Dr. Shane Snipes

AI feels powerful because it works through language — the same tool humans use to turn ideas into reality. In this post, I explore why AI can feel like “thinking,” why expertise still matters, and why students should use AI to deepen knowledge, not avoid it. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/language-mirror-why-ai-feels-like-thinkingand-human-snipes-ph-d--1c2ie

The Language Mirror: Why AI Feels Like Thinking—and Why Human Expertise Still Matters One of the reasons artificial intelligence feels so strange, so powerful, and sometimes so unsettling is that it works through one of the oldest human superpowers: language. Before we had software, spreadsheets, search engines, databases, slide decks, or AI assistants, we had language.

What a celebration with Borough of Manhattan Community College/CUNY with Mayor Mamdani

What if happiness is not something we chase, but something we stop covering up?

In this new reflection, I write about the falsehood of “unconditional,” the discomfort of 10 days of silence, the hungry monkey mind, and how Dhamma helps us stop turning every reaction into a residence.

Life has conditions: homes, cars, pets, jobs, hopes, dreams, neighbors, leaders, disappointments, and all the little daily “character-building opportunities” nobody ordered. Practice does not remove the world. It helps us stop adding extra suffering to it.

The article also connects inner practice to public life, drawing on values carried by Native people, women, Black writers, abolitionists, and civic voices too often left out of the usual origin story.

Peace is not passivity. It is training.

Read the full reflection: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/falsehood-unconditional-silence-dhamma-practice-shane-snipes-ph-d--d8yoe

The Falsehood of Unconditional: Silence, Dhamma, and the Practice of Freedom “Unconditional” sounds beautiful until life walks in with muddy shoes. A house has conditions.

¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

May the 4th
Be With You
😆

AI in education is moving fast. Really fast. Like “the syllabus just blinked and now it needs a committee” fast.

My new post explores how educators can move students beyond shallow AI use — the old “ask, copy, submit” loop — and toward deeper learning through .

The framework is simple:

Ask
Reflect
Challenge
Refine
Decide

AI should not replace student thinking. It should help students test, question, and improve their thinking.

Your ideas come first. AI refines them.

From Tool to Teammate: Teaching and Learning with AI as a Co-Creation Partner *Look out for the recording of the talk in the coming days. Dr.

What if the most powerful skill we could teach right now… isn’t more content—but better attention?

In a world of constant noise, students don’t just need information—they need space to think, reflect, and respond with clarity. This new piece explores how timeless teachings from the Dhammapada connect directly to modern classrooms—and why presence might be the most underrated academic skill today.

This isn’t about being calm all the time.
It’s about learning how not to turn every challenge into chaos.

If you teach, learn, or lead—this one will land.

👉 Read the full blog and rethink what real learning looks like.

How to Stay Present in a Distracted World: Lessons from the Buddha for Students & Educators There’s a quiet truth running through these teachings—steady, grounded, and just a little inconvenient if you were hoping peace could be delivered like a package. It can’t.

I am honored to offer a talk Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Beaufort for on Apr 26 at 10AM ET. Watch on their website at www.uubeaufort.org with zoom link there 🙏