it'll help them critique their own thinking.

The "How Do You Know?" Game

If a student states something as fact, ask, "That's interesting – how do you know that?" Not in a challenging way, but with genuine curiosity. Sometimes they have excellent sources. Sometimes they realise they're not sure. Both responses are valuable.

Assumption Mapping

Before you dive into a new topic, ask students to write down what they already think they know about the subject. Then, as they learn, get them to come back to these assumptions and see which ones hold up. It's remarkable how often students discover they believed things they can't quite explain, and it's a great way to model how your knowledge of something changes over time.

The Devil's Advocate Exercise

This comes from that time nine-year-old Amelia had to debate in front of the class that 'testing makeup on animals is good, actually' because I drew the short straw on which end of the argument I had to research. Present students with a claim and ask them to argue against it, even if they agree with it. This isn't about creating false balance, but about helping them understand that most ideas can be examined from multiple angles - something we definitely need to support them with in the AI (and fake news) era.

Source Genealogy

When students find information online, ask them to trace it backwards. Where did this website get its information? And where did that source get it? It's like following a family tree, but for facts. This can get them thinking particularly about the provenance of information from AI tools like Google's AI summaries and, in a nicely moral twists, gets them clicking through to search results for sites that are otherwise being eaten up by the AI maw.

Learning to Love Being Wrong

There's one thing I have to admit about any of these strategies: none of them work if being wrong feels terrible. I was fine with being questioned about my artistic genes because 1) it was funny and 2) it was a safe space. If students think that not knowing something, or discovering they believed something incorrect, is a failure or that it makes them 'less-than', they're going to resist the whole process. This is where I think we need to model something different. When I tell my students about my pine nut revelation, or my misconception about artistic talent, I try to share not just the facts but the feelings – the embarrassment, yes, but also the genuine excitement of learning something new.

Sharing your own examples with students does something interesting. It normalises not knowing things. It makes curiosity feel safer. And it demonstrates that intelligent people aren't people who know everything – they're people who know how to learn, how to question, and how to be corrected gracefully.

So here's what I'm still figuring out: How do we create learning environments where students feel safe to be wrong, curious to be corrected, and excited to discover the gaps in their understanding? How do we model intellectual humility without undermining our authority as educators? How do we balance the need to cover content with the perhaps more important need to develop thinking skills? And perhaps most importantly: How do we help students understand that learning isn't about filling gaps in knowledge, but about becoming the kind of person who notices when there might be gaps to fill?

Being "a bit stupid" isn't actually about being stupid at all, I don't think, but more about a level of humility. It's the willingness to say "I might be wrong about this" and then actually check. It's recognising that smart people believe dumb things all the time (hi, art gene), and that the real skill is noticing when you need to question yourself.

AI won't help with this. It's too busy being agreeable. So it's on us.

Would love to hear your thoughts. Even if they are a bit stupid...