The skills that will matter most in the age of AI are the ones most schools treat as an afterthought

Wayne Johnson
CEO/Director, Cambridge International School, Bratislava

When I worked in media in London in the late 1990’s I was, by most external measures, a confident person. I talked a lot. I had opinions. I was not, by any reasonable definition, shy.

I was also terrified of public speaking.

Not of meetings or of pitching ideas across a table or arguing a point in an editorial meeting. But standing up in front of a formal audience where people were sitting there, waiting for me to begin. This produced a specific and unpleasant feeling I could not quite control.

It never occurred to me that this is a skill to be taught or learned. I just presumed it came naturally to people. And it turned out that talking a lot is not the same thing as knowing how to stand up and speak.

I know this now because I have spent twenty years doing it in schools. Not because I had some revelation about technique, but because schools give you no choice. You stand in front of assemblies, present to parents, address staff. And you do it repeatedly. The environment is forgiving in a way that other industries are not, until somewhere along the way the specific unpleasant feeling became manageable, then familiar, then absent.

Now, I can stand in front of a thousand people in an assembly and feel zero nerves or anxiety.

That did not happen because I am naturally gifted. It happened because I was in an environment and position that required me to do it repeatedly and which was also a supportive one.

There is no coincidence that I developed these skills and confidence in a school setting.

Because, what they have is something that cannot be replicated outside of education — a structured, sustained, low-stakes environment in which young people (and older ones like me) can learn to stand up and be heard. To argue a position, they have not chosen. To defend a claim before an audience that may disagree with them. To fail in public and try again without it defining them.

These are not peripheral skills. They are what the classical tradition placed at the centre of education, not because it was decorative, but because it was the only reliable way to form a person capable of participating in civic and intellectual life.

We have spent the past several decades moving them to the edges of the curriculum. Drama, debate, public speaking classified as enrichment activities for the children who enjoy that sort of thing. Something to while away a Friday afternoon. An extracurricular option.

And then AI arrived.

What AI has done, with remarkable speed, is render one of our central assumptions about education obsolete. The belief that one of the primary purposes of school is the transmission and retention of knowledge to help students pass final written exams.

That world is not gone. But it is shrinking fast.

When AI can generate a plausible, well-structured, confidently written response to almost any question a student is likely to face, the written examination is no longer an adequate measure of what a person knows or can go on to achieve.

What cannot be automated is the thing I learned to do in school assembly halls and parent evenings and staff meetings across four continents. Standing up. Speaking clearly. Thinking out loud, in public, under the mild pressure of people who are actually listening. Fielding a question you did not anticipate. Holding the thread of your argument when someone pushes back.

These skills will become rarer and more valuable precisely as everything around them becomes automated.

Consequently, I have always tried to put presentation skills, debate and drama at the forefront of the school curriculum — introducing LAMDA examinations at two international schools and changing assessment structures to incorporate speeches, presentations and projects.

What students discover, regardless of where they start, is the same thing I discovered, that this is a skill, not a gift. That it can be practised, improved and assessed like any other. That failing and triumphing in public in a supportive environment is the only reliable way to stop being afraid of it.

The schools embedding these disciplines seriously — not as Friday afternoon options but as core curriculum — are not being nostalgic, they are being strategically intelligent.

If public speaking, debate, presentations, and performance become the distinguishing capacities of the educated person in the age of AI — and I believe they will — then schools that embed them in the curriculum for all students will produce graduates who can compete on the most valuable human ground. Schools that leave them to chance, or to the families wealthy enough to pay for private coaching and extracurricular activities, will produce a different outcome.

They will produce a two-tier system. Those who can stand up and speak. And those who cannot.

Elite schools have always understood this. The debating societies, the drama programmes, the public speaking competitions — these were never peripheral at the schools that produced the people who traditionally went on to lead things. They were core. They were where the formation happened.

International schools have an opportunity, and I would argue a responsibility, to make those skills available to every student, not just those whose parents already know their value. That means treating drama, debate, and public speaking not as nice additions to an otherwise complete curriculum, but as the curriculum’s most urgent response to the world that is forming around us.

AI is not the threat to education that some people think it is. It is a clarifying lens. It shows us, with unusual precision, which capacities have genuine human value, and which can be replicated by a well-prompted language model. But this need not be a cause for panic or alarm and instead gives us an opportunity to reimagine what skills we want to teach our children. The things that cannot be automated are exactly the things that Cicero, Aristotle, and the scholars of the Islamic Golden Age understood to be the heart of what education is for.

We just need to put them back in the timetable.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wayne Johnson is a transformational CEO and school leader with more than 20 years of experience working across Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa. He has spent much of his career in international education, leading schools through periods of growth, change and development from Early Years through to the IB Diploma.

As CEO and Director of Cambridge International School in Bratislava, Wayne combines strategic leadership with a hands-on approach to school life, from shaping the direction of the organisation and developing its people to overseeing operations, partnerships and the opening of a new campus.

He is also a NEASC Accreditation Lead Visitor, giving him a broad perspective on what makes international schools thrive. Wayne remains actively involved in the wider education community through ECIS, conferences and professional writing.

Before moving into education, Wayne worked in London media, including senior editorial and production roles and as a Senior Producer on Pop Idol. That creative and communications background continues to influence his approach to leadership, particularly in school culture, storytelling, marketing and stakeholder engagement.

At the heart of Wayne’s work is a simple belief: great schools are built around great people, strong relationships and a clear sense of purpose.