Article 1 in the “Educating in the Age of AI” Series

The Blue Book Is Back… Is That the Best We Can Do?

A few weeks back, I nearly spilled my morning coffee reading a Wall Street Journal article announcing that colleges are reviving the infamous “Blue Book” exam format—those flimsy blue paper booklets once used to handwrite essays or record test answers under pressure. Why bring back such an outdated tool? Because administrators and professors are worried that students are using AI tools like ChatGPT to cheat.

The article grabbed my attention—not because I’m an educator or a technologist—but because I’m a curious businessman and grandparent who’s been watching AI reshape everything from business to healthcare to, yes, education. What struck me about the Blue Book revival was how symbolic it is of something deeper: our tendency to cling to familiar systems rather than rethink them when the world changes around us.

The Blue Book isn’t a solution. It’s a symptom.

The Problem Isn’t ChatGPT… It’s the Exam.

Let’s be honest—if a chatbot can ace your exam, maybe it wasn’t a very good exam to begin with.

Too many tests designed to measure ‘learning’ still reward one thing above all: memorization. If students can simply ask an AI tool to recall facts, dates, or formulas, that’s not cheating—that’s exposing a flaw in the assessment. In the real world, where students eventually land, success isn’t measured by how much you can memorize. It’s measured by how well you can think.

AI tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok are rapidly making ‘the facts’ available to anyone, anywhere, at any time. In this evolving environment, reciting facts has diminishing value. The real value lies in asking better questions and connecting the dots among disparate pieces of information in ways no bot can replicate.

But our education system hasn’t caught up to this reality. Instead of asking, “How can we teach students to think with AI as a tool?” we’re asking, “How do we stop students from using it to cheat?”

The Opportunity Behind the “Threat”

This isn’t just about classroom discipline. It’s about preparing students for a future in which AI won’t be banned—it’ll be embedded in nearly every profession and decision-making process. The real opportunity—and responsibility—of our education system is not to prevent students from using AI, but to teach them how to use it responsibly, critically, and creatively.

Imagine an exam that asked:
– “Use ChatGPT to generate three different arguments about this issue. Now critique each one—what’s missing? What’s biased?”
– “Here’s a dataset. Use an AI tool to summarize it, then tell us what human judgment still needs to be applied.”
– “Ask ChatGPT to draft a first response to this case study. Now revise it to reflect your personal values and perspective.”

That’s not cheating. That’s learning. And today’s students need professors and teachers willing to take that approach.

Why Parents and Grandparents Should Care

As someone who’s spent decades working with business owners and leaders, I’ve seen what happens when people are trained to follow rules and ‘do what we’ve always done’ instead of learning to think for themselves. That mindset doesn’t prepare anyone for complexity—and AI is only adding to the complexity students will face in the real world.

So here’s my memo—not just to educators, but to all of us:

“If we keep teaching and testing the way we did 50 years ago, we’re not just failing students. We’re failing the future.”

Parents, grandparents, mentors, employers and neighbors: we need to start asking questions too:
– What is our local school doing to prepare students for an AI world?
– Are our kids being taught how to think—or just what to remember?
– Is technology being treated as a threat—or as an invitation to rethink what learning could be?

What’s Coming Next

This is the first in a series of articles I’m calling “Educating in the Age of AI”. In upcoming installments, I’ll be exploring:
– Why memorization isn’t mastery
– How learning assessments could evolve
– What it looks like when teachers use AI with students
– And what everyday people—parents, grandparents, and citizens—can do to support smarter learning

This isn’t about criticizing teachers. It’s about helping all of us wake up to a truth we can no longer ignore: The world is changing faster than our schools are.

Let’s talk about what we can do about it.

I’d Love to Hear from You

– Did this resonate?
– What did your own education prepare you for—or leave you unprepared for?
– How would you like to see schools change?

Leave a comment or reply if you’re reading this on Substack, or message me on LinkedIn. The conversation matters.

Author: Ben Griffin

Facilitator - CEO Peer Advisory Group; Executive Coach; Photographer