I've been here before part 2- Why AI is a part of the next chapter of my S-Cubed Journey

As I’ve been building the new S-Cubed AI Coach App, I made a decision about something that might seem pretty insignificant.

I’m not changing my old slides.

Some of them are pixelated. Some of them aren't particularly pretty. If I created them today, they certainly wouldn't look the same.

But I'm keeping them.

Because they're part of the story.

When I created S-Cubed, this was pretty much a one-man show. It still is mostly that.  I hired people to help me with things here and there once I had some success, but when you look at those original materials, you are looking at the work of a teacher who had a lot of ideas and absolutely no idea how to make them look professionally polished.

I knew how to teach.

I knew how to get middle school students to read music.

I knew how to make them laugh while they were learning.

I knew how to take something that intimidated kids—and intimidated their teachers—and break it into small enough pieces that suddenly they could do it.

What I didn't know was graphic design.

And you can tell.

I'm okay with that.

In fact, I've decided that I don't want AI—or anything else—to go back and sanitize that part of my journey.

Over the years, teachers who purchased S-Cubed have sometimes created beautiful versions of my materials for their own classrooms. They've shared them with me. I love seeing them.

But the originals are mine...in all of their imperfect glory.  

They represent where I was at that moment in my life.

And I think there is something worth preserving about that.

I've watched technology change before.

I've lived long enough to know that times change and new technologies arrive.

I also decided a long time ago that I don't want to make my decisions out of fear.

I want to make them out of love.

I love this program, and I love helping teachers.  S-Cubed has been a lifelong journey for me.  

I've created hundreds of lessons over the years in addition to S-Cubed, and they matter to me because of the teachers and students on the other side of them.

That has always been the mission.

Help teachers. Help students. Make learning accessible and fun and effective.  

3/4 cup learning + 1/4 cup fun = SUCCESS. 

My motto.  Look at the original stuff I posted 13 years ago.  I've stuck to it.  

The technology has changed.

The mission hasn't.

And that is how I see AI.

I remember being terrified in 2013.

When I started putting unedited videos of myself teaching on YouTube in 2013, I was scared to death.

These weren't beautifully produced videos.  

They were me.

Teaching.

Talking.

Trying things.

Sharing what I had learned from years in a middle school chorus classroom.

And putting yourself out there like that means people get to judge you.

When I began selling my lessons on Teachers Pay Teachers for $3 a pop, every time a new review appeared, I was afraid to read it.

I remember one review after I finished Level One in 2014.

A fellow Teachers Pay Teachers seller tore the program apart.

The painful part?

A lot of what she said was true.

Some things could have looked better. There were things I could have cleaned up.  But...I didn't know how.  

But what she couldn't possibly have known was how many hours this one teacher had spent sitting at a computer trying to get all of those ideas out of my head and into those PowerPoints and into the hands of teachers and students who needed it.  

Thankfully, most teachers approached me differently.

They would write reviews about how much the program helped their students—and then sometimes privately message me:

"Hey, Dale, you might want to take another look at this slide."

That's how most teachers are.

We help each other.

We make each other's work better.

And I listened.

Sometimes you have to build the thing yourself.

Before S-Cubed became what it became, I tried to interest traditional publishing companies in what I was doing.

It didn't really fit.  My vision seemed to be ahead of where they were.  And that's ok.  

The way I wanted to deliver the program was unusual at the time.

So eventually I did what I've done many times in my life.

I built it myself.

Looking back now, I realize I've been standing at versions of this same crossroads for most of my career.

When I decided to compete in sportaerobics back in the early 90's, none of the folks at my gym would do it with me because I was scrawny.  Some of them had actually won a regional event.  Most had not.  So, I picked up the rule book myself, and did it my way.  And three years later, I was a National Champion in the sport when it was at its peak.  It's what I do.  It doesn't mean I am always right...but I'm following the path right now that I have always followed, and it is all documented on social media.  

At the time I shared S-Cubed for the first time-  

YouTube was new.

Teachers Pay Teachers was new.

Social media was new.

Putting your classroom and your teaching ideas on the internet was new.

Every one of those things came with reasons to be nervous.

And now AI is here.

So I'm building an AI Coach App.  

For the past several weeks, I've been training an AI-powered S-Cubed Coach app using my own teaching, my own philosophy, my own materials, and my own experience.

The first version is intentionally focused.

Lessons 1 through 10.

Those first lessons are where teachers are learning how S-Cubed works. They're figuring out the games, the pacing, the philosophy, and how all the pieces fit together.

Some teachers fly through them.

Others need somebody beside them saying:

"Here's what Dale is trying to accomplish today."

"Don't worry about that yet."

"Watch for this."

"Here's what you should do tomorrow."

For years, I have tried to provide that kind of support through videos, emails, blog posts, Facebook groups, and professional development.

Now there is another possibility.

An AI Coach that can help hold a teacher's hand through those first ten lessons—day by day—using the approach I have trained it to use.

Over the next two months, I'm going to test it.

And I'm excited.

I'm also nervous.

Those two feelings can exist at the same time.

I know some people won't like this.

I'm in an artistic field.

I'm an artist.

I'm also a businessman.

Those two identities don't always sit comfortably beside each other.

I understand why musicians and teachers are asking hard questions about AI. I think we should ask hard questions about it.

I also believe people should have choices.

People can choose whether they want to use Facebook.

They can choose whether they want to use YouTube.

They can choose whether they want to use TikTok.

They can choose whether they want to use AI.

And they can choose whether they want to purchase something that is powered in part by AI.

That's why I'm being completely transparent about what I'm building.

I'm not hiding the AI.

I'm talking about it while I'm building it.

I'm talking about what excites me.

I'm talking about what worries me.

And I'll talk about what works and what doesn't.

Because that's pretty much how I've lived my entire career.

I've been transparent about much harder things.

I was an openly gay public school teacher through years when doing that wasn't always easy.

I knew some people wouldn't approve.

Some didn't.

But I eventually learned something important:

Being disliked by some people isn't the same thing as being wrong.

Leadership doesn't mean everyone agrees with you.

I accepted many years ago that I am a leader.

And being a leader in any field carries responsibility.

It means listening.

It means questioning yourself.

It means being willing to change when you're wrong.

But it also means being willing to move when you believe something can help people—even when not everybody is ready to move with you.

That's where I am with AI.

The slides are staying.

So those slightly ugly, occasionally pixelated S-Cubed slides?

They're staying.

Because AI isn't going to rewrite my history.

It's going to sit beside it.

The teacher who made those PowerPoints is still here.

The guy who uploaded those imperfect YouTube videos night after night after teaching all day full-time is still here.

The teacher who was terrified to open his first reviews is still here.

The artist is still here.

What's changed is that I now have access to a tool I couldn't have imagined when I started.

And I'm going to see what I can do with it.

If it helps a teacher make it through Lesson 7 when they otherwise might have given up, that's important to me.

If it helps a teacher understand why a particular game matters, that's important to me.

If it helps that teacher's students experience that wonderful moment when they realize, Wait—I can actually read this music, then I've accomplished exactly what I set out to accomplish all those years ago.

The tool changed.

The mission didn't.

I'm 62 years old now.

My résumé is my résumé.

I'm thankful for my life experience.  

I'm thankful for the teachers and students I've helped.

I'm not going to start making decisions out of fear now.  I've never done that.  

On my personal Facebook page, I've had a motto for years:

Share your gifts.

That's what I've tried to do with mine.

It's what I'm doing with this next chapter.

And it's what I intend to keep doing until I take my last breath.