A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

Some assignments are bigger than can be done in one class period. And class time is for lecture; there isn't a lot of time for students to work problems on their own.

So we're just dealing with what (some) students have always done: get someone else to write the report or do the math homework. Or have parents pay a tutor to help. Or use Cliff's Notes instead of reading the book. But now it's trivially easy and free. There are no obstacles to cheating other than knowing it's wrong and self-defeating, and those are things that young people don't really have a well-developed sense about.

Some people promote a “flipped classroom” where you’re supposed to watch video lectures on your own and classroom time is used to discuss them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom

What about this idea: flip the script. Students must learn the subject OUTside of class: teacher provides video lectures for those that want to use them, but any source is open game -- YouTube, AI, you name it.

Then class time is reserved exclusively for doing the assignments. No phones or computers allowed.

That's funny that I just had that idea around the same time that you must have been typing your answer. (See my adjacent answer). Actually thought it was probably a crazy idea and would get quickly downvoted. Quite surprised that there's already a Wikipedia article about it. Cool.

So teachers are...proctors? No reason to have every teacher recording their own lectures. One teacher per grade per district? Per state? Outsourced to the lowest bidder who generates it with AI?

Hey now we’re talking!

But seriously, teaching in public schools these days relies so much on technology, youtube, that it makes no sense to have teacher’s as paid professionals, just get subscriptions to technology services for the kids and teach them how to work them. I think we still need places to socialize kids, but that’s a different job. Anyway, yes, too many teachers are simply there to enforce unnecessary social hierarchies and rigid modes of thinking, there is no need for most of them.

Did your kids spend a year doing virtual classes? Our district here did a pretty good job compared to most, but for many kids it was basically a lost year.

There is far more value in skilled individual attention at the doing exercises stage - helping where people are stuck, figuring out which parts need revision - than at the lecture stage. Think about how college seminars work - you do the reading on your own, the learning happens when you're digging into it in a group setting.

College seminars are taken by people who want to be there.

If we're talking about K-12 education, that is for everyone and it's in society's interest that the most people learn the fundamental knowledge that we are trying to teach them.

I'm certainly open to the idea that our current approach is not optimal but I'd need to see evidence that a seminar-style approach would work in that setting. Maybe for some high school subjects. In fact some English classes were that way. We'd get a reading assignment, and then discuss in class, and then typically also have to write something about it on our own.

But math, sciences, and English topics such as grammar were all taught by lecture and example and I'm not sure the seminar approach would work as well there.

No I was a teacher before I started working in this industry