Is My Child Using AI to Learn or to Avoid Learning?

TLDR:
True learning is verified through testing, direct questioning, and observation; AI is a tool, but handwritten work and personal engagement remain the most reliable gauges of understanding.

The only way we can truly know whether a child is using AI to learn or to avoid learning is to ask them good questions, listen carefully to their answers, then gauge their understanding for ourselves. This classic technique has been used by teachers for millennia, we call it a “test” (ha). Jokes aside, that really is the only way to know – ask them a question, see what they say. If we want to know whether a kid knows their times tables, whip out some flash cards and start flipping through them. If we want to know how far someone can jump, have them leap into a sandpit and measure the distance. If we want to know who beats who in a fight, have them fight and see who wins. The only way to know is to test it. This process of testing a thing to understand its nature and its quality is a fundamental principle of the cosmos, and indeed the very core of the scientific method. This principle also happens to manifest especially clearly in education and in competitive athletics, and so we’re given a window through which to observe the nature and current level of our students and athletes.

Now, what if we ask students a really good question via computer, rather than listening to them verbally in a 1×1 conversation? We certainly can’t give every student a full 1×1 verbal test at the end of every unit, it’s impractical and temporally infeasible. Computers are much more efficient. However, this extreme efficiency can become a temptation for students – copying and pasting a 1000-word term paper that AI wrote in 60 seconds is incredibly efficient, but alas, it contributes absolutely nothing to the learning process, and so the student robs themselves of growth. And to be fair, grown-ups are just as bad using AI professionally to draft deceptively verbose legislature or burn through vast application pools without a single hire. Fortunately for us in education, the solution is simple: good old pencil and paper.

In 2016, Sweden rolled out iPads to all their 1st graders in an attempt to leverage technology to enhance learning, but what they saw instead over the next few years was a steady decline in reading comprehension, retention, and literacy rates. As such, 7 years later in 2023, Sweden shifted back to paper and pencil, and the result: reading comprehension, retention, and literacy rates shot back up. There’s magic in writing something by hand. The very act of writing by hand forces a student to read the material twice – first as they read it in order to write it, then second as they write and see it in their own hand. Plus, even if AI mindlessly spits out the text for them, they still have to read it and they still have to write it, so they still learn a little something.

Using one’s own handwriting also makes it personal, it helps students form a connection with the material through a medium uniquely their own. Our handwriting is a unique characteristic of ourselves, we can all identify our own handwriting, and so can our close friends. Similarly, reading the material aloud compounds this effect by adding the physical motions of the mouth and the hearing of one’s own voice. This engagement of the kinesthetic and auditory modalities further deepens the student’s connection with the material and makes it even more personal – we speak the words ourselves and hear our own voice, in addition to our own handwriting. AI is new, and very powerful, but the fundamentals have withstood the ruthless test of time for a reason.

Everything in nature is in a constant state of change, always moving, growing, dying. Society too perpetually changes: horse-drawn carriages became cars, cars became airplanes, now we have spaceships; computers came into existence, then smart phones, now AI. Evolution is natural, progress is natural, and the art of teaching must adapt to the conditions in which our students are learning. AI isn’t going away, nor will we devolve down the chain of technology and do away with fire or the wheel. AI is an extremely useful technology, a powerful tool that can do a tremendous amount of work in a very small amount of time and with a very small amount of human effort. It’s faster and more precise than a search engine, just like search engines were way faster than going to a library. The process of educating oneself is a tremendous amount of work, and requires an enormous amount of time and personal effort. It’s obvious why students would be tempted to leverage technology that does a ton of work in no time. But the irony is that if they succumb to this temptation, they never become educated. When a student blindly uses AI to copy and paste their way through an assignment, they’re unwittingly making a choice to remain uneducated, resulting in an enormous waste of everyone’s time, an enormous waste of potential, and a severely disadvantageous position.

A good education is one of the most valuable advantages a person can have in this life. Through an understanding of the process and the wisdom of experience, a good teacher can accelerate the cultivation of a student’s potential and fill that journey with awe and wonder. A good teacher gives their students the gift of self-awareness and a belt full of tools to help them make their dreams come true. To this end, it’s incumbent upon the teacher then to craft excellent curriculum, which in our present case must certainly include AI.

In all our modern talks of technology and AI, however, and all the benefits and drawbacks associated, we can’t lose focus on the objective: the cultivation of the potentials within a human being. Gotta be literate, gotta know some math, gotta know some science, philosophy is extremely useful, especially when practically applied. And good luck succeeding at the highest levels today without knowing how to use a computer, or email, or a search engine, and now AI. These are tools, it’s advantageous to have them and to know how to use them effectively. And like any tool when used skillfully, AI can save us time and effort in the pursuit of our goals, leaving us with more time and energy to do more of the things we love.

No tool can ever replace the human touch, just as no hammer, nor any nail gun, could ever build a house without a human hand. Even humanoid robots, tools which would replace the human body in labor, still need directives and guidance from humans. Education, far more than most other fields, depends upon the human touch. If we want to know whether our students are learning, then we should ask the kids questions to see for ourselves what they understand and what they don’t. Have conversations with them to understand how they think and what thoughts flow through their young, developing minds. Observe them wrestling with a problem and watch how they work through it. Then if we see any gaps or any points of potential improvement, we can step in and teach them something. Help them learn, grow, and get better. This is the human experience.