Education in the United States has been on a gradual decline in the last few decades, and even just since the mid-2000s. A vast majority of current students do not know know how to write a paper in MLA format. Most of them barely know how to contstruct a complete sentence. They do not know the diffference between 'breathe' and 'breath,' and some do not even know the capital of the country. They lack basic knowledge that most of us learned fairly early in school.
Part of that is on some educators, especially in Texas, just teaching to the STAAR test, and not caring about a child's education as long as they pass that test. The students learn nothing, and then they get sent into the workforce with no sense of how to write or solve basic problems. Funny that Democrats scream about the Department of Education being so important, yet our literacy and math skills in the country continue falling.
But now, the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has created a new problem. Instead of not paying attention, students are just abusing AI. The technology answers questions for them, they copy it down and go about their day. So, now teachers are warning that this use of AI is impacting one of the most crucial skills we possess as humans: critical thinking.
Jean Burk of College Prep Genius says this lack of doing actual work and learning is hampering teachers' abilities in the classroom to actually educate.
"Teachers have one more layer of work to figure out if the students actually did the work, or if they had something else do it for them," she says.
A survey from September 2024 shows that 70 percent of teens had used at least one type of generative AI tool, and more than half of them said they use AI for homework help. Now, especially for millennials, most of us used YouTube or other things to help teach us a subject. But that is a far cry from using AI to just do the work for you.
So now, we are stuck in this loop of students not learning, teachers not getting their points across, and kids going out into the world uneducated. As this continues to become a trend, it will only hurt our education system further down the road.
"It shows a lack of integrity you see with today's students...if someone is doing all your work, that is not going to float when you get into higher education," says Burk. "They have better ways to check...how would one know if you actually know the information, if someone else is doing the work for you?"
The bar for being deemed 'smart' now is on the ocean floor. There are plenty of videos online showing kids that do not know what the capital of the United States is, or what even the acronym CEO means. When people do answer correctly, you can hear bystanders say things like 'oh, you must have gone to Harvard.' No, they just did their work and paid attention in school.
But the floodgates are open now. Kids are adapting more and more to AI's abilities and using it to get out of doing actual work. Spoiler alert, adult life is different, and AI will not help you when you grow up.
Pandora's box has opened, and getting the lid back on it will be difficult, to say the least.
"Critical thinking has gone out the window. A lot of schools do not teach it, they do not teach logic," Burk says. "SAT and ACT tests are critical thinking tests, which means scores will go down even further."
So now, it falls back on parents to teach their kids critical thinking skills. The schools certainly are not doing it, and students using AI makes it worse.
Burk adds that parents need to work with schools to find some solution. But if they do not, we could see more students getting homeschooled. Which with how badly the public school system is failing, might not be the worst option.
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