When has AI became the norm for schoolwork?

When I scroll on TikTok, there’s generally 2 types of videos I’ll see about AI and school. This first type is the clickbaity, probably sponsored video that shows somebody’s straight A’s, followed by an image of an AI app. The creator talks about how awesome it is that AI does all their work and how using AI is way to be smart. These piss me off, because what’s the point of having good grades if you’re not learning things? As somebody who’s very proud of their academics, I think good grades should be an accomplishment you have to actually work for.

The other type of video I’ll find are the horror stories about teachers. How some students get a 0 on the essays because the teacher thought it was AI. How in the eyes of some teachers, things like em dashes and Oxford commas mean that a piece of writing is automatically AI. These videos scare me. Has AI really became so normalized that teachers don’t want to even see good writing anymore because they’re scared it’s cheated? Doesn’t this just defeat the point of teaching students how to write well?

Well, I’m a freshman in high school now. In both my English and Social Studies classses, the teachers gave a huge speech about the threat of AI and the consequences of using it on work. However, I wasn’t worried about any of my writing being flagged as AI by them, yk why? Apparently, everything from CERs to essays to tests in those classes will be handwritten. Everything.

I guess this post is more of a rant at this point, but the fact that AI is such a threat to these teachers that we don’t even get our school iPads out of our backpacks anymore is just so dumb. I do think that handwriting is an important skill to know, but if you think writing an essay by hand is better than typing, then I’m sorry — you’re an old fart.

I write like 5 times slower than I type, so that means my writing won’t be as long and in depth. It means I’ll have more homework because I won’t get done what I want to get done in class. It means I’ll have blisters on my fingers, and it means I’ll have to erase everything if I want to go back in my writing and add something in. They’re worried that AI is going to harm students’ learning? Well guess what, by making me write everything by hand, I’d say my learning is being pretty harmed. My philosophy is that if a student is gonna cheat, they’ll find a way to cheat, AI or no. Making everything handwritten just makes everything so much more inconvenient for the students that just actually want to learn.

Rant over.