By Dr. Stephanie Boyce
With the rising use of chatbots, like Chat GPT, gaining mainstream popularity in recent years, there has been increasing skepticism by many educators across the country when considering how, or if, to implement artificial intelligence tools in schools. Perhaps one of the most notable instances of this institutional resistance came in January 2023 when the country’s largest school district, New York City Public Schools, banned students from using ChatGPT, only to walk back their decision in May of the same year. Instead of attempting to stop the wave that is A.I., New York City Public Schools decided to redirect their efforts towards a more innovative approach to integrating AI district-wide.
While NYCPS is just one example of how it looks for new technological waves to crash into old systemic shores, this is no new phenomenon. The truth is, innovation takes courage and commitment to scale. Many high school students matriculating during the 1990s and 2000s experienced the slow pace of change, when the world wide web started to seep its way into schools. According to the U.S. Department of Education, while the percentage of public school instructional rooms with internet access grew from 3 percent in 1994 to 93 percent in 2003, by that same year the percentage of public schools providing hand-held computers to students or teachers for instructional purposes was only 10 percent. For myriad reasons, many educators treated the internet like some technological plague that should be restricted to use outside of school time, as its educational value was foreign to them and their established practices. Many even assumed it would be a means to expedite student’s access and speed to academic dishonesty and dismissed it as such. Where there could have been natural conversations about the potential of the internet to revolutionize instructional practices and students’ 21st century skills at record speed, innovation was a slow pace forward for most.
U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Fast Response Survey System, “Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools, Fall 2002,” FRSS 83, 2002; and “Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools, Fall 2003,” FRSS 86, 2003.
Fast forward to 2024 and one would be hard pressed to walk into a school building that is not wholly dependent on the internet to facilitate everything from daily announcements, to parental correspondence, on demand assessments, gradebook computations, and everything in between. Even in their personal lives, many educators can no longer even imagine a world where they go into a grocery store or casual dining establishment without the internet that lives in their hand-held devices allowing them to place and pickup orders at their convenience. These technological advances have not only changed how educators think about teaching and learning, but also how teachers, students, and communities engage with it.
According to experts in the field, the same is, and will be true, of the full integration of A.I. generated tools in schools and the world at large. Google defines Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a broad field of technologies that allow computers to perform tasks that usually require human intelligence using algorithms, data, and computational power. Jason Green, co-founder of Learning Innovation Catalyst (LINC), argues, “AI is a transformational technology that requires a dramatic shift in classroom practice. We must think differently not just about what we teach, but how we teach.” For this reason, educators, especially those serving students in historically marginalized communities, have to be on the forefront of this understanding and innovating in this moment. When it comes to moving forward and considering why we can’t wait, it is advantageous for educators, especially instructional leaders and administrators, to consider the following:
Teachers Are Already Burnt Out
When considering teachers exiting the profession, many people may assume factors like student’s misbehavior or lack of parental involvement as the most pressing issues for teachers. On the contrary, Cassie Barker explains, “When ‘exhausting,’ ‘stressful,’ ‘frustrating’ and ‘overwhelming’ are the top four words used to describe the working conditions of our profession, it is the sign of a crisis.” Similar to Ms. Barker, many teachers cite being burnt out by the system as a top reason why they want to change professions completely. In contemporary schools we see many educators who signed up to have the opportunity to teach the next generation and mentor and guide young minds, and end up spending so much time on the ancillary parts of the job, that they aren’t able to keep dynamic teaching and learning the main thing.
Instead, in a national survey of educators teachers reported spending hours a week on ancillary tasks like team meetings, professional development sessions, lesson planning and prep, grading/providing feedback, parental correspondence, behavior management, administrative tasks/paperwork. Although these things may be necessary to make schools go, A.I. tools provide the opportunity to expedite the time spent on such tasks thereby allowing educators to spend more time doing the heart work of connecting to students with thoughtful, transformational learning experiences. School districts and schools that fail to prepare teachers to leverage the tools that can help combat their burnout, in exchange for the comfort of the old guard, risk losing talented teachers altogether.
A.I. Can Not Replace Teachers
One of the earliest points of trepidation for many teachers considering utilizing A.I. tools was this resounding idea that “They are trying to replace us”. Unlike the hideously annoying self checkout phenomenon that has swept through our neighborhood grocery stores, teaching involves both an art (i.e. understanding and connecting with students, heart-based relationships that cultivate social and emotional growth, engaging instructional delivery, etc.) and science (i.e. crafting a lesson plan, generating assessments, measuring progress towards goals), when it’s most effective. Repeat after me: A.I can not replace teachers.
In addition to the art of teaching being impossible to replicate, tools can only be as effective as those that leverage them. Considering an A.I. tool, like ChatGPT, for instance, as a physical tool, like a power drill, may help to visualize this point. If a trained, professional handyman showed up with a tool belt and a power drill in response to a customer submitting a maintenance request, it would elicit very different feelings in said customer than if their 10-year old kid came out of the garage wielding the same exact tool belt and power drill. Tools are just tools, their ability to help or hinder processes are completely dependent on the expertise of the person gaining access to them. Instead of thinking the power drill may ever be able to replace the handyman, we have to consider giving teachers the skills, abilities, and resources to skillfully maneuver in a changing world. Repeat after me: A.I can not replace teachers.
Evolution means teachers must pivot in their instructional approaches, just like the teachers of the past had to in order to integrate web-based tools in classrooms. In the example above, related to the rising proliferation of self-checkout technology in popular grocery chains, consider that the old role of “cashier” may be becoming obsolete, but the person acting in the role of a cashier may now find themselves in a role that didn’t exist a decade ago, “grocery shopper.” This means that as technology evolves, so will the roles humans play within organizations. In the same spirit, teachers may find themselves in positions where they are creating assignments that require a new level of critical thinking or personalization on the part of their students, such that students can not just ask chatbots to do the more lower-level or de-personalized assignments many may have been accustomed to in the past. Repeat after me: A.I can not replace teachers.
While many school districts start to grapple with questions about if AI is a gift or a curse, the truth is AI has been here and is here to stay. With this evolving truth in mind, school districts must move past judgment calls and feelings about these technological advancements and begin preparing teachers and students for a new day. In the absence of innovative progress, digital divides will continue to plague teachers in schools in the most vulnerable communities and trap teachers in tragic cycles of burn out, as they work overtime to keep stride in a fast-paced profession that keeps demanding more of them.
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