A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

Unfortunately, this kind of story will continue to be a popular one in newspapers and magazines, garnering lots of clicks. It feeds into the "everything is different now" sort of desperate helplessness people seem primed to adopt with respect to AI sometimes.

Obviously the answer to testing and grading is to do it in the classroom. If a computer is required, it can't connect to the internet.

Caught with a cellphone, you fail the test. Caught twice you fail the class.

The non-story beatings will continue until morale and common sense improve.

I'm surprised the answer of doing all exercises (including essay writing) in class is apparently not obvious.

High school me was a moron and should not be trusted to do the real work and people who know better should force him to practice the skills lol

Once he's grown and has a job he will one day realize and be thankful for the teachers that forced him to do the work.

Obviously not true for all students but I don't think it harms anyone inverting it but please point out if I'm wrong!

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.

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.

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.