Today, you can find Artificial Intelligence (AI) almost everywhere. The incorporation of AI is no longer limited to social media and search engines; it can now be found in many different workplaces. However, one place you should not be able to find AI is in schools. In Portland Public Schools (PPS), OpenAI, ChatGPT, and Sora are all readily available AI resources that both students and teachers have access to on PPS chromebooks. Because of such easy access to AI for students, it becomes incredibly easy for those who are struggling to take advantage and “cheat” their way through classes. That said, the use of AI in classrooms is no longer limited to students, it is now a tool used by some teachers as well.
Dana Vinger, a freshman English and creative writing teacher at Franklin, says she has found AI in many of her students’ work. Vinger believes the unimpeded access that students have to these tools can easily lead to overreliance on AI. “A part of growth is struggling through assignments, but if you let a machine do it, you’re not growing,” Vinger remarks. Outsourcing your work to AI can impair your ability to think critically, and lead to a significant lack of human connection; both of which are crucial for high school students’ development. An article written by Liz Mineo in The Harvard Gazette questions if AI is dulling our minds. The article quotes a small MIT Media Lab study. Mineo writes that although their study “is small and is not peer-reviewed,” the study reports, “‘[Excessive] reliance on AI-driven solutions’ may contribute to ‘cognitive atrophy’ and shrinking of critical thinking abilities. … When we asked ChatGPT whether AI can make us dumber or smarter, it answered, ‘It depends on how we engage with it: as a crutch or a tool for growth.’”
Along with AI affecting students’ development, it also affects teachers’ jobs and how educators will continue to teach in the future. Anna York, a Career and Technical Education (CTE) and social studies teacher at Franklin, has also seen AI used in students’ notebooks in her AP Psychology class. In an article by Edutopia, Marcus Luther writes about his biggest concerns around AI as a high school English teacher. “Since the public launch of ChatGPT during the 2022–23 school year, many of the headlines have focused on what students were doing with it: Articles on students cheating their way through college and the end of critical thinking in the classroom have been shared among educators,” explains Luther. He believes that what is more concerning than students using AI, is teachers using AI.
Personally, I have witnessed teachers using AI generated media on worksheets, tests, and in class slideshows. I know many of my peers have seen similar behavior from their teachers. As a student, it is disheartening and disappointing to see teachers using AI to create their lesson plans and class materials. Educators and teachers are being paid to teach their students on a certain subject, sometimes more than one. They are not hired to defer their work to machines, and not give students their best.
Teachers using any form of AI impacts students in the classroom, as well as their learning outside the classroom. If someone has incorrect information that they are quoting or using — and AI often provides incorrect or overly reductive information —, it can affect the rest of their lives, including what jobs and careers they choose. Vinger agrees that teachers should not be using AI for lesson planning. “I can only speak for myself, but as an English teacher it’s important to have an authentic understanding of the material that I am teaching, to be able to be critical of the material that I am teaching, and to be fed by AI only limits my ability to have a deeper connection to the book we might be reading, [or] the film we might be watching,” she expresses. “For me, using AI can hinder creative thinking and make lessons feel flat.”
Although I believe that teachers using AI can be faulty and not up to par, I recognize that AI can be very helpful, particularly for overworked teachers. York admits to using AI for lesson planning, and finds that AI, specifically ChatGPT, can help refine her thinking and save her time. York is currently teaching her Intro to Education class about making adaptive books for students who are visually impaired. “I couldn’t really think about what I thought would go in a book box, so I asked ChatGPT to help me come up with a visual of what that looked like,” York explains. In an NEA Today article, Tim Walker writes, “[Lawmakers] have not done enough to alleviate the crushing workload and undue stress that is pushing too many teachers out of the profession.” The almost unmanageable workload that teachers have today makes it understandable why some teachers choose to use AI for their lesson plans. York states that if she didn’t have AI for lesson planning, she wouldn’t have enough time to grade her students’ work, or give more constructive feedback.
In PPS and other districts, administration has recently been encouraging teachers to use AI and incorporate it into their classes. According to a statement provided to the Franklin Post, Clackamas Education Service District (CESD) is currently re-writing new guidance and rules for using AI in their school district. Therefore, any interviews with staff about AI must be approved by the Chief Academic Officer.
In PPS, an email from the district was sent to all teachers asking them to take a survey about how they use AI. Some of the questions on the survey asked teachers how often they used AI, and what they used it for. A similar email from Bureau of Education & Research (BER) was sent to Franklin English teachers, with the headline of “Making Best Use of AI Tools to Strengthen Your ENGLISH/LANGUAGE ARTS Instruction (Grades 6-12).” The email included an invitation to an online event, “helping” teachers make the best of using AI tools, further strengthening their instruction. PPS also has contracts with many textbook publishers and companies that want teachers to incorporate AI into their instruction. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) provides textbooks for English classes grades 6-12 in PPS. HMH sent an email to the English department in PPS, with a list of “our latest product updates to support efficiency.” From a list of five, the first suggestion is: “Personalization powered by AI.”
We live in a world where AI has taken over numerous jobs, careers, and workplaces. Schools shouldn’t be places where AI can gain control. Both teachers and students are extremely busy and stressed by school, but that is not an excuse to cheat your way through with AI. AI cannot be used as a cheap substitute for actual support from school districts and the government. It can become difficult to avoid AI generated thinking when it can be found almost everywhere, but I strongly encourage students and teachers to refrain from using AI as a shortcut, and to incorporate and prioritize original voices and ideas in their instruction and work.