Reorienting Contemporary Educational Theory Based on Transformative Learning and Critical Consciousness

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping education. By changing how knowledge is produced, accessed, and processed, AI challenges assumptions about learning, human agency, and the purpose of education. Discussions of AI in education often emphasize efficiency and instructional applications, while giving less attention to its epistemological and human implications. The changing role of teachers within a human-centered framework therefore requires philosophical analysis. This article adopts a philosophical-theoretical approach, critically examining relationships among humans, knowledge, technology, and education in the context of AI’s expansion. The analysis finds that algorithmic knowledge and automated cognitive processes unsettle education focused on information transmission. They call for greater attention to students’ subjectivity, agency, autonomy, and integrity. Teachers remain essential, but their role is reconstructed: they mediate meaning, facilitate critical reflection, guide subjectivity formation, and safeguard education’s ethical and humanistic dimensions. Human-Centered Education frames AI as an emancipatory instrument that should strengthen human capacities rather than replace human judgment or relationships. AI is legitimate when it supports learning while preserving students’ dignity, freedom, responsibility, and relationality. Educational practice and policy should combine technological capability with pedagogical wisdom, sustaining education as a space for forming autonomous, reflective, ethical, and humane people.