Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
VT No 304 - We obsess over WHAT is happening and almost never ask WHY!
Hello Everyone,
Schools track everything. Attendance, benchmarks, NAPLAN, dashboards. We get endless snapshots of what students did, but very little insight into why they struggled, disengaged or even succeeded. WATCH Rory Sutherland’s video then wander over to the VT Chicken road-crossing page for a laugh and a lesson,
AI is spreading faster than electricity ever did, and plenty of people are quietly whispering
“I hope no one notices I have no idea how this works.” More than 1.2 billion people have used AI tools, but many teachers, parents and kids still have no easy, enjoyable way to learn it.
That’s the real AI literacy gap. Virtual Teacher exists to fix exactly that, which is why the
AI Education Course is now complete and free for everyone. Try it out and let me know how you use it. Here’s a reflection from a student after the week 8 lesson.
We made 3 videos all featuring a different AI Character sand Voices. All about how much we love the beach. The beach is amazing. We worked really hard to perfect this and really have become proud.
Next issue will be the last for the year. A Christmas issue with great ideas for the last few weeks. You’ll love it!
Enough of the chat, check out the Amazing Tools & Absolutely Splendid ideas I have to share with you today, in the spirit of
EASIER, MORE PRODUCTIVE
& A WHOLE LOT MORE FUN!
Until Next Time…
Hope this helped you feel a bit more caught up (and less overwhelmed).
Share this with a teacher who’d love an easier, happier way to use AI in the classroom.
PS
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Here's What's on the MENU Today
Mind Candy - mental treats, light, fun or entertaining things for the brain.
GEOLOGY - This is a Weathering Erosion & Deposition STEM activity we did ALL day.
Is this a HOAX? This is UNREAL. Affinity for FREE, forever, for EVERYONE!
Why Did the TEACHER Cross the Road? The Hyperactive WHAT
AI Prompting Tip #1 A Fabulous Workflow
TO DO LIST : Make sure you do!
VT YouTube:
Let's create a ripple effect of learning, sharing, and growing together.
Pass any good ideas on to colleagues, and encourage them to subscribe to VirtualTeacher for more.
MIND CANDY
FOR ALL YOU LEXOPHILES ( LOVERS OF WORDS ) a bakers dozen
1. A bicycle can’t stand alone because it is two-tired.
2. A backward poet writes inverse.
3. In democracy it’s your vote that counts; in feudalism it’s
your count that votes.
4. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
5. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
6. The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
7. Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under.
8. Every calendar’s days are numbered.
9. A lot of money is tainted. ‘Taint yours and ‘taint mine.
10. When you’ve seen one shopping centre you’ve seen a mall.
11. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
12. Santa’s helpers are subordinate Clauses.
13. Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.
GEOLOGY
Weathering Erosion and Deposition
This is a Weathering Erosion and Deposition STEM activity we did ALL day.
I love geology so do lots of the students now as well.
Watch the Video. You’ll want to do it to.
We had such fun with this topic. Actually spent a whole day busily weathering, eroding and depositing.
PART 1
1. Working in groups, model a tote tray of sand into a landscape of mountains, hills plains and volcanoes. Tapered them to a shoreline.
2. Draw a picture of the landscape, before weathering, erosion and deposition occur and label with all the splendid landscape words.
3. Pour water through a small hole in a cup over the landscape slowly. Observe what happens.
4. Draw a picture of your landscape after the weathering, erosion and deposition have occurred.
PART 2
5. Make a DUPLO mountain. Make a river path using masking tape.
6. Put on the weathering, erosion and deposition signs - you can download them here. Print them out on A4 The PDF contains the A4 pages printed with the Weathering, Erosion & Deposition, 4 of each type. The kids used masking tape to stick them on and act out the process.
All this and more on the VT Geology page.
Is this a HOAX?
This is UNREAL.
Affinity for FREE, forever, for EVERYONE!
Now every student every teacher, every organisation can use Affinity for free.
The work is never used to train AI models, your creativity is YOURS.
Turns out, the creative world can agree on something
Since launch, thousands of creatives around the world have shared their first reactions, all rallying behind a single idea: Creative Freedom.
Affinity and Canva have teamed up.
To download Affinity you will need a FREE Canva account first.
Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
Escaping the Tyranny of the “WHAT”
Rory Sutherland’s NudgeStock talk The Lazy Why and the Hyperactive What stopped me in my tracks. We obsess over WHAT is happening and almost never ask WHY.
Education is the perfect example.
The Hyperactive WHAT
Schools track everything attendance, benchmarks, NAPLAN, dashboards. We know WHAT students did, but not WHY they struggled, disengaged or succeeded.
Data without insight isn’t learning.
The Lazy WHY
The first explanation is rarely the real one.
“Kids don’t try.”
“Teachers are overloaded.”
“Technology caused the drop.”
Simple narratives hide complex truths.
There is never one chicken or one reason it crossed the road.
The Chicken Lesson
On my Virtual Teacher page Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? you’ll see Plato, Marx, Einstein and Buddha all give different answers. Perspective matters. So does curiosity.
From What to Why
Imagine if every meeting asked just one more WHY:
WHY this data?
WHY this test?
WHY this assumption?
“WHAT” creates constraints.
“WHY ” creates possibilities.
A Small Challenge
In your next staff meeting, PL session or classroom discussion ask one more WHY than usual.
Let’s move education from measuring the WHAT to understanding the WHY and let’s make sure there’s a comfortable bench for everyone to stop, sit, think or a road to cross when they’re ready.
AI Prompting Tip #1
A Fabulous Workflow
Starting this issue I’m adding a tiny but powerful AI prompt you can try in under 30 seconds. No jargon. No overwhelm. Just simple prompts that help you think better, write better, teach better and create faster.
Here’s the first one.
Try this prompt:
“What are 10 questions someone who is new to [insert your concept] would ask?”
Suddenly you get:
lesson warm ups
curiosity questions for your whiteboard
class brainstorm starters
research prompts
digital citizenship chats
creative writing seeds
partner talk ideas
inquiry project beginnings
quick assessment checks
newsletter snippets for parents
All flowing straight out of one simple prompt.
All aligned with what your audience actually needs.
🌟 Make it Fun — Here’s a Quick Example
Say your class is learning about AI. You type:
“What are 10 questions someone who is new to AI would ask”
AI replies with things like
“Does AI have a brain”
“Can it think for itself”
“How does it know so many things”
“Does it get tired like humans”
“Is it like a robot or is it different”
“Can it make mistakes”
“Does it remember everything I tell it”
“Can it draw pictures or write stories”
“Why can it talk but not move”
“Who made it”
These become
lesson warm ups
class discussions
writing prompts
research tasks
digital citizenship conversations
BOOM!
Kids love it because the questions feel natural and fun and it turns learning into a curiosity chase not a worksheet.
All from one prompt.
CHECK THESE OUT LIST
Teaching Students to Control AI Great article on Teaching Students to control AI You can read it or listen to it here.
The New Coca-Cola Ad: Where AI Meets Pure Creative Freedom Watch the Ad and watch the behind the scenes. This is what the future of production looks like, no shortcuts, no templates, no limits. A massive creative workflow powered by AI, human imagination, and months of precise craftsmanship.
Ancient History Page Check out the VT Ancient History Page Explore ancient civilisations, mighty myths and remarkable people.
20 PhDs’ In the Time of One: How AI Is Changing College this is a must see video and applies equally to all stages of education. Arizona State University’s Michael Crow says AI isn’t replacing education, it’s transforming it, forcing universities to raise the bar and teach students how to think, not just what to know. He believes the future belongs to “master learners” who can adapt, question, and create in a world where AI accelerates everything.
Egypt’s $1 billion museum is finally opening After 32 years and $1 billion, the Grand Egyptian Museum, outside Cairo, fully opens today. As big as the Nile: Billed as the world’s largest museum dedicated to one civilisation, the facility covers the equivalent of about 80 football fields. Pharaoh-minded: The museum’s star attraction might be its complete collection of artefacts from King Tut’s tomb
Albania’s virtual AI minister is “pregnant and expecting 83 children,” the country’s prime minister announced last weekend. What is a new word ending in -uplets, to cover this. Maybe Octogintitriuplets, maybe an avalanche of children.
VT YOUTUBE
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Check out the full play list for the AI in Education Course.
This Newsletter is not free, despite the misleading advertising above.
The Fee is now due. Each week you must help one colleague AI & technology who has less knowledge than you. HELP THAT PERSON even if you have to visit their classroom or do a little research and get back to them. Trust me, this will help a lot of people get their computer classrooms running better. OK I'm trusting you!!!
Editor: Cathy Brown cathy@virtualteacher.com.au
Before you go I have a question for you:
Would you be interested in learning more about AI and how to integrate into your teaching? Would you like more information about inservice and training?
No need to decide just yet, just email me if you'd like to start the ball rolling. cathy@virtualteacher.com.au or check out the VT AI Consultancy Page.






