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The assignment is the problem, not AI
If you ask kids a question best answered by keying six words into ChatGPT, your kids would have to be idiots not to key six words into ChatGPT. And your kids are not idiots.
A long, long time ago, in a different century and a different technological universe, a great teacher — someone I often describe as “the teacher who saved my life” — made a simple statement about school assignments. “If you ask kids a question best answered by copying from the World Book,” he said, “they’d have to be idiots not to copy from the World Book. And your kids are not idiots.”
That statement has been my go-to response to school plagiarism and cheating issues ever since. Now it is my go-to response to the AI panic sweeping educational social media and educational journalism.
If you ask kids a question best answered by keying six words into ChatGPT, your kids would have to be idiots not to key six words into ChatGPT. And your kids are not idiots.
The problem is not AI, just as the problem has never been cheating by copying. The problem has…