Last week I promised to stop writing about school cellphone controversy for the rest of the year (even though I included a cellphone story in ABPTL’s latest Friday News Roundup).
So I’m not going to write about cellphones.
But I am going to write about artificial intelligence.
Recently, Edutopia posted a story about Chanea Bond, a Texas high school English language arts teacher, who has banned ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence software from her classroom – forbidding her students from using any artificial intelligence at all during this school year.
Freelance reporter Andrew Boryga writes,
“While many high school English language arts teachers plan to let their students lean on ChatGPT and other generative AI tools to help them brainstorm or to provide feedback on the grammar, vocabulary, and structure of their drafts, Chanea Bond has other plans this school year.”
“Recently, the Texas teacher, who is starting her 10th year in the classroom, declared on X to her nearly 60,000 followers that she will enforce a strict no-AI-use policy in her classes. Students who break the policy will receive a zero on assignments, ‘and there will be no exceptions,’ Bond said.”
“The post was viewed over 100,000 times and caused a bit of a stir.”
Here’s the post:
“Student use of AI in the classroom is not a forgone conclusion. The second we cede control to the ‘inevitable’ invasion, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. I plan to propose a no-AI-policy at my school and this is a draft of the class policy I’m putting in my syllabi:”
“Statement on the use of AI:
In this class, your job is to grow into a better reader and writer. In order to do your job, you must read and write a lot. My job is to provide feedback to help you grow in your abilities. In order to do my job, I need to read YOUR writing. I need to know YOUR voice. With this established, AI generated or enhanced writing is not permitted. Usage of AI will result in a score of 0% on the assignment and there will be no exceptions.”
“’AI can do a lot more than write for your students. Brainstorm, outline, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, tone, feedback,’ wrote one educator in response. ‘Are you proposing none of these use cases be allowed & = ZERO score?’”
“’Yes,’ Bond replied. ‘All of the things you mentioned are skills my students are supposed to develop in school.’”
“Bond told me that her policy isn’t about asking students to bury their heads in the proverbial sand. She’s more concerned with what her students are learning – or more often, not learning – by leaning on AI to help them formulate and write their assignments.”
“Bond believes that allowing students to outsource their ideas and rough-draft thinking to AI doesn’t help them and in fact devalues vital literacy skills like originality, creativity, analysis, and synthesis.”
“’The original ideas are the most important component in a student’s writing,’ Bond told me. ‘You can polish everything else. But how are you going to polish an idea that you didn’t originally have, that you didn’t originally think of, and that you don’t really have any investment in?’”
…
I’m guessing Chanea Bond thinks of herself as an effective classroom teacher. But 50 years from now – maybe 20 – we will look back at some of Bond’s comments contained in Andrew Boryga’s article and scratch our heads as to how off-base someone who serves as an adult learning leader could be.
Let’s look at some of Bond’s statements above and think about their validity moving forward:
“Student use of AI in the classroom is not a forgone conclusion.” – Excuse me, but yes, it is. We would be bad learning stewards if we didn’t allow our young learners to access what is quickly becoming the most powerful educational resource the world has ever known. Bond, and other AI deniers like her, would be wise to embrace AI inside their classrooms so that their young learners aren’t convinced their classrooms are being led by a group of modern Luddites.
“The second we cede control to the ‘inevitable’ invasion, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.” – Whether we cede control or not, AI is already a self-fulfilling prophecy. And here’s the deal, AI will only get better and more reliable over the next five to ten years. So make your jokes now about AI’s errors because you won’t be able to do that in the very near future.
“In this class, your job is to grow into a better reader and writer. In order to do your job, you must read and write a lot. My job is to provide feedback to help you grow in your abilities.” – Maybe Bond could say all of this in a different way? Like “Part of the work you and I, along with help from AI and experts around the world, will do this year is to make you a better reader and writer. And practice is important, but there is artificial and real life assistance out there in the world right now to make you a better reader and writer. And my job, along with AI and experts around the world, is to provide feedback to help you grow in your abilities.”
“In order to do my job, I need to read YOUR writing. I need to know YOUR voice.” – Again, maybe Bond could use different words here, like “My job is to help you become a better reader and writer. So, to do that, you and I are going to employ assistance from artificial intelligence coaches, along with live experts from around the world.” Bond, along with most teachers inside traditional classrooms today, don’t realize how their roles must change to be true learning leaders for the remainder of the 21st century. A 21st century learning leader is not a 20th century teacher.
“All of the things you mentioned are skills my students are supposed to develop in school.” – Wrong! Brainstorming, outlining, improving grammar, spelling, and vocabulary, paying attention to tone, and inviting feedback are learning skills adult learning leaders can help young learners build into their individual learning plans anytime and anywhere, but they are also skills artificial intelligence software and human expertise can help young learners perfect so they can become smarter and stronger in their learning.
Teachers can threaten young learners with “no credit” if they utilize AI all they want, but the reality is that artificial intelligence is here to stay and anyone thinking of themselves as a learning leader would be foolish to ignore it.
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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