Tristram Shepard

'Splitting From The Norm' — my sixteen-year-old little brother just blew my mind with this incredible piece he made for his senior art project. Jake has always been the "difficult" kid in our family, the one who got suspended for arguing with teachers and spent more time in detention than anyone should. Mom was constantly getting calls from school about his attitude or his refusal to follow directions. But apparently, all that rebellious energy found the perfect outlet in woodworking class this semester. He spent three months planning and building this split dresser, working after school every day and refusing to let any of us see it until the big reveal at the school art show last night. When we walked into that gallery and saw this massive, impossible-looking piece of furniture that actually functions perfectly, I literally got chills. Each drawer opens smoothly despite looking like it should topple over, and the craftsmanship is honestly better than furniture I've seen in expensive stores. The best part was watching him explain his technique to visitors, confident and articulate in a way we never see at home. His art teacher told us he's already got colleges interested based on photos of this project, and there's been talk about him potentially selling custom furniture pieces. I've been encouraging him to document his process and maybe start small with some simpler designs online, where there's actually a market for young artists doing unique woodworking. Seeing him find something he's genuinely passionate about and incredibly talented at has been the best surprise of this whole year — turns out our "problem child" was just a creative genius waiting for the right outlet.

Think LLMs are unreliable? Maybe it's not the model. Maybe it's you. Most people blame the AI when their outputs fall apart. But they never audit their own prompts. They don't check if they gave enough context. They expect it to read their mind. You want better results? Start with better input. LLMs reflect your clarity. If you're vague, they will be too. The model isn't failing. Your process is.

AI is the greatest equalizer in human history. It doesn’t care about your zip code, your skin color, your degree, or your last name. It only cares about what you do with it.

When politicians start horsing around with education policy… Someone needs to call time at the stables. All Change Plese! NEW POST: tristramshepard.wordpress.com/2026/02/26/off…

Travelling back 20 years to speak to myself when I first started teaching

Film Studies “worthless”? That’s a long shot. All Change Please! saddles up, checks the facts, and finds the argument looking distinctly lame. tristramshepard.wordpress.com/2026/02/26/off…

Before you put Creative Arts out to pasture – you might want to check the evidence. All Change Please! saddles up, checks the facts, and finds the argument looking distinctly lame. tristramshepard.wordpress.com/2026/02/26/off…

In which we learn that when politicians start axing “dead-end degrees”, it’s time to rein them in. All Change Please! saddles up, checks the facts, and finds the argument looking distinctly lame. tristramshepard.wordpress.com/2026/02/26/off…

The kids who will thrive in the AI age aren’t the ones with the best grades. They’re the ones who learned to think for themselves, solve real problems, speak multiple languages, and build something before they turned 18. Schools teach compliance. The future rewards creativity. Parents: Your own home is the most powerful classroom on earth. Use it.

When politicians start horsing around with education policy… Someone needs to call time at the stables. All Change Please! NEW POST tristramshepard.wordpress.com/2026/02/26/off…

We are sending our kids to school to memorize facts that AI can retrieve in 0.3 seconds. We're grading them on essays that AI writes better than their teachers. We're preparing them for jobs that won't exist by the time they graduate. The entire education system is training humans to compete with machines at what machines do best. That's not education. That's sabotage. The schools that survive will teach thinking, not memorizing. Creating, not repeating. Discerning, not obeying. Every other school is a museum that doesn't know it yet.

Nobody is talking about this. The children born today will never know a world without autonomous AI. They won’t Google things. They’ll ask an agent. They won’t learn to code. They’ll learn to direct. They won’t write resumes. There may not be jobs to apply to. We’re raising the first generation of humans who will grow up alongside minds that aren’t human. And we’re parenting them with a 1995 playbook. The most important skill you can teach your kids right now isn’t math or coding. It’s how to think. How to discern. How to stay human when everything around them isn’t.

@RogersHistory Wasting money. Forcing schools to embrace a corporate identity when they really should be allowed to flourish. Paying crazy salaries to CEOs (or whatever their title may be), for not doing much. Expecting too much from their staff and their pupils. Providing their own CPD…

Read @TristramShepard it’s what I mentioned in my email.

Here we go. Close down the arts courses! Progress!

If other jobs were like teaching part 1