On November 24, Delbarton alumnus Mike Kentz ’05 returned to his alma mater to work with teachers on the constantly shape-shifting topic of artificial intelligence, especially as it relates to the classroom. His presentation on Critical AI Literacy took place in the FAC theater (“which wasn’t even here when I was a student”) during an all-day Faculty Meeting while students were on Thanksgiving Break.

After graduating from Georgetown in 2009, Kentz first worked as a financial journalist, then as a writing instructor at a Brooklyn public charter school. Later he moved south, teaching English at an all-male Benedictine school steeped in tradition, discipline, and reflection, not unlike Delbarton.

When ChatGPT 3.5 was introduced in November 2022 (incredibly, just four years ago) he was well into his teaching career and initially wanted nothing to do with AI. After all, why would he, a writer, need a machine to write for him? An early AI adopter, he was not. 

Sensing Kentz’s resistance, his principal suggested he read Who Moved My Cheese, an inspirational book about adaptability in the face of change, and the book sparked a radical shift in Kentz's attitude.

He realized he needed, first, to develop AI literacy, then prepare his students for an era where offloading thinking and writing to a machine was certain to be a temptation. For him, this led to a dramatic career change from his original vision of writing fiction. He chose to go all in with AI.

Today Kentz is the founder/CEO of Literacy Partners.ai, a consultancy that empowers schools, educators and parents to demystify artificial intelligence  and provide the practical tools and strategies to thrive in a future inevitably driven by AI.

Nvidia CEP Jenson Huang has said, “Everybody is an artist now, everybody is an author.” But for teachers entrusted with educating young people, this aspirational claim represents a daunting challenge. How do we use AI productively in the classroom while educating students on the fundamentals they need to be critical thinkers, writers and speakers? How do we teach them not to let AI do their work for them? What are ethical AI best practices for teachers, students and schools?

 Kentz noted soberly that, today, even AI detectors cannot detect the AI-produced work of a clever student who is feeding ChatGPT prompts like “Write this as if you are a 9^th grader. Include a few grammar mistakes and misspellings…”

At Delbarton, Kentz shared his story with the audience and pointed out that teachers are on the front line of AI best practices. “How can we increase students’ critical and analytical skills while navigating through AI?” he asked them.

Assuming all levels of AI literacy in his listeners, at Delbarton he offered teachers a quick primer on foundational models like ChatGPT, Claude and China’s DeepSeek, and spoke about ‘wrappers’, platforms like Flint K 12 and Duolingo that deliver services using the foundational sites.

He also talked about our changing relationship with technology: “We don’t talk to our refrigerator or microwave, but we’re now in a conversation with AI.” Kentz predicted that good verbal and writing skills will be even more valued in the future, then led teachers through several increasingly complex exercises demonstrating how thoughtful, strategic, concise prompts lead to customized results suited for the task at hand.

Mike Kentz continues to combine a Humanities-driven perspective while offering practical strategies to help teachers and schools adapt to AI. We thank him for returning to Delbarton to continue this important conversation about AI best practices in the classroom.