In a recent article in El Debate, a Spanish digital newspaper, Francisco López Rupérez defends what he calls a pedagogy of effort in the age of artificial intelligence. The argument is neither technophobic nor nostalgic. It is structural.
We are entering an educational environment in which generative AI dramatically reduces cognitive friction. Explanations appear instantly. Essays are drafted in seconds. Problems are reformulated and solved with minimal delay. Convenience becomes the norm.
Yet intellectual formation has always relied on something less comfortable.
Effort is not merely endurance. It is sustained engagement with difficulty that consolidates understanding. It is repetition that stabilises memory. It is struggle that shapes conceptual clarity. Without effort, knowledge remains superficial and habits fragile.
López Rupérez reminds us that education is not only about access to information but also about cultivating disciplined dispositions. In this sense, AI poses a new challenge: not an overt decline but subtle cognitive laziness. When immediate assistance becomes habitual, the internalisation of reasoning processes weakens.
The risk is not that students will use AI. The risk is that they will bypass the formative stage in which thinking is structured through trial, revision and sustained attention.
A pedagogy of effort is therefore not opposed to innovation. It is its necessary counterpart. Artificial intelligence can amplify capability, but it cannot replace the habit of disciplined inquiry. That habit must be cultivated before automation intervenes.
In a culture increasingly shaped by instant gratification, defending effort is not reactionary. It is responsible.
Education worthy of the name cannot promise comfort.
It must foster resilience, clarity and intellectual autonomy.
Francisco López Rupérez’s article (in Spanish) is a timely reminder that technological acceleration does not eliminate the need for rigorous formation. On the contrary, it makes it more urgent.
Link to the original article (Spanish):