The Children vs. Our Future. How Are Local Teachers and Students Dealing with AI in the Classroom?
by Paul M. French
I think the war is already lost. I think we’re doomed. Let’s… Let’s win a few battles along the way.”
I listen as Todd Madison, 11-12th grade English teacher at East High School, utters a swan song for his profession.
“We always hear about those Japanese soldiers after World War II who kept fighting for years or even decades, not knowing it’s over. And that’s what I feel about myself right now,” he says. “The war’s already over, but I’m going to keep fighting while I can… have a few victories.”
Meanwhile, right down the hall from Madison, fellow teacher Jason Sternberg sings a different tune. “I call it my friend Chad,” he says, referring to ChatGPT. He elaborates that, while he’s opposed to students using these tools for significant assignments, he’s more optimistic about AI in the classroom. In fact, he’s quite open about employing the technology himself. “I can just be like, ‘Hey, can you take this information and put it into a handout for a kid?’” he says. “Then I look over it, make sure that everything is legit, because I definitely recognize the limitations and the fact that it could make things up. But I just find it to be a tool for convenience.”
Madison and Sternberg represent a broader division on AI in education. The technology’s introduction—or imposition, depending on your view—has led to a Wild West scenario where rules and philosophies diverge dramatically from classroom to classroom. And as educators wrestle with the new reality, lines are being drawn, with neither side certain of what’s to come and students caught in the middle.
“I don’t think the administration knows what to do,” reported K, a senior at the Denver School for the Arts. “And I honestly think that has backed them into a corner, because I don’t think they can talk about it.”
K explained that, during their sophomore year, teachers and administrators took more of a hardline approach to AI. “There was a no-tolerance policy,” K said. “If you were caught using AI, it would be an automatic zero, things like that. But since then, things have softened, and I think it’s because teachers can’t really do anything about it. I was talking to my film studies teacher last year, and he said that he knows a lot of the work is written by AI, but that it’s just too out of hand.”
Interviews with other students and teachers in Denver confirmed K’s account. At the beginning, AI-assisted homework was treated like plagiarism. After all, a student using AI is passing someone else’s work for their own—even if that “someone” isn’t a someone in the traditional sense.
