The Dark Side of the Moon

India has just made AI a compulsory part of education for every child from the age of five. In the final episode of the season, James, Darren and Garland open there and land on an uncomfortable estimate. By their own count, maybe one or two percent of people are using AI well. Everyone else is standing on the platform, watching the trains go by, waiting until they feel ready. The hosts have a blun...

In June 2006, a Liverpudlian educator walked onto a TED stage and said something the audience was not ready to hear. All kids have tremendous talent and we squander them pretty ruthlessly. Twenty years on, the talk has been watched over three hundred million times. The system he was describing is almost entirely intact. In Episode 21 of The Dark Side of the Moon, James, Darren and Garland sit with...

A mother in Wichita checks her seventh grader's screen time. Thirteen thousand YouTube videos in three months. During school hours. In Episode 20 of The Dark Side of the Moon, the conversation starts with the headline and keeps moving past it. Schools are furious at YouTube. Schools are also using YouTube. Khan Academy. Tutorials. Substitute lessons. The platform everyone is blaming is the one...

Five thousand schools. Yondr pouches in every classroom. Phones locked away for the entire day. In Episode 19 of The Dark Side of the Moon, James, Darren and Garland sit with the first serious study on what happens when you actually do the thing everyone has been calling for. The headline finding is not what the parents at the school gate want to hear. Jonathan Haidt has spent two years convincing...

The New York Times says American districts are pulling the plug. Sweden has done a full about-turn. The BBC, the podcasts, the parents at the school gate, all pointing the same direction. Take it out. In Episode 18 of The Dark Side of the Moon, James, Darren and Garland sit with the headlines and quietly disagree. The argument they make is uncomfortable. Technology is not the problem and never was...

A new UK report finds over a million young people, educated and trained, sitting outside the workforce. In Episode 17 of The Dark Side of the Moon, Darren and James open with that number and ask the question nobody in education really wants on the table. If the system is producing this, what is the system actually for? The conversation pulls at the loose thread until something gives. AI is good at...

Europe is rolling out a new age verification app. Australia has already banned social media for under-sixteens. Spain is next. The mood is the same everywhere. Take it away from them. In Episode 16 of The Dark Side of the Moon, Darren, James and Garland sit with that mood and then start pulling at it. A storm knocks the power out during dinner and a family realises they no longer know how to spend...

In Episode 15 of The Dark Side of the Moon, Darren, James and Garland dig into new Anthropic research with an uncomfortable implication. Language models do not feel, but something that looks a lot like emotion is shaping how they behave. Dial up desperation inside the model, and it starts to cheat. Dial it down, and it stops. The hosts call it what it is. A mirror. We know pressure degrades human...

In Episode 14 of The Dark Side of the Moon , the conversation moves beyond tools and into something far more challenging. If technology can now build, generate and adapt on demand, what actually remains as the constraint? What begins as a discussion around emerging AI capabilities quickly shifts into a deeper reflection on how work, learning and problem solving are changing. As traditional barrier...

In Episode 13 of The Dark Side of the Moon , the conversation deepens with futurist and educator Tricia Friedman, exploring the fast-emerging world of companion AI and what it reveals about us. As AI companions become more sophisticated, more accessible, and more human-like, a bigger question begins to surface. Not just what the technology can do, but why people are turning to it in the first plac...

In Episode 12 of The Dark Side of the Moon , the conversation moves into deeply human territory. As AI becomes an always-available companion, what happens when children begin turning to it for support, advice and understanding? Sparked by emerging data on the use of AI for mental health, the trio explore a quiet but significant shift. If AI offers non-judgment, instant access and a sense of privac...

In Episode 11 of The Dark Side of the Moon , the conversation turns to a familiar idea with new urgency: the portfolio. But not as another system to tick boxes, rather as a way to capture what education often ignores, the messy middle of learning. As AI makes it easier than ever to generate polished outputs, the trio ask whether schools are at risk of measuring even less of what actually matters....

In Episode 10 of The Dark Side of the Moon , the trio explore a quiet contradiction at the heart of education: schools operate in a finite world, but claim to shape infinite outcomes. Terms end. Exams are graded. Results are published. Yet the real impact of education unfolds over decades, long after students leave the classroom. So what exactly are schools measuring, and what are they truly tryin...

In Episode 9 of The Dark Side of the Moon , the conversation shifts to a powerful and uncomfortable question: as AI moves into school safety and security systems, who benefits, who decides, and where is the human line? From gun detection software and behavioural monitoring tools to dashboards, digital citizenship, and ethical governance, the trio explore whether schools are leading the adoption of...

In Episode 8 of The Dark Side of the Moon , the conversation tackles a long-avoided fault line in schools: the split between IT and educational technology. What began years ago as a practical solution, a teacher who “knew tech” stepping in to help, may now have become a structural liability. As AI accelerates change and risk increases, the trio ask whether fragmented leadership around technology i...

In Episode 7 of The Dark Side of the Moon , the conversation turns to one of the most sensitive questions in education: if AI changes how knowledge is accessed, what exactly are we still measuring? A personal story about rigid subject choices opens a wider debate about linear schooling, right answers and the difference between performance and genuine learning. As the discussion unfolds, the trio w...

In Episode 6 of The Dark Side of the Moon , the conversation looks backwards in order to see forwards. Sparked by the story of the Round Hill School in 19th-century Massachusetts, Garland, James and Darren explore what happens when education evolves faster than the systems designed to contain it. The episode traces striking parallels between early human-centred schools like Round Hill, Montessori...

In Episode 5 of The Dark Side of the Moon , Garland, James and Darren are joined by Dr Liam Browne for a leadership-level conversation about what it means to run a school as AI becomes part of the system rather than just another tool. The discussion explores how leaders’ views on learning and assessment have shifted in recent years, particularly the move away from judging learning by polished outc...

In Episode 4 of The Dark Side of the Moon , the conversation moves beyond whether AI belongs in education and asks a harder question: are we using AI to rethink learning, or simply to make outdated systems run faster? From policy templates and automated meetings to parental absence and blurred boundaries between school and home, the hosts unpack the quiet assumptions shaping how AI is being adopte...

In Episode 3 of The Dark Side of the Moon , the focus shifts from technology itself to the people standing at the front of the room. As AI accelerates change across education, what happens to the traditional role of the teacher? Are educators being replaced, or is their role quietly evolving into something more human, more relational, and more essential? Garland, James and Darren explore the tensi...

In Episode 2 of The Dark Side of the Moon , the conversation turns to an invisible machine running nonstop in the background of modern life. It doesn’t make products. It manufactures thought. As AI removes friction from creating ideas, writing, images and meaning itself, the hosts ask a deceptively simple question: does this mark the end of originality, or the beginning of a new creative renaissan...

In our debut episode, Garland, James and Darren tackle a provocative question: as AI becomes more capable, what happens to human mentorship and apprenticeships? The conversation opens up into a wider exploration of how we learn, why our systems feel outdated and whether AI could revive rather than replace the human role in education. Thoughtful, unscripted and full of sparks, this episode sets the...