A veteran teacher quit teaching because of ChatGPT

*Read until the end for a little laugh - this is a pun.

I was too afraid to really express my thoughts on this issue because I thought it might be bad for my career. And perhaps it still will be. But this morning I have found the courage to write thanks to teacher and writer Victoria Livingstone, who wrote an article in Time Magazine titled "I Quit Teaching Because of ChatGPT." Like Livingstone, I know how to incorporate Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) when useful and pedagogically sound. Also, I'm not burying the lead here. I'm not quitting teaching.

Livingstone is articulating my thoughts and many other teachers. Please. Listen to us. We need your support = administrators and parents - in helping students submit work without the use of GAI. I will give you one example of how I managed to do it with the support of my school through an off-label use of an app.

Livingstone, who taught at the college level wrote: Virtually all experienced scholars know that writing, as historian Lynn Hunt has argued, is "not the transcription of thoughts already consciously present in [the writer’s] mind." Rather, writing is a process closely tied to thinking...With the easy temptation of AI, many—possibly most—of my students were no longer willing to push through discomfort.

Discomfort is hard for our students and has been throughout my career. My brother blames participation trophies. Imagine if you didn't even need to participate to get your participation trophy, rather it was generated for you? That's GAI. If students cannot handle the discomfort of writing a sentence, for what future can we possibly be preparing them?

Last week, a student submitted a paragraph that was extremely confusing to read. The student used a ubiquitous Chrome extension to aid in their writing. When I asked the student to not use it next time, the fear and anxiety in their eyes was palpable. (English is the person's first language.). Whenever I bring up issues with students using this program, or AI in general, I get "the look." You know the look. It's the "get on board or get left behind" look. I can make logical arguments, provide data, even have students agree with me, but I will still be seen as the luddite driving the Flintstones' car to Barney's, and not the one with the expensive clothes.*

Are we adopting this extension because educators have proven that composition skills are no longer a valid pursuit of one's energy, just like many do not believe students reading novels are a worthwhile endeavor? I understand using this extension if a student has little hope of achieving academic fluency in English or has learning challenges that will not allow them to access language, but why wouldn't we want a neurotypical student to continue to work at develop their writing skills?

Generative AI is, Livingstone writes in some ways, a democratizing tool. Many of my students were non-native speakers of English. Their writing frequently contained grammatical errors. Generative AI is effective at correcting grammar. However, the technology often changes vocabulary and alters meaning even when the only prompt is 'fix the grammar.'

And THIS is my biggest problem with this extension is that AI their proponents are telling students that not only do their voices not matter, but that their voices are incorrect as they are.

My most successful assignment last year took draconian measures. I'm almost embarrassed to admit them. My tenth graders ended the year writing creative non-fiction pieces. To ensure that they would not use Chat-GPT, they could only work on the pieces during class, and only on a lockdown browser application that is used to give exams during distance learning. They could have nothing on their desks; only their computers. I'm sure you are thinking, this doesn't sounds like a great environment to write creatively, but rather some kind of prison. I did feel a little ill forcing them to compose like this, but the writing was the best I've seen in years. No plagiarism. No tutors. No parent help. Just the beautiful voices and writing of 15 and 16-year olds talking about their lives in their voices.

For the final drafts, they could use Google Docs because the real authentic work was already completed. There was no need to use assistive technology beyond the basics that Google Docs (or Microsoft Word) offers.

The argument to Livingstone and to me will be: the technology will improve to sound more like them. I understand how that can happen, and that would mean making some mistakes or sounding less fluent. Why is that worthwhile? The 4.0 version of these programs will have "sound like a 7th grader from the south - not Texas, not Florida."

My response circles back to the beginning. It's about cognition. Composition contributes to the art of thinking. We do not need more people in this world who cannot think. I beg you! Remember the generation of students that never learned to multiply small numbers and then couldn't function in Algebra or the generation of students who never learned to read well without phonics.

I'd like to end with something personal. I have a school-aged child who is struggling mightily with writing. It's been ongoing, but I even received an email yesterday from their teacher. One would argue that I shouldn't worry. This is not a skill that my child will need thanks to GAI. On the contrary, I want my child to be able to express thoughts in and organized manner in composed language without needing the Jetsons' housekeeper to help them. There are other methods - like talk to text - that they* may need to use, but I will never tell my child that their voice is not worth developing. 

Neither should our schools.

This looks a little like me when I get upset with a student - even proportion to size.

Nasrallah: wafers or ice cream

This morning I woke up to the news that Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary-general of Hezbollah, was killed in Lebanon during an Israeli air strike in Beirut. Nasrallah was an avid hater of Israel and was responsible for making much of the north of Israel unlivable since October 8, 2023. He was the head of Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, a Shia Islamic terrorist organization based in southern Lebanon. A perpetrator of misery, I certainly wasn’t mourning him. However, I was displeased getting off the exit on a beautiful Saturday morning after dropping my son off at a friend’s to see three young men handing out candy to cars, wearing Israeli flags.

Most people didn’t roll down their windows, but some did. 

I thought this behavior strange because it is Shabbat, so why would religious people be doing this on Shabbat, and it’s just not really this neighborhood’s typical behavior. Also, I know in Judaism it is forbidden to celebrate another person’s death: “When your enemy falls, do not rejoice, and when he stumbles, let your heart not exult, lest the Lord see and be displeased, and turn His wrath away from him” (Proverbs 24:17).

I dropped off some groceries and told my husband and daughter, I have to run an errand. Lior looked at me suspiciously, “Where are you going?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Now I do want to know,” he said.

So, I told him. He rolled his eyes and asked me to please not to. But the man has been married to me long enough to know that I could not be deterred. 

“I don’t want our kids seeing people celebrating death. At least I can say I tried talking to them. I know it will do nothing,” I said. 

So, I walked to the corner, about 200 feet from our apartment. It is the same corner where there have been protests trying to save Israel’s democracy; protests begging to bring the hostages home. Now, here I was, wearing a purple “Bunny Rock Run 5K Egg Hunt” going to talk to these three guys. 

I crossed two streets to the grassy median which housed their, to my surprise, chocolate wafers, not candy, and asked the leader if I could speak to him and if he could speak in English. He was about 5”10, had blond hair and blue eyes, was shirtless, and wearing the Israeli flag as a cape.

“It’s a glorious day,” he said with a wide grin.

“I see that you think that, but I don’t agree with what you are doing,” I said politely. 

As I took out my phone to show him the Biblical verse, he said it in Hebrew at breathtaking speed. “Yes, I know, but this is not about religion, this is about my country.” 

And then I saw. He and his friends were not wearing head coverings (kippot).  They were not religious, as I had assumed. 

“But don’t you think this makes your country look ugly by celebrating death?” I asked him. 

“Listen, I have hated Nasrallah since I was a very little boy,” he said. “There is no one that I have hated more. Him being dead is the best thing that can happen. This is a glorious day. It is a day to celebrate.” 

“It’s hard for me to understand,” I said. 

His wide smile narrowed. “My father died in the Second Lebanon War. Nasrallah killed him. I’ve been waiting for this day my whole life.” 

“I am very sorry for the loss of your father,” I said. “That must have been very hard.” 

“Thank you,” he said. “I was told he was a good man.” 

With those words, I looked down at the ground. I saw that there was a lot of trash from their boxes of wafers. 

“Do you want me to throw those away for you?” I asked.

“No, you don’t have to,” he said. “The police took my ID number. They told me if there is even one piece of garbage I will be fined.” 

I picked up the garbage and put it in the plastic bag that they had there and went on my way. I stuffed it in the garbage can next to where the protests will be tonight to bring the hostages home. 

I should have recycled the empty wafer boxes, but I didn’t feel like it. 

A few hours later, I brought my daughter to pick up my son. When we returned they were still out there handing out wafers.

My friend came right up to the car. 

The kids became excited seeing the wafers. 

I smiled and waved at him, but did not roll down the windows. 

We do not celebrate another man’s death, and besides, we have ice cream at home.