A high school senior argues that ChatGPT can help change education for the better.
The release of ChatGPT sent shock waves through the halls of higher education. Universities are rushing to release guidelines on how to use them in the classroom. Professors take to social media to share a spectrum of AI policies. And students—whether they admit it or not—are carefully experimenting with the idea of letting it permeate their academic work.
But the idea of a scale response to the emergence of this powerful chatbot seems to have barely penetrated the world of K-12 education. Instead of transparent, well-defined expectations, high schools across the country are faced with a silent coup of blocked AI websites.1
That’s embarrassing. When teachers actively engage with students about the capabilities and limitations of technology—and work with them to define new academic standards—ChatGPT, and generative AI more broadly, can -democratize and revitalize K-12 education on an unprecedented scale.
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A bold claim, I know. But after a few months of testing generative AI (a nerdy case of senioritis, if you will), I’m optimistic. Exhibit A? College applications.
Few things are as mentally draining as applying to college these days, and while I’m slaving over my supplemental essays, the promise of using ChatGPT as a real-time editor is enticing—in part as which is a potential increase in productivity, but mostly as a distraction.
I’ve had ChatGPT scrutinize my howling use of semicolons, marking my writing on a 0-10 scale (the results are poor and irritating)2, and even role-play as an admissions counselor. Its advice is fundamentally incompatible with the creative demands of the modern college essay, and I mostly ignore it. But the very act of discussing my writing “out loud,” even with a machine, helped me figure out what I wanted to say next. Using ChatGPT to talk through the realms of possibility—from the scale of words to paragraphs—strengthens my own thinking. And I’ve experienced the same in every domain I’ve applied it to, from creating fifth-grade-level explanations of the French pluperfect to deciphering the Latin names of human muscles.
All of this adds up to a simple but profound truth: anyone with an internet connection now has a personal tutor, without the costs associated with private tutoring. Sure, a gullible, slightly delusional teacher, but a teacher nonetheless. Its impact is hard to overstate, and it is just as relevant in large public school classrooms where students struggle to receive individualized attention as it is in underserved and poor communities without adequate infrastructure in education. As psychologist Benjamin Bloom showed in the early 1980s, one-on-one instruction until mastery allowed almost all students to outperform the class average by two standard deviations (“about 90% … reached the level … reached the top 20%” ).
ChatGPT certainly can’t replicate human interaction, but even the staunchest critics have to admit that it’s a step in the right direction on this front. Maybe only 1% of students use it this way, and it’s probably only half as effective as a human teacher, but even with these lowball numbers, its potential to democratize learning is immense. – access to education is great. I would even say that if ChatGPT had existed during the pandemic, many students would have been lost.
Of course, those who dismiss ChatGPT as the end of critical thinking are likely to protest that the bot will only exacerbate lazy academic habits that students may have formed over the course of the pandemic. I have enough experience with the tips and tricks that we high schoolers use all the time to know that this is a valid concern—one that shouldn’t be dismissed by putting ChatGPT as the latest on top. line of technology revolutions in the classroom, from the calculator to the internet.
As such, ChatGPT has as much potential in the classroom as it does for improving individual educational outcomes. English teachers can use it to rephrase notoriously confusing answer keys to AP test questions, to help students prepare more effectively. They can give each student an essay that counters the one they gave, and have them choose these opposing arguments in the upcoming draft. No human teacher can spend the time or energy required to explain pages upon pages of long reading comprehension questions or create hundreds of five-page essays, but a chatbot can.
Teachers can even lean on ChatGPT’s propensity for falsification, misrepresentation, and outright lying as a way to teach students about disinformation. Consider using ChatGPT to write essays that hide subtle logical fallacies or suggest scientific explanations that are close, but not quite, correct. Learning to discriminate between these convincing errors and the correct answer is the pinnacle of critical thinking, and this new type of academic work will prepare students for a world filled with everything from politically correct censorship into deep fakes.
There are less optimistic visions for the future. But the only way we can avoid this—the only way this technology can be normalized and regulated along with its disruptive predecessors—is with more discussion, more guidance, and more understanding. And it’s not like there’s no time to get there. ChatGPT won’t be acing AP English classes anytime soon, and with the recent release of GPT-4, we’ve already seen an explosion of ed-tech companies minimizing effort and expertise. which is required for teachers and students to operate the bot.
GOOD BY ROHAN MEHTA
So here is my pitch to those in power. Regardless of the specific policy you choose to use at your school, unblock and unban. The way forward begins by trusting students to experiment with the tool, and guiding them in how, when, and where to use it. You don’t need to change your entire curriculum around it, but blocking it will only send it underground. That leads to confusion and misinterpretation in the best cases, and misuse and abuse in the worst.
ChatGPT is just the beginning. There are too many generative AI tools to try to block them all, and doing so sends the wrong message. What we need is direct discourse between students, teachers, and administrators. I am fortunate enough to be in a school that has taken the first steps in this direction, and I hope that many more will follow.
- In my case, the whole openai.com was blocked, not just chat.openai.com. It’s annoying when I want to access the fine-tuning docs.
- The most impressive thing I’ve seen ChatGPT do is revise one of my essays. In it, I discuss two global political figures, but hide their identities through personification. To “make my essay a 10/10” and “increase clarity,” ChatGPT filled in their names.
Rohan Mehta is a high school senior at Moravian Academy in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.