CULTURE FILES // ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN SCHOOLS
Teaching Tech
Artificial intelligence is changing how we work and teach. How do we find the path that’s just right for students?
by Marissa Biondi
EXCERPT //
This principal sent our staff a holiday greeting email inviting us to “take this time to rest, recharge, and cherish the moment,” reminding us that “holidays are a time for joy, laughter, and togetherness,” and thanking us for being a “beacon of strength for our community.” A few days later, he announced via email the promotion of a colleague who “has been invaluable to our team and the overall success of our organization” and expressed his confidence that she “will continue to excel and make significant contributions in this capacity.”
At first, I felt moved by the sentiment and emotional energy that I assumed he spent crafting such a poignant and inspired note. But it also didn’t feel right—the way I can tell when a student didn’t do their own work. And so I sent these messages through GPTZero, an AI detection tool, to confirm what I already knew: He didn’t write these emails. (These are not the real quotes; I just asked ChatGPT to generate emails and pulled a few lines that sounded cliché—seriously.)
No one else seemed to notice the subtle shift in his style, and I resisted the urge to tell everyone I knew, to protect him from the shame he’d certainly feel if we discovered his secret, all while wondering: Why does this feel wrong to me? Did he not care about authenticity? Or did it not matter how we felt, because it got the job done? I took it personally. And who was he to coach and evaluate me on interpersonal communication while he himself was using AI for this same purpose? //
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