SHS Ken Bonamo director offers AI reflections in education at 2025 graduation

SHS Ken Bonamo director offers AI reflections in education at 2025 graduation

Andrea O'Gorman and Ken BonamoHere are the remarks pronounced by the director of Scarsdale High School Kenneth Bonamo to the graduation of the 2025 class on June 20, 2025.

Good evening President Hahn, superintendent Patrick, colleagues members of the faculty, relatives and friends, and especially the members of the 2025 class.

Today is a special day that marks the culmination of your childhood education and the start of college and adulthood for you.

Your families and teachers are filled with a great hope that we have given you everything you need to succeed in the next steps, and we are filled with anticipation in what the future has in store for you.

The resources that the Scarsdale community devotes to education allowed us to offer you an enriching and engaging experience that has developed in you a depth of critical and creative thinking, an appreciation of global interdependence and a true love of learning.

These objectives have guided our work as a teacher in the design of courses and learning activities that you have appreciated in the past four years. The point of view of obtaining the diploma allows you to assess the impact of your work in the development of your academic skills and the promotion of your growth as an individual.

This achievement also represents the hard work that you have devoted to obtaining here.

You have excelled in athletic and extracurricular activities, developing the habits of mind of the different disciplines while Nourish your interests and relationships outside the class.

And so you have finished your lessons and exams and options for the elderly and you obtained a seat during this very ceremony.

It is not by accident but rather by commitment and dedication to your objectives.

It is so good to see you all here to celebrate this moment which is full of meaning, because it represents both the accomplishment of having graduated and the beginning of your adult life. Let us stop here for a moment to appreciate the beauty and meaning of this moment.

While we are celebrating this step with you this evening and in the light of what you have accomplished, we also look to the future, not only for its possibilities and its opportunities, but also for its questions and its strangers. In this vein, I ask you to think with me in the coming minutes about a fairly intimidating challenge that we are all confronted, that of artificial intelligence. The AI ​​presents incredible opportunities and countless questions as individuals and as a company.

I offer your consideration a parallel between artificial intelligence and nuclear energy. The potential of nuclear energy for good has been overshadowed by its large -scale destruction potential, and its criticisms invoke historical examples of this destruction to cancel any positive impact that it could have for society in terms of energy production.

In the same way, the criticisms of the AI ​​highlight its environmental impact and its theft of intellectual property, to say nothing about its inaccuracies, to attract our attention of its potential advantages, such as the analysis of the results of medical tests to find indicators of illness or computer code writing which allows programmers to tackle more complicated tasks.

I am sure that many of your teachers urge you to resist the use of artificial intelligence so that you fully have the advantages of learning the knowledge and skills that we aim to teach you. But it is not only because of the learning opportunities that you could miss.

Our desire to keep the separate AI of your education is not only because of an assignment or a specific task, but also because when you delegate reading and writing tasks and even thinking of a machine or an algorithm, you lack the opportunity to develop the judgment and emotional intelligence which are the additional advantages of the academic investigation and intellectual engagement.

University professors and secondary school teachers are struggling with serious questions about how to proceed, how to design educational experiences and learning objectives and AI era. How can we bring students to read deeply and write in a competent way and to reason clearly with distraction and easy escape of technology? If AI can produce a decent or better quality literary response test or even now a fully quoted research document, are these tasks still valid today as worthy of our time so that you write them and for us to note them? If they are, how do we protect them against the invalids by AI-and is it even possible? And if they are not worth our efforts, then what is it?

Intellectual engagement with history, for example, requires the perspective of an unknown person of an unknown moment and place, and this experience of developing empathy and understanding improves our ability to engage with others in our lives. Depriving education people has been the brand brand of repression in the past, and I am worried about what could happen if we end up depriving ourselves of education because of the temptation of this technology. Education grants us the gift of the ability to think which then gives us freedom and the power to lead an independent and productive life.

Thus, the decision on this subject will be left to all of us, and you as the next generation, and just as with nuclear energy or plastics or cars or any other human product where costs and advantages are significant and clearly disagreeing with each other, the responses are unlikely to be unequivocal, undisputed or final. This new product is with us, and we must understand it. The decision is ours and will become more and more yours.

And so we know that change is the only constant. As it is ironic, but it is also quite true. To give meaning to all of this – the world around you at the time of your secondary school diploma – I urge you to find a line of humanity, and perhaps start by thinking of Non Sibi, a disinterested service. Think of your educational journey here in Scarsdale. For some of you, it started 13 years ago, or perhaps 12, or perhaps 7 years ago, or perhaps in ninth year, or perhaps last September.

Think of this trip and think about when you or someone you know have done a good deed, have done something good, nice or thought for you or for someone else. Think of what it made you feel to give someone the gift of your kindness, or to observe someone who is kind, or even to have the chance to be the recipient of such a gift, and remember that this is what makes us human. Our need for empathy, respect and kindness is universal.

Finally, and in the light of this humanity, I also urge you to build a heritage of love.

The key to your success to take advantage of the many opportunities and to take up the many challenges that await us will be to infuse love in your work, your relationships and your car.

Love is an active ingredient of our intelligence.

Knowledge is not information acquired such as data from computer stores.

Rather, this implies an intentional commitment with information on information.

Intelligence requires a dialogue with the world, and a state of flow is when we are fully immersed in the exchange.

Love is what invites us to this connection.

If you are looking around, you see your family and friends who have demonstrated love to support you.

You see your teachers who liked to teach you and guide you.

And above all, you should look at yourself and love what you see – an intelligent, curious and responsible person, ready to continue to learn in order to meet the challenges of life and our society.

I wish you all a wonderful day of graduation and health and happiness in the future. Congratulations to all of you!