Opinion: Keep ChatGPT Out of the Classroom
AI-powered language models like ChatGPT are often touted as teaching aids that can unlock student creativity or serve as an after-hours tutor to help with outlines and drafts.
But “ChatGPT was not designed for schools,” instructor Liz Shulman argued in a Boston Globe opinion piece. Using artificial intelligence “eliminates the symbiotic relationship between thinking and writing and takes away the developmental stage when students learn to be that most coveted of qualities: original,” she wrote.
Shulman, an English Teacher at Evanston Township High School and adjunct professor for the Master’s in Science in Education Program in the School of Education and Social Policy, emphasized that high school students are at a critical stage of discerning right from wrong and original vs. borrowed ideas.
Using ChatGPT can undermine their confidence and ability to think for themselves, she wrote. And the longer it’s used in the classroom, the more they will rely on it.
“I want my students to know their ideas have value, to understand they can rely on themselves and think through problems,” she wrote. “Understanding who they are begins with knowing what they think. ChatGPT might be able to do a lot, but it can’t do that. Keep it out of the classroom.”
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