One thing that bothers me about these conversations: failure is an important signal that what we're doing isn't working as well as we thought it would, not a sign of the apocalypse.

Kids need to understand how to adjust and grow from failure more than they need to always be on the happy-path of straight A's and easy money.

How we respond to failure is how we teach response to failure. Hand-wringing, pearl-clutching and finger-pointing aren't valuable life skills.

Personally it's easy for me to be contemptuous - I opted into an accelerated math program that banned calculators when I was in Junior High. It helped me cultivate an very crisp intuitive/conceptual understanding of basic mathematical concepts that's carried through to today. I think we should do more of that kind of education, but it's expensive and requires amazing educators and a tolerance for student struggle.

Get the machines out, absolutely. But respond to failure compassionately, as part of a natural learning process.