What if the problem was not them? What if you're seeing the failures of the way the system is designed and that is what is actually leading to the issues you've identified? There really is a different way.
Totally agree on this - the kids are just responding to the environment they're in. The system they're in is shitty, and they're trying their best to survive in it.
I'm forever telling my kids to ask their teacher for help when they don't understand a concept being taught. They have the most trouble with this. But I remember myself at that age, and I was LOST! For some reason, we don't want to ask for help. I'm trying to teach my kids, in 12th and 10th grade now, that they need to not be afraid to ask questions.
thank you for doing this. Somehow, as I tell my kids, we've all gotten to thinking that asking for help is a weakness. I try to fight that in my room every day.
Solid framing of the responsibility gap. The insight about students treating learning as something that happens to them rather than somethign they do is especially on point. What stuck with me most is the AI boundary, not banning it but insisting students think first. In practice that means they need to understand what thinkin looks like before any tool touches the work, which is harder than it sounds.
Recently, I was I was in the company of several very well educated adults. I made a very simple statement that everyone in the room was capable of reasoning through and coming to a conclusion about with a very minimal amount of effort. Instead, within seconds, two of those adults asked AI and confirmed that both of those bots agreed with me- therefore, I must be correct. When we, who have had 50+ years of thinking under our belts (including many of those without any internet whatsoever), it’s easy to see why it’s so difficult for our students to spend any time at all thinking, when the answers are so easily accessible.
Yeah - that's a whole other problem. AI in teaching is like the Super-Soldier serum in Captain America - if you're a good teacher, it can help to make you better. If you're not, and you're always looking for an easy way out, it will support that as well.
But even that's not being fair - I feel for the English teacher with 80 essays under an admin who insists that all student work must have a grade in 5 days, and limited time to grade work during actual planning periods. It's a mess.
He, who does the work, learns. There’s just no way around it.
Pure wisdom here!
What if the problem was not them? What if you're seeing the failures of the way the system is designed and that is what is actually leading to the issues you've identified? There really is a different way.
Totally agree on this - the kids are just responding to the environment they're in. The system they're in is shitty, and they're trying their best to survive in it.
I'm forever telling my kids to ask their teacher for help when they don't understand a concept being taught. They have the most trouble with this. But I remember myself at that age, and I was LOST! For some reason, we don't want to ask for help. I'm trying to teach my kids, in 12th and 10th grade now, that they need to not be afraid to ask questions.
thank you for doing this. Somehow, as I tell my kids, we've all gotten to thinking that asking for help is a weakness. I try to fight that in my room every day.
Solid framing of the responsibility gap. The insight about students treating learning as something that happens to them rather than somethign they do is especially on point. What stuck with me most is the AI boundary, not banning it but insisting students think first. In practice that means they need to understand what thinkin looks like before any tool touches the work, which is harder than it sounds.
It's much harder than it sounds. And some days I think the world is stacked against them - and us. But...we keep trying.
Recently, I was I was in the company of several very well educated adults. I made a very simple statement that everyone in the room was capable of reasoning through and coming to a conclusion about with a very minimal amount of effort. Instead, within seconds, two of those adults asked AI and confirmed that both of those bots agreed with me- therefore, I must be correct. When we, who have had 50+ years of thinking under our belts (including many of those without any internet whatsoever), it’s easy to see why it’s so difficult for our students to spend any time at all thinking, when the answers are so easily accessible.
What I have recently found very troubling is that so many of my children's teachers are giving feedback on their papers clearly just using AI.
Yeah - that's a whole other problem. AI in teaching is like the Super-Soldier serum in Captain America - if you're a good teacher, it can help to make you better. If you're not, and you're always looking for an easy way out, it will support that as well.
But even that's not being fair - I feel for the English teacher with 80 essays under an admin who insists that all student work must have a grade in 5 days, and limited time to grade work during actual planning periods. It's a mess.