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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.

Ira David Socol
Teachers on Fire Magazine

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Cover of book, Designed to Fail — showing an old academic at a drafting table drawing a 1910 high school as he is surrounded by contemporary students.
Designed to Fail

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.”

1970s edition of the World Book Encyclopedia
The World Book Encyclopedia

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…

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