In the wake of generative AI's arrival in education, a familiar chorus of concern has emerged from teacher lounges and educational conferences worldwide.
I really enjoyed your piece. Your line (“Students aren’t cheating because AI made it easier—they’re cheating because, for generations, we’ve taught them that the grade matters more than the knowledge”) hits uncomfortably close to home. I’ve been wrestling with this too, and landed on something similar in a recent essay: “AI Didn’t Invent Cheating. It Just Made It Irresistible.”
It feels like we’ve built an educational system optimized for compliance and credentialism, then act surprised when students play by those same rules. Would love to compare notes sometime, especially on how we might rewire the incentives without romanticizing the past.
Yep that is right. We made the incentive structures such that it is all about those grades and getting into the right schools. Learning and educational growth is an afterthought at best. Remember folks the road to hell is paved with optimization.
Hahaha:) I love it! Optimization is the watchword. Cheating is a sure way to optimize if optimize is your goal (following ghosts into hell). Thanks for reading, Ken.
Interesting article, Terry. I came into academic teaching late in life — early 40s — after a long spell in R&D and ended up working with some very dedicated and smart pedagogues from whom I learned a lot. For me, lots of questions are left hanging here, for instance: are we assessing to grade or are we assessing as part of the learning cycle; if we are working primarily in grades, what qualitative descriptors are we using at grade boundaries? My experience was that marking schemes were works of idealised fiction, implying steady progressions of achievement in ways that no cohort I came across displayed.
I also realised that we teach students to lie in other ways, such as insisting they have a methodology for their projects and described how they worked through it. Many students I taught went bungee-jumping with an idea and rationalised it afterwards. I didn’t really understand methods — as methods, although I’d internalised them by osmosis — until into my 40s.
Since they’re going to use AI in real life, it seems to me that the pedagogical imperative is to teach them how to use it well and then to work how how anyone can know — students included — how much of it can be attributed to them.
Moral tales. My grandmother was one of those one-room schoolteachers in Canada. I loved her well-worn reader of Aesop's Fables.
Also, well done identifying the disease of correctness vs qualitative aims of knowing. This is something to ponder and try to remedy. I'm think about applications in all kinds of fields: business, medicine, even art ...
Thanks, Giorgio. Let’s DM and see how our interests intersect. Or email me at tlunder@csus.edu. Yes, students have learned the lessons of schools all too well!
I'm writing from Japan, where debates around AI in education often stop at surface-level panic—"Students are cheating!"—without addressing the deeper structural failures your piece so clearly outlines.
The part that resonated most deeply with me was your point that if AI can earn a perfect score on an assignment, then the fault lies with the assignment, not the student. I’ve always felt that in cases like this, it’s not cheating—it’s optimization. We should be teaching students how to ask better questions and how to use AI meaningfully, not punishing them for solving problems efficiently.
To me, forcing students to ignore powerful tools like AI just to preserve outdated forms of assessment is like insisting they carve meat with obsidian instead of a knife—archaic, inefficient, and absurdly proud of the difficulty itself.
Thank you for writing something that challenges the system, not just the symptoms. Your historical perspective gave me language for a frustration I’ve carried for years.
Yes. I teach high school English. Grade inflation is practiced across the culture, up and down the economic scale. So, I adapt by not caring about the grading but giving them clear and constant feedback about the quality of their hand-written work. The way to combat AI is to revert to the old ways. I also tell them what the grade actually is. They know it’s rigged and not even to favor them. Every single kid in every single school receives the inflated grade. It’s become pointless, making grades irrelevant, so a good teacher will recognize this and teach through it. Students who do no work and don’t show up can still graduate. American education, public AND private function this way, and it is a complete absurdity.
Oh boy! You just invoked my peeps (the students I work with daily), and I disagree almost entirely with your grasp at the equating of equivalency as the result of AI. You’re suggesting success within The System trumps acceptance of neurodiversity irrespective and independent of the system, which is where our societal-education resources *should* be going. Different but equal doesn’t mean mimicking the norm; it means in many instances *dismantling* the norm.
I appreciate the distinction you’re drawing, and I actually agree in theory—dismantling the system is the goal. But I’m not speaking from abstraction. I’m speaking from inside the wreckage.
I’ve moved through nearly every kind of school system—public, private, Catholic, lottery-based, homeschool, unschool, and reservation-based. I’ve attended classes in North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon, Montana. I’ve helped my husband get into law school while raising kids. I’ve walked every corridor from Head Start to the LSAT.
I’m a kinetic learner. I’m dyslexic. I have ADHD. And I had a childhood that would rival a trauma victim from a war zone. I didn’t learn the system from books—I survived it with nothing but instinct, grit, and the ability to decode structures that were never meant for me in the first place.
So when I say AI can level the field, I don’t mean it makes everything fair. I mean it’s the first tool I’ve seen that actually lets kids like me—even for a moment—step onto the same playing field without first proving we deserve to be there.
That doesn’t dismantle the system. But it cracks a window. And sometimes, that’s the only way the air gets in.
You’re right—equity doesn’t mean mimicry. But for many of us, access is the first stage of justice. Not the endgame. Just the start.
And for what it’s worth, I’m fifth-generation Appalachian. I don’t need a soapbox. I am one.
"So when I say AI can level the field, I don’t mean it makes everything fair. I mean it’s the first tool I’ve seen that actually lets kids like me—even for a moment—step onto the same playing field without first proving we deserve to be there.
That doesn’t dismantle the system. But it cracks a window. And sometimes, that’s the only way the air gets in."
I'm not naive enough to think we can dismantle the system, but I do hope we can figure out how to use AI to level the playing field. And I admire your resistance to high levels of abstraction when the topic is visceral and real.
Hi from Mexico. I have seen this firsthand at my high school. I'm new to this app and currently learning English, so I didn’t fully understand some parts of the article, but I agree with everything I was able to grasp. Thank you so much for this, and if anyone has any reading recommendations, I would be very happy to receive them.
Sure, chasing grades is wrong and incentivises AI use. But maybe, most schoolkids are lazy, there are no longer any penalties for poor behaviour, and no one really cares if you cheat any more.
I really enjoyed your piece. Your line (“Students aren’t cheating because AI made it easier—they’re cheating because, for generations, we’ve taught them that the grade matters more than the knowledge”) hits uncomfortably close to home. I’ve been wrestling with this too, and landed on something similar in a recent essay: “AI Didn’t Invent Cheating. It Just Made It Irresistible.”
It feels like we’ve built an educational system optimized for compliance and credentialism, then act surprised when students play by those same rules. Would love to compare notes sometime, especially on how we might rewire the incentives without romanticizing the past.
Yep that is right. We made the incentive structures such that it is all about those grades and getting into the right schools. Learning and educational growth is an afterthought at best. Remember folks the road to hell is paved with optimization.
Hahaha:) I love it! Optimization is the watchword. Cheating is a sure way to optimize if optimize is your goal (following ghosts into hell). Thanks for reading, Ken.
Interesting article, Terry. I came into academic teaching late in life — early 40s — after a long spell in R&D and ended up working with some very dedicated and smart pedagogues from whom I learned a lot. For me, lots of questions are left hanging here, for instance: are we assessing to grade or are we assessing as part of the learning cycle; if we are working primarily in grades, what qualitative descriptors are we using at grade boundaries? My experience was that marking schemes were works of idealised fiction, implying steady progressions of achievement in ways that no cohort I came across displayed.
I also realised that we teach students to lie in other ways, such as insisting they have a methodology for their projects and described how they worked through it. Many students I taught went bungee-jumping with an idea and rationalised it afterwards. I didn’t really understand methods — as methods, although I’d internalised them by osmosis — until into my 40s.
I wrote some of my experiences up here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/datchet/p/reflections-on-higher-education-3?r=1otfa7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Since they’re going to use AI in real life, it seems to me that the pedagogical imperative is to teach them how to use it well and then to work how how anyone can know — students included — how much of it can be attributed to them.
Enjoy…
Very thought provoking. Thanks!!
Moral tales. My grandmother was one of those one-room schoolteachers in Canada. I loved her well-worn reader of Aesop's Fables.
Also, well done identifying the disease of correctness vs qualitative aims of knowing. This is something to ponder and try to remedy. I'm think about applications in all kinds of fields: business, medicine, even art ...
Very cool, Colleen. Keep me posted on your ruminations.
Wonderful piece. Tyranny of metrics and perversion of incentives. Sharing widely.
Thanks. 🙏
I am working on some similar work as you- but focusing more on AI exposing that individuals don’t know how to think. Would be great to collaborate!
Nice point, Jack. Technology has a way of leveling the playing field.
Yes, thank you.
Thanks, Giorgio. Let’s DM and see how our interests intersect. Or email me at tlunder@csus.edu. Yes, students have learned the lessons of schools all too well!
I'm writing from Japan, where debates around AI in education often stop at surface-level panic—"Students are cheating!"—without addressing the deeper structural failures your piece so clearly outlines.
The part that resonated most deeply with me was your point that if AI can earn a perfect score on an assignment, then the fault lies with the assignment, not the student. I’ve always felt that in cases like this, it’s not cheating—it’s optimization. We should be teaching students how to ask better questions and how to use AI meaningfully, not punishing them for solving problems efficiently.
To me, forcing students to ignore powerful tools like AI just to preserve outdated forms of assessment is like insisting they carve meat with obsidian instead of a knife—archaic, inefficient, and absurdly proud of the difficulty itself.
Thank you for writing something that challenges the system, not just the symptoms. Your historical perspective gave me language for a frustration I’ve carried for years.
Yes. I teach high school English. Grade inflation is practiced across the culture, up and down the economic scale. So, I adapt by not caring about the grading but giving them clear and constant feedback about the quality of their hand-written work. The way to combat AI is to revert to the old ways. I also tell them what the grade actually is. They know it’s rigged and not even to favor them. Every single kid in every single school receives the inflated grade. It’s become pointless, making grades irrelevant, so a good teacher will recognize this and teach through it. Students who do no work and don’t show up can still graduate. American education, public AND private function this way, and it is a complete absurdity.
They say AI exposes that people don’t know how to think.
But maybe what it really exposes
is how many ways people have been thinking,
quietly, resourcefully, in the margins,
all along.
It’s easy to judge from a place of comfort.
With private tutors.
Quiet homes.
A parent who explains things over dinner.
Clean clothes laid out the night before.
But some of us came up different.
We worried if we smelled like sweat.
If we’d get to eat that day.
If someone would let us borrow a lunch and pretend it was ours.
We were bused to schools that looked like yours
but trained for lives that never would.
Your kids went on college tours.
Ours went to the local fire station.
They got cross-country “leadership trips.”
We got service hours and a dress code.
And I still showed up.
Still thought.
Still made something out of the scraps.
AI didn’t make cheating easier.
It made access easier.
It gave people with dyslexia, ADHD, autism, poverty, and trauma
a way to stand on the same stage—finally.
Not to take your flowers.
Just to grow our own.
Oh boy! You just invoked my peeps (the students I work with daily), and I disagree almost entirely with your grasp at the equating of equivalency as the result of AI. You’re suggesting success within The System trumps acceptance of neurodiversity irrespective and independent of the system, which is where our societal-education resources *should* be going. Different but equal doesn’t mean mimicking the norm; it means in many instances *dismantling* the norm.
I appreciate the distinction you’re drawing, and I actually agree in theory—dismantling the system is the goal. But I’m not speaking from abstraction. I’m speaking from inside the wreckage.
I’ve moved through nearly every kind of school system—public, private, Catholic, lottery-based, homeschool, unschool, and reservation-based. I’ve attended classes in North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon, Montana. I’ve helped my husband get into law school while raising kids. I’ve walked every corridor from Head Start to the LSAT.
I’m a kinetic learner. I’m dyslexic. I have ADHD. And I had a childhood that would rival a trauma victim from a war zone. I didn’t learn the system from books—I survived it with nothing but instinct, grit, and the ability to decode structures that were never meant for me in the first place.
So when I say AI can level the field, I don’t mean it makes everything fair. I mean it’s the first tool I’ve seen that actually lets kids like me—even for a moment—step onto the same playing field without first proving we deserve to be there.
That doesn’t dismantle the system. But it cracks a window. And sometimes, that’s the only way the air gets in.
You’re right—equity doesn’t mean mimicry. But for many of us, access is the first stage of justice. Not the endgame. Just the start.
And for what it’s worth, I’m fifth-generation Appalachian. I don’t need a soapbox. I am one.
This is beautiful!
"So when I say AI can level the field, I don’t mean it makes everything fair. I mean it’s the first tool I’ve seen that actually lets kids like me—even for a moment—step onto the same playing field without first proving we deserve to be there.
That doesn’t dismantle the system. But it cracks a window. And sometimes, that’s the only way the air gets in."
I'm not naive enough to think we can dismantle the system, but I do hope we can figure out how to use AI to level the playing field. And I admire your resistance to high levels of abstraction when the topic is visceral and real.
A lovely, considered reply.
My experience:
https://jazzpunk101.substack.com/p/must-try-harder
Hi from Mexico. I have seen this firsthand at my high school. I'm new to this app and currently learning English, so I didn’t fully understand some parts of the article, but I agree with everything I was able to grasp. Thank you so much for this, and if anyone has any reading recommendations, I would be very happy to receive them.
Sure, chasing grades is wrong and incentivises AI use. But maybe, most schoolkids are lazy, there are no longer any penalties for poor behaviour, and no one really cares if you cheat any more.