MIT researchers have a name for what happens when we let AI do our thinking: cognitive debt. You get the output today, you pay with your thinking ability tomorrow.

This post is about a practical response to that problem — not a ban on AI, not a return to pencil and paper, but a framework called Shadow Explorer that gives children the habit of looking for what isn't there.

Task cards. A developmental arc from guided questions to self-generated ones. And a different way of thinking about what creativity actually requires.