This interview by Grade 12 student Claire Ru was originally published in The Jag, Issue 07, the student-run newspaper at St. Michaels University School.
By Claire Ru '26
For this issue, I interviewed Mr. Hlannon, the Director of Educational Technology at SMUS. As a student who has, surprisingly, never taken any courses from the Engineering, Technology, and Design Department, this interview was my first time stepping into the engineering classroom on the third floor of Crothall.
However, whether you are already taking courses from the department or are someone like me, who has never stepped into the classroom, this interview may take you a little bit further into this world filled with attempts, hands-on experiences, and no correct answers.
Could you briefly describe the engineering department to students who are unfamiliar with it?
Officially, it is called the engineering, technology, and design department, and that last word is probably the key that holds us all together–the design aspect.
There are courses in engineering in grades 9 and 10, and we're adding grade 11 and grade 12 engineering next year. We've got computer science all the way through. And robotics in grades 9 and 10. We have some offerings in media design, graphic design, and film. All those courses have some design aspect to them. Students are creating, they're failing along the way, they're learning from their failures, and they're iterating their designs. [There are] lots of different ways of exploring it, but design and technology are at the core of [everything].
Why should students take classes in the engineering department?
It's a different way of learning. Students sometimes are uncomfortable being asked to explore and build something, because the teacher knows how to build them, but it's not the essence of what we're all doing.
There's no right answer. There are just designs that you make. Then, you reflect on them and realize if they work the way you wish or not. Ultimately, students get to figure out ways to improve on them. So it's different from an AP multiple-choice exam, in which if you learn how to provide the right answers, you get 100%. Nothing like that exists in our space.
Just digging into that kind of iterative, [there is] always some way to improve it and no clear way to do it. [Students] take on really hard, challenging problems that don't have clear answers…It's a different learning setup than exists in most of the rest of the school. This is also why I think [these courses] are valuable in the real world—they give kids a chance to explore.
Advanced Topics in Computer Science is a relatively new course at SMUS. What makes this course stand out as "advanced"?
It looks at evolving areas of computer science that AP Computer Science and the other computer science classes in our school and other schools just don't touch.
For instance, machine learning and artificial intelligence are very different ways of understanding computer science and building computers. Quantum computing is another emerging area. It's a completely different hardware, a completely different way of thinking about computing. That's going to have huge impacts on the world of technology.
The jobs that students are going to be walking into are more likely to be in these areas of machine learning, quantum computing, or blockchain technology.
We want to open the door for the students and show them what newly emerging fields look like. We don't go terribly far into any of these areas, but we give them some languages and understandings of what these fields are all about, so when they get to university, they can keep their eyes open for those opportunities.
What do you think is the aim of engineering education in high school?
Practical, hands-on, problem-solving, collaborating, design thinking, making things, breaking things, and learning by doing all those things.
It should be very application-based, very product-based, and no test is really needed in an engineering project, because the students will have some challenges that they each face, and then they can self-assess. The teacher doesn't need to assess.
They can see from their own success and failure at the task how well they're doing. From that, they're motivated to go and then improve.
And so I think if we could stay in that space, providing the authentic experiences of what the real world needs from our students, it would be beneficial as they go on and graduate and go off and do jobs. There, they're not going to be getting multiple-choice questions from their employers. They're going to be given problems that people don't know the answer to or how to solve, because if they knew how to solve it, they wouldn't have hired you in the first place. Getting our students more comfortable working in that space is going to give them skills for the future.
In the AI era, what are some often-neglected impacts on students choosing to learn engineering, computer science, and design?
It's an amazingly powerful and useful tool for learning if it's used in that way, and it's also this really intoxicating shortcut to help avoid learning, which can be harmful for students.
I almost think of it like, when you're going to the gym, or you're doing some exercise, you have a physical feeling of what it is like to push yourself and improve your physical fitness, and I think when you're studying, you should be feeling something analogous: an exhaustion, a push, a frustration level.
You should be in that space, and if you are using AI well, you're still in that space. If you're using AI poorly, it's like you've gotten a robot to lift the weights for you. You're not going to feel the effects of the gym, and you won't be feeling exhausted and feeling like your physical health is improving.
I think it's something you have to just sort of develop a good, keen sense of how you are feeling in the process of doing the activity you're doing, because it's really easy to say you should only use AI when you're doing advanced stuff, not foundational stuff. But, in practice, it is much more difficult. AI can help you get through a bunch of tasks and skip the foundational learning; however, this is going to hurt you down the line when you need to apply [those skills] later on.
For these reasons, it's really hard for teachers in the school to make guardrails to safeguard students and protect them, and ultimately, that has to fall on the students' shoulders to be able to distinguish and self-assess. I think that's a skill that we have to help students develop throughout high school, but eventually, by the time they graduate, students need to own that themselves. It's really just being truthful to yourself, and knowing when you're getting the robot to lift the weights for you, or when you're lifting the weights yourself.
What attitude do you think we should have to approach new technology?
I think we should be curious and suspicious in equal measure.
Every technology has amazing potential and amazing risks. We've seen that with smartphones, cars, nuclear power…We've seen that all over the place. AI is no different.
There's amazing potential for all kinds of progress in medicine, energy, climate change, and public policy. There are so many places where AI can help us. It can also exacerbate problems that already exist with income disparity, class disparity, and access to technologies. It can cause problems for young learners as well as social-emotional problems for kids as they fail to make attachments to other humans, instead making attachments to technology.
That's why I think it's important to be both skeptical and curious about how we can use AI to help.
Is there anything you would like to add to this interview?
(Ms. Hann joined for this part. The two teachers responded simultaneously)
We like to have fun. We encourage creativity and exploration.
Failure is not a bad word in our department. You learn more from a failure than you learn from a success. We don't want to overdo the failure, but failure is not a course grade. Failure is the thing that didn't work. It's "what can I do to make it better?" And that's a good thing.
This is a place to learn that.
Tenacity. Fun. Hard fun.
We like that. Hard fun.
