Schools and ChatGPT: A conversation

This past week I read this article by journalist Jason Koebler in which he delved into public records of school administrators responding to the creation and spread of ChatGPT, showing that many administrators spent a significant amount of time unaware of what the AI service was well after its founding, as well as many school districts that encouraged schools—both teachers and students—to use AI actively in the classroom. The article is titled, "American Schools Were Deeply Unprepared for ChatGPT, Public Records Show," but it's not the unpreparedness that bothers me. ChatGPT had a sudden and rapid spread, and before my students began using it, I could not have envisioned anything like it, and even as I began to be aware of what was being made, I believed that it would not be a problem in schools for years to come.

I was very wrong. ChatGPT is possibly the main challenge I face in 2025 as an educator. I noticed partway through the article that Mr. Koebler had added a call to teachers to share their experience:

Are you a teacher? I want to hear how AI has affected your classroom and how your students use it. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at jason.404. Otherwise, send me an email at jason@404media.co.

I decided to share with him what I see in my classroom, and to continue the conversation I will share the email I sent him with you:

Hi Jason, I just read your article about schools being unprepared for AI. I teach 12th grade English, AP Language & Composition, and Journalism in a public high school in West Philadelphia. I was appalled at the beginning of this school year to find out that I had to complete an online training that encouraged the use of AI for teachers and students. I am struggling to figure out who at the school district benefits from that enough to lead to this training. I know of teachers at my school who use AI to write their lesson plans and give feedback on student work. I also know many teachers who either cannot recognize when a student has used AI to write an essay or don’t care enough to argue with the kids who do it. Around this time last year I began editing all my essay rubrics to include a line that says all essays must show evidence of drafting and editing in the Google Doc’s history, and any essays that appear all at once in the history will not be graded. Students will try to tell me they didn’t use AI, they just wrote the essay in the Notes app on their phone and copied and pasted it. But as I show them, the rubric does not differentiate between ChatGPT and the Notes app. If you copied and pasted it from anywhere, no matter what you did to it beforehand, it’s a zero. 

I refuse to use AI on principle except for one time last year when I wanted to test it, to see what it could and could not do so that I could structure my prompts to thwart it. I learned that at least as of this time last year, on questions of literary analysis, ChatGPT will make up quotes that sound like they go with the themes of the books, and it can’t get page numbers correct. Luckily I have taught the same books for many years in a row and can instantly identify an incorrect quote and an incorrect page number. There’s something a little bit satisfying about handing a student back their essay and saying, “I can’t find this quote in the book, can you find it for me?” Meanwhile I know perfectly well they cannot. Usually they’ll look for a few minutes and then say something like, “Oh, my sister helped me write this, I guess she got it wrong.”

You referenced in your article the idea that ChatGPT is building a generation of functionally illiterate students. 52% of adults in Philadelphia are functionally illiterate. I teach 18 year olds who range in reading levels from preschool to college, but the majority of them are in the lower half that range. I am devastated by what AI and social media have done to them. My kids don’t think anymore. They don’t have interests. Literally, when I ask them what they’re interested in, so many of them can’t name anything for me. Even my smartest kids insist that ChatGPT is good “when used correctly.” I ask them, “How does one use it correctly then?” They can’t answer the question. They don’t have original thoughts. They just parrot back what they’ve heard in Tiktoks. They try to show me “information” ChatGPT gave them. I ask them, “How do you know this is true?” They move their phone closer to me for emphasis, exclaiming, “Look, it says it right here!” They cannot understand what I am asking them. It breaks my heart for them and honestly it makes it hard to continue teaching. If I were to quit, it would be because of how technology has stunted kids and how hard it’s become to reach them because of that. I am only 30 years old. I have a long road ahead of me to retirement. But it is so hard to ask kids to learn, read, and write, when so many adults are no longer doing the work it takes to ensure they are really learning, reading, and writing. And I get it. That work has suddenly become so challenging. It’s really not fair to us. But if we’re not willing to do it, we shouldn’t be in the classroom. 

If you have any further questions, please let me know. I am very passionate about this topic and would be happy to discuss more.

Kate Conroy

I know that when I say things like, "My kids don't think anymore," I am generalizing. I have many kids who do think. I have a few kids who have openly told me they don't like AI and won't use it. Those kids are self-identified writers who I see scrawling in notebooks all day long. One of them told me his mom suggested he use AI to help him organize an essay, and he did it at her request, but it "felt dirty and wrong," he said. But this is overall still a trend I'm seeing increase, something that I didn't see before COVID.

I would love to hear from other educators as well as parents of teenagers, and teenagers themselves! Do you see similar changes in today's young people?