The rapid diffusion of generative artificial intelligence into education has intensified debates about assessment, authorship, teacher agency, and the visibility of student thinking. Much of this debate is framed through policy, ethics, digital literacy, risk management, or technological capability. Less attention has been given to the affective and relational dimensions of AI adoption: what educators feel, what those feelings protect, and how emotional responses shape professional judgement during periods of technological change. This working paper introduces the Emotional Ecology Spiral of AI in Education, a practice-based conceptual framework and visual artefact for supporting educator sense-making around AI. The spiral maps five recurring emotional and pedagogical movements: fear, grief, reflection, curiosity, and agency. These are not presented as a linear adoption model. They are understood as recursive movements through which educators protect valued practices, mourn possible losses, pause to reinterpret change, experiment with boundaries, and co-create new norms for AI in learning. The framework was developed through educator conversations, public professional discourse, and practice-based design work. It was subsequently used as a reflective and co-design prompt in a professional-development setting with approximately 250 educators. This use functioned as practice-based sense-checking rather than formal empirical validation. The paper argues that educators’ fear and grief should not be dismissed as resistance to innovation. They often signal care for effort, authorship, attention, fairness, presence, and the visibility of thinking. The central proposition is that many debates about whether AI “kills thinking” are more precisely debates about assessment, authorship, and process visibility. When assessment rewards polish alone, AI can shortcut thinking. When assessment rewards process, justification, revision, and reflection, AI can become a mirror for thinking. The paper offers the spiral as a citable vocabulary for educators, researchers, designers, and policy actors seeking to move AI conversations beyond tools talk toward relational trust, pedagogical clarity, and shared agency. Keywords:AI in education; emotional ecology; educator professional learning; authorship; assessment; teacher agency; relational AI; co-design; AI literacy; process-visible learning
Arafeh Karimi (Sat,) studied this question.