As we head into the back-to-school season, one of the big stories you’ll see plenty of coverage about is how many school systems are reacting to the rise of AI and growing awareness of the adverse mental health efforts of social media by either banning phones in schools, or banning AI, or both. Getting less attention, though, is the huge role AI is likely to take in teacher’s lives as well. From immediately being able to generate lesson plans to creating visuals more simply, the temptation to turn to AI for all sorts of teaching materials is going to be impossible to resist. Along the way, there will of course be embarrassing missteps.
Teachers, like their students, will be figuring out the right and wrong ways to use AI in their classrooms and in their preparation for lessons too. As they do, it’s going to now be up to parents to help fill the gap and make sure that the materials kids are bringing home are not literally AI slop that was mistakenly generated by a well-intentioned teacher just trying to create materials more easily.
The only thing I might suggest here (and will try to do myself) is to offer some understanding if and when it does happen. Not every moment of accidental slop was ill intentioned or complete laziness. Perhaps more often, it’s an overworked and under-resourced teacher just trying their best to help kids learn. If anyone deserves a little empathy, it’s surely teachers who are sometimes quite literally community heroes.