A world with AI
AI can give answers. Your child has to know what to ask.
Your child will grow up using AI the way we grew up with calculators. The question is whether they’ll be the one doing the thinking.
At a glance
Three habits that keep your child in charge.
AI will be part of your child’s school and working life. These habits decide who does the thinking.
Their own first draft
Your child thinks and writes first. AI comes after, to test the work, not to do it.
They check what AI says
Confident answers can be wrong. Your child learns to check a claim against a source.
What AI can’t do
Thinking, creating, solving, deciding, communicating and leading: six capacities that stay human.
What AI changes
AI changes the work. Not the need to think.
At school and at work, tools now do much of the routine part. What’s left is the part that was always most human: these six capacities.
At school
Homework can be done by a tool
A chatbot can write the essay, solve the worksheet and summarize the chapter in seconds. Finished homework no longer shows what your child can do.
At work
The skills are changing. Thinking still leads.
Employers expect 39% of workers’ core skills to change by 2030, and seven in 10 consider analytical thinking essential.
Six capacities that stay human
Think critically
Why it lastsAI gives confident answers. Someone has to judge which ones hold up.
Create
Why it lastsAI remixes what exists. New work starts with a person who sees what is missing.
Solve problems
Why it lastsReal problems arrive messy and unlabelled. Framing them is human work.
Decide
Why it lastsWhen options are cheap, choosing well and owning the choice is what is scarce.
Communicate
Why it lastsTrust, persuasion and a clear explanation still happen between people.
Lead
Why it lastsTeams, families and communities need people who take responsibility.
Illustrative screen. The Hikmah platform is in development.
Two ways to use it
Same tool, two different habits.
Two Grade 7 students write the same essay with the same AI. Step through their week and see what each one practises.
Persuasive essay · Grade 7Should our school plant trees along the playground?
Monday · The first draft
Write a persuasive essay about planting trees at our school.
Here is a five-paragraph essay.
Practised so far
- Writing
- Checking
- Arguing
My thesis: trees along the playground would give us shade and cleaner air.
Here’s my draft. Argue against it as hard as you can.
Practised so far
- Writing
- Checking
- Arguing
Tuesday · A claim that sounds right
Trees can make a yard hotter in summer.
What they didCopied into paragraph two.
Practised so far
- Writing
- Checking
- Arguing
Trees can make a yard hotter in summer.
What they didChecked her textbook and a city forestry page. Wrong: trees cool the air.
Practised so far
- Writing
- Checking
- Arguing
Wednesday · Stuck on the ending
Make my conclusion sound better.
Here is a stronger conclusion.
Practised so far
- Writing
- Checking
- Arguing
Give me a hint, not an answer: how do strong essays end?
What they didWrote her own ending: back to the shade, and who will water the trees.
Practised so far
- Writing
- Checking
- Arguing
Friday · An essay in class, no AI
Same mark on the homework. A blank page on Friday.
Practised so far
- Writing
- Checking
- Arguing
Thesis: trees along the playground would make recess better.
- Shade on hot days
- Cleaner air, and a cooler yard
- Objection: who waters them? A summer watering rota.
Same mark on the homework. A clear argument on Friday.
Practised so far
- Writing
- Checking
- Arguing
Illustrative example.
In a randomized trial with nearly 1,000 high school students, practising math with an unrestricted chatbot raised practice scores but lowered exam scores once it was taken away. See the research
Using AI well
A tool to argue with, not to hide behind.
How your child learns to use AI at Hikmah, from Grade 1 to Grade 12.
Grades 1 to 3
Curious, with a mentor
No chatbot on their own. Children ask questions out loud and learn that answers can be checked.
The habitAsk why, then check.
Grades 4 to 6
Side by side
AI only with a mentor beside them, to test an idea or find a mistake together.
The habitTry it yourself first.
Grades 7 and 8
Think first, then test
More independence, with clear rules: their own first attempt, every claim checked, ready to explain every line.
The habitArgue with it.
Grades 9 to 12
A sparring partner
AI for research, critique and practice, with a short record of how they used it and what they changed.
The habitOwn the result.
UNESCO’s guidance suggests considering an age limit of 13 for generative AI in the classroom. That’s one reason younger children at Hikmah use it only with a mentor beside them. UNESCO, 2023 (opens in a new tab)
An exchange we coach
Grace thinks first, then asks AI to argue against her. When it gets a fact wrong, she checks.
Think first
Her thesis and her draft are her own.
Invite the challenge
She asks AI to argue against her, as hard as it can.
Check the claim
A fact sounds wrong, so she checks two sources.
Decide
She drops the error, keeps the fair objection and answers it.
Essay workspace
- Grace, Grade 7
My thesis is that our school should plant trees along the edge of the playground. Argue against it as hard as you can.
- AI assistant
Here’s a counterpoint. Trees cost money to plant and look after. They can also make the yard hotter in summer: leaves absorb sunlight and give off heat, so the air beneath them warms up.
- Grace, Grade 7
Wait, that’s the opposite of what we learned in science. I’m going to check before I use it.
She questioned the claim.
- Grace, Grade 7
I checked my science textbook and a city forestry page. Trees cool the air around them, with shade and with the water their leaves release. So that part is wrong.
She checked the source.
- AI assistant
You’re right, that was an error. Trees cool the air around them. A stronger objection is upkeep: who will water young trees over the summer?
- Grace, Grade 7
That one is fair. I’ll answer it in my third paragraph.
Illustrative example.
For your family
You’ll see how your child uses AI.
Your progress update includes how your child used AI that month: what for, what they checked and what they changed.
Hikmah Tutoring+
- Catching up now
- Strong math, reading and writing come first: a child can only check an answer they understand. Tutoring+ closes the gaps that turn AI into a crutch.
- Ready for later
- Using AI well, and the six capacities it can’t replace: the habits your child will need at school, at work and beyond.
Progress update
NovemberHow she used AI this month
- Asked it to argue against her essay
- Quizzed herself on the water cycle
- Caught a wrong claim and checked it against a source
AI-readiness
Next
Write the counter-argument for her next essay herself, before asking AI for one.
The difference
Answers on demand, or a better thinker.
Most homework help, and most AI tools, are built to get the work done. We’re built to help your child learn to do it.
The first draft
Answers on demandWritten by the tool
At HikmahWritten by your child
A claim that sounds right
Answers on demandCopied in
At HikmahChecked against a source
A hard question
Answers on demandAnswered for them
At HikmahWorked through, with hints
How AI is used
Answers on demandRarely talked about
At HikmahTaught, practised and reported to you
A year from now
Answers on demandThe habit of thinking fades
At HikmahThe habit of thinking grows
The research
What the research says. And what we’ll measure.
Hikmah hasn’t opened, so we have no results of our own yet. Here is what early research and international guidance say about children and AI, and what we’ll track from the first day.
Randomized trial · Nearly 1,000 students · high school math
AI as a crutch
Students who practised with an unrestricted chatbot did 48% better during practice, then 17% worse on the exam without it than students who never had it. A version built to give hints, not answers, largely avoided the harm.
Bastani, Bastani, Sungu, Ge, Kabakcı and Mariman (2025). Generative AI without guardrails can harm learning: Evidence from high school mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(26). Read the source (opens in a new tab)
Randomized trial · University physics
AI built to teach can help
Students learned more, in less time, from an AI tutor designed around research on how people learn than from an active-learning class. The authors caution that results depend on that design.
Kestin, Miller, Klales, Milbourne and Ponti (2025). AI tutoring outperforms in-class active learning: an RCT introducing a novel research-based design in an authentic educational setting. Scientific Reports, 15, 17458. Read the source (opens in a new tab)
Survey · 319 adults at work
Confidence and critical thinking go together
In a survey of adults at work, people who trusted AI more reported thinking less critically about its answers; people more confident in their own skills reported thinking more critically. It’s a link, not proof of cause, and it’s one reason we build foundations first.
Lee, Sarkar, Tankelevitch, Drosos, Rintel, Banks and Wilson (2025). The impact of generative AI on critical thinking: Self-reported reductions in cognitive effort and confidence effects from a survey of knowledge workers. CHI 2025. Read the source (opens in a new tab)
Guidance · UNESCO and the OECD
What international guidance says
UNESCO asks schools to check AI tools before students use them and suggests considering an age limit of 13 in the classroom. The OECD’s 2026 Digital Education Outlook warns that higher short-term performance with general-purpose chatbots doesn’t by itself mean lasting learning, and points to tools designed for learning, which guide with questions and hints, as more promising.
UNESCO (2023). Guidance for generative AI in education and research (as reported by UN News, September 7, 2023). Read the source (opens in a new tab)
OECD (2026). OECD Digital Education Outlook 2026: Exploring effective uses of generative AI in education. Read the source (opens in a new tab)
Reading the numbers: effects are in standard deviations. An effect of 0.5 moves an average student from the middle of the group to about the 69th percentile.
What we’ll measure
From the first day, with your consent.
Hikmah has no results yet. These are the questions we’ll track for every child, and publish methods first.
See our research agendaWhen does AI help?
When AI helps your child think, when it thinks for them, and what good habits look like at each age.
Can they work without it?
Mastery checks with no AI, compared with the work they do with it.
Do they catch its mistakes?
Short tasks with a planted error, when your child starts and through the year.
AI can write an essay in seconds. It can’t decide what’s worth saying.