I do not believe that artificial intelligence is “destroying” students. If anything I think we are seeing teachers and institutions refusing to address the real reason many students are struggling. Teachers blame AI tools for students' lack of critical thinking or weak language skills but blaming it is an easy way for us to avoid looking at the failures of our education system itself.
Many teachers across North America say students are using it to cheat or to finish assignments. Some educators even claim to notice that when students use the technology, their work gets worse and there are even examples of students copying sentences from chatbots that make no sense. I understand why these educators are upset cause if I were in their place, seeing a work that is obviously not written by a student would frustrate me too.
But when I look at the story of Ben Prytherch, a Colorado State University statistics professor, who switched to in-class writing and found that his students actually could write when required, it seems to me that the issue is not the technology itself.
It is the context we create for students.
When they have to work on their own in an environment where cheating is not possible, they do much better, and proves that the skills are there, only thing missing is motivation and a structure that encourages real effort. If we as adults keep repeating that “kids these days” can’t think or have no interests, we are forgetting that we shaped the world they live in.
We give them "tech", we design the lessons and we decide on policy.
Disclaimer:
The image I used above as the thumbnail of my blog was generated using Chatgpt 4.1 model with a simple prompt.