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March 2026

Educators discuss concerns over AI use – now and in the future. 

• “Incredibly concerned about the future of teaching in a world that is obsessed with AI. … I believe that AI has no place at all in the classroom. I recently came across a Facebook comment section of teachers promoting their favourite AI tools (Copilot, Chalkie, ChatGPT, etc.), and it terrifies me. … I constantly see teachers complaining about widespread short attention spans and nonchalant/‘rage-baiting’ behaviours within students, so why are so many teachers forgetting the critical role that they have in the cognitive development of these children? All because it is slightly more convenient to get a machine to do the work, instead? I am truly terrified. If teachers are using AI, schools will begin to expect it, and they will provide us with higher workloads to compensate for AI usage. Teachers that refuse to use AI will fall behind. How can we even begin to navigate these issues? I’m sick of hearing ‘you just have to adapt’. The thought of using AI for education makes me feel sick. We have degrees for a reason!” —Anonymous Teacher
• • “I hear you loud and clear. I’ve been to several PDs and faculty meetings that were centered around implementing AI in the classroom, and I have walked away from each one feeling like the emphasis on convenience outweighed any discussion of academic merit. I’m not going to pretend that I have never used AI for any part of my job, but the amount of faith that some people place in AI as part of their daily instructional routine is astounding. Classrooms are delicate ecosystems. Every change that we introduce has the potential to make a lasting impact. You’d have to be really naive to think that pushing AI generated lessons won’t result in some negative consequence.” —Middle School Teacher in Pennsylvania
  • “The ed tech people need to get a grip. We have some in my district that openly promote all new tech almost like virtue signaling because it is new, cool, the future. BS. They’re promoting it and each other at conferences, social media. Ugh. It has its place, but it isn’t the solution to all of our public school problems. In fact, the more time on tech, studies are showing that there is less learning. So let’s just slow the roll with trying to AI everything.” —Anonymous Teacher
  • This will become yet another great divide societally – those who can critically think and create versus those who cannot. We’re riding a K shaped line to the top and while I smugly agree with everything you’ve shared here, I am also terrified to think my children are being raised in a world where people in any sense defend the use of LLM’s and generative AI. … Edited to add: I failed to mention students in my comment, but let’s just collectively agree that the downtrend in education directly coincides with the introduction of 1:1 technology in the classroom. Let’s realistically speculate on what the addition of ‘AI’ will do next. I’m not anticipating an upward spike, are you?” —Teacher in the United States
• “My students have used AI to cheat on multiple exams this year. No matter what regulations I put in front of them, they find ways around them. For every student I catch in the act, I’m sure there are at least five that get past me – and I’m not allowed to write them up for cheating unless I catch them red-handed in the moment, not just when I grade the work.I honestly believe that AI is going to end the teaching profession within my lifetime. But even if it doesn’t, it’s already killed the brains of these kids.” —Anonymous Teacher 
  • “I’m in middle school. We were talking about levels of taxonomic classification. Their assignment was to choose any animal they were interested in, write their common name, the phylum they were in, general characteristics of the phylum they are in, three adaptations of that animal they help them survive, and why the animal is important in nature. One student responded to the ‘what is the common name of your animal’ question with, ‘search engine information retriever or digital assistant.; Others replied ‘idk.; I was ready to break my laptop in half because WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE 13 YEARS OLD AND CANNOT THINK OF AN ANIMAL ON YOUR OWN?” —Middle School Teacher in the United States
  • “My 7th/8th students asked if they could use AI to solve a word scramble today… It was just supposed to be a ‘fun’ opener, and they can’t even handle that. It’s so disheartening.” —Middle School Teacher
  • “Our solutions: 1) Pen and paper exams. We have received no pushback from the students about this. They understand why. 2) For the IEP students who are permitted a word processor, we have an app on our LDS that locks them into the writing area. They can’t open any other browsers or websites while they’re writing the exam. I agree, though, that AI – or rather, resorting to AI to do all their thinking for them – has really done a number on their brains. One of my admins worries that it is turning them into profoundly, fundamentally dishonest people.” —High School Teacher in Canada