A.I. Isn’t the Problem-the Education System Is

All my life, I’ve grown up thinking that those in college were truly superior. They had independence, a flourishing social life, laid-back classes, and of course, what I viewed as the real plus, amazing writing skills. With my attachment to writing since before I could walk (over exaggeration, but whatever), I actually viewed complex writing as this perfect thing when it came to college. But, as I’m getting closer to graduating and meeting new people who are currently either in or graduated from college, they all tell me the same thing: the writing sucks. You don’t actually write the way everyone thinks you do, you just write barely passable paragraphs that are thinly strung together and hope for the best. Now, I understand the concept of BSing something, I really do, but I didn’t think it extended to simple writing assignments in college. And it’s not just friends who say this, my sister also agrees. As mentioned previously, she’s a current GSI at the University of Michigan, an extremely elite school that is the #3 public university in the U.S.. So, imagine my surprise when she often comes home with papers to grade and can barely read three before saying they suck. And she really means it. She complains that their grammar sucks, there’s no complexity and you can tell they had no idea what they were doing. And these complaints come from teachers across the board, not just college, but high school and below as well, like Professor John Warner who wrote about it in his book Why They Can’t Write.

Now, we can pretend and blame this on students just getting “dumber”, but this idea has been present since before televisions existed. People like poet Juvenal in the AD years have said things like this, with him specifically stating that “[students] reveal their anxiety for two things only: Bread and circuses.” (John Pucay) So, if this belief has always existed, shouldn’t we do something about it instead of continuing on criticizing the youth? Because any improvements that I’ve seen recently all push against the helping of students, like the use of A.I. as a “research tool” and the dissolving of the Department of Education under the Trump Administration. Even with these “developments” (that I, like many others, personally see as setbacks), all people want to say is that A.I. and technology is the problem. But the truth is, it’s only part of it, and not in the way you think. Face it: the development of technology and A.I. isn’t the most detrimental thing impacting students’ abilities to write and their general education, but rather the strict and rigid formatting of the education system that ruins the means for students to be able to think outside of the box. Things like the five paragraph essay, standardized testing, the constant degrading of students’ intelligence and extremely high expectations set by those higher up all impact the education students receive, among other things.

There are obviously many things that are to be blamed for the decline of students’ writing, but I for one (as well as John Warner) genuinely believe that the usage of the five paragraph essay has a huge part. The five paragraph essay just encourages uniformity and is purely systematic. Despite the use of a practiced and “perfected” method, it’s ironically useless. First of all, the idea that it’s a perfected method is in and of itself a literal fallacy. Just because it’s widespread in the writing world and is clear does not mean it equates to perfection. Many people claim it to be logical, but I feel like the rationale behind following the format is everything unreasonable, because anyone who uses “logic” and complete understanding in their writing won’t deviate to such a simple structure that limits the complexity they can effectively argue. As stated in Why They Can’t Write, “the five-paragraph essay is an artificial construct” (John Warner). And that’s completely right, because the structure is everything but natural. Ideas usually have a natural flow of things, and following the five-paragraph format really does limit that. Approaching what is supposed to be a creative, advanced and complex piece of thought by using something as simple as an artificial structure promising unity will limit a student’s ability (anyone’s really) to actually address what they desire in a way that demonstrates complete understanding. In all, their stance becomes essentially baseless if one cannot trust they have the definite knowledge to back it up.

To prove my lengthy point, I will be creating two mini mock example essays. Let's pretend you have to write an argumentative essay on democracy. In it, you need to argue how democracy is a good thing:

1. Five paragraph essay: 

Start with your intro/thesis: democracy is a good thing. 

Maybe you’ll write a small introduction if you’re feeling a little motivated that day. This will lead to your three main body paragraphs: 

1. Democracy gives power to the people. Ex: voting!!!

2. Needs of the people are addressed. Ex: rights!!!

3. The government is responsive in a democratic society. Ex: elections!!! 

Your conclusion would follow as: in conclusion, democracy is a positive and helpful political structure that will benefit the people. 

(Just a note, I didn’t address any counterclaims because I was always just taught to provide evidence in the three paragraphs and move on.)

2. Structureless essay:

Intro: democracy has been a tried and trusted system of government present in societies for thousands of years (you’d actually expand here but I’m too lazy to).

Thesis: despite the fact that democracy isn’t a flawless system, it does provide enough opportunity for a community to have a government that will aid their followers. 

As soon as it’s mentioned that democracy isn’t perfect, you open the doors for complexity. A natural flow of thoughts following this thesis could be: 

An example of a benefit rising from democracy could be that the needs of the people are addressed —> however, while the majority is technically representative of the people, it doesn’t address those in disagreement —> but, even still, it does take into account their vote, which will allow for conversations and edits to any given concern which will create a sense of unity and a feeling of being heard —> overall, it gives a voice to all (an so on for every other point).  

Conclusion: so, while it isn’t an ideal and utopic method, democracy does effectively work to better a country and those within it.

While these obviously aren’t perfect examples, these do showcase a little of what I mean. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to say the first one isn’t a horrible essay, merely a simple piece that meets enough requirements to not have a failing grade. But honestly, it lacks any depth and sounds choppy and unsophisticated.. The unstructured one has more room to expand itself, address individual counterclaims and summarize opinions smoothly.

    There is another glaring issue with the five-paragraph essay: they’re performative. When writing these essays, students just want to act like they know what’s going on to appease teachers. “You don’t need to know what you’re doing, you just need to pretend like you do.” Classmates say this, friends say this, I’ve said this for myself. Hell, I’ve had teachers say it too. “Students are coached to create imitations that pass muster on a test” and that the writing “need not be accurate or well argued… it merely needs to seem like something that could be accurate and well argued”. (John Warner). The reason for why it’s performative? It’s standardized. And that’s the true problem that lies within this problematic educational tool: you shouldn’t be standardizing something that should be unique. Writing should be a personalized way of expressing individual opinions and style instead of being forced into a mold so many others are already in. Additionally, writing should be displaying unconventional thought. Realistically, how can teachers expect the divergent thinking they’re searching for from students if the methods they’re taught are everything but outside the box? The simple answer is, they can’t. So, maybe instead of depending on such a limiting tool, teachers and the education system could encourage writing that allows creativity to thrive?? Just a thought, really. 

Now, the other forms of standardization outside of writing are tests. Things like the PSAT and SAT, ACT, IB and AP tests, college admissions tests and state tests all reign supreme in the world of education. Frankly, as a victim of these tests, I just want to point out that ethically, students should not be measured by a test score that rewards specific intelligence, because no student should have their worth tied to a number curated against them. In all honesty, these things target a specific type of intelligence that some simply do not obtain. In common, all of the assessments listed above test academic knowledge, but what about artistic brilliance? Why aren’t there any evaluations that prize that? Maybe that could be the next big focus instead of the difference between a 1590 and a 1600 on the SAT. Anyway, expanding on the point that students ethically shouldn’t be measured by test score, it should be mentioned that students who don’t do well on them are seen as, to put it frankly, stupid and lesser than. Students who score well are viewed much more positively, putting an even further strain on social expectations set by students themselves. And, it’s not just peer stress that causes one to believe they need to be the best, but also the idea that these tests are the makes or breaks of their future that proves to have a detrimental impact on a student's mental health. As Betterhelp states, test anxiety, stress, distress, shame, low self-worth and more can all be generated from test taking (Julie Dodson). Stress caused isn’t the only issue from them. They also present a level of unfairness due to the opportunities different students have. These tests are clearly “a better predictor of a student’s socio-economic status and a parent’s educational attainment level” rather than their actual intelligence (FairTest). Think about it: these kids are intelligent, don’t get me wrong, but there’s absolutely no way a bunch of kids just randomly take the test one day and poof! They magically have a 1530 faster than you can say “yay”! They have months upon months of studying and partaking in expensive courses that prepare and familiarize them with the content, giving them a clear upper hand against those that can only afford to stay at home and use free, online resources. It’s things like this that make supposedly “fair” tests unintentionally biased, and as we all should know, impact is ALWAYS over intent, so the unintentional part doesn’t even matter. Also mentioned previously was the social pressure that comes with standardized tests. Fear of being seen as stupid and lesser than place a crushing amount of anxiety on students that often leads to defeat before they’ve even begun. These things just set them up for failure, not success, because in the act of preparing students for standardized tests, you standardize them. And obviously, you should not and cannot standardize them, because as stated before, you remove the uniqueness that makes a student who they are. If that’s not the goal of the school system, then they really need to get their priorities straight.

Another issue that’s come with the rigid formatting of the education system is definitely the unrealistic expectations set by educators and the public that students are expected to fulfill. For someone to get into a top university, they would need to have exceptional SAT scores, more APs than regular classes, a never-ending list of extracurriculars, multiple founded organizations and a cure for cancer (not really but whatever). It’s honestly so insane, because how do you expect a child to do all of that and then get their recommended eight hours of sleep every night? That’s right, you can’t. And because students also view it as pretty damn near impossible, they depend on a crutch to help them, and that crutch is most definitely Artificial Intelligence. Morally, it’s wrong to cheat, but who cares about morals when your grade is on the line? It’s a fact: good “grades”, acceptance to college and validation from others have “incentivized cheating and plagiarism", whether or not it’s ethical (John Warner). A common belief though that comes with the addressing of the use of artificial intelligence is that younger generations have become lazier. And I’m here to say that’s simply not true. It’s not laziness that’s overcome these students the way everyone wants to believe, because we need to acknowledge that if it was laziness, then these kids wouldn’t be doing whatever it is they’re doing. They could just not submit homework, skip clubs and sports and do whatever they want all day, but they don’t because they have that desire to succeed. It’s because of that desire that makes them look to anything for support, because schools really aren’t the ones providing it. But, even with all that I’ve written above, some will still think A.I. really is the obstacle kids need to push through. And I’d still tell them that I fully believe A.I. fails to be the root of the problem. Don’t get me wrong, A.I. has definitely helped with kids taking in less, as kids who actively rely on ChatGPT are suffering from “procrastination, memory loss, and academic performance” (Eric W. Dolan). But A.I. really isn’t the problem here. If anyone spent a minute thinking deeper into the situation, they’d easily understand that society really has caused this excessive dependence. And by people, I mean those deeply involved in school curriculum, whether that be government-held positions or educators in general. It really is ironic that they point fingers to everything but the unchanging education system. I mean, come on, you’re really going to blame technology when you refuse to adapt schooling to modern times? I get switching from paper to online, but other than that, a large amount of elements of education has been the same for years. The SAT has been around since 1926, AP tests from 1954, ACT from 1959 and homework for centuries, with other things having been around longer than both world wars. So, in my humble opinion, I think that changing the curriculum for an advancing society would benefit all, not just teachers receiving test scores. Like, with the technology we have now, we can easily make personal curriculum possible. It’s things like this and others that make it easy for us to adjust to students instead of having students adjust to us.

    I wholeheartedly believe that one of the most obvious issues within the education system isn’t just what I’ve listed above, but rather grammar. Yep, the simplest building block that the majority of us should be learning during our developmental years is taught HORRIBLY (extra emphasis on horribly). Personally, I didn’t understand the difference between the three “theres” and “tos” and the two “its” until probably my ninth grade. And even then, my teachers didn’t teach me that, although I’m sure they definitely noticed.. I did. And it wasn’t just me who was impacted by the horrible teaching ways of my school district, but others as well. There have been numerous occasions where I’ve read a classmate's work and have spotted multiple grammar mistakes in a seven-word sentence. And, especially as the copy editor to my school’s yearbook, I’ve seen first-hand the lack of knowledge when it comes to grammar, so I can’t even imagine what teachers see every day if I’m struggling with one class in one high school in one district. If grammar is supposed to be the baseline for writing, and that’s already messed up for so many kids, then how do we expect them to get better at the act of writing? We can’t, so we definitely need to fix whatever we have going on now to help. Clearly, hearing the word “grammar” is a turnoff for most students, because it’s associated with all things boring and tedious (Peter Merrick), but it definitely doesn’t have to be that way. Making it interactive, competitive, using humor and so many other things are all options to make grammar palatable to students (Helly Douglas). I just think that starting off with the basics will 1000% improve the writing we see from students, because at least now, they’ll know how to actually write (which is kind of crazy even typing this out, because shouldn’t they already know how to do this before they leave elementary schools???). This is definitely one of the bigger errors that schools have made, and unfortunately there are so many others like it. But, if we can just address these issues in an orderly fashion, then we can for sure change the system to help students instead of breaking them down. 

So, as I’ve mentioned before, while technology may be part of the problem, it’s only a sliver of it. Students are constantly brought down by the same people who “aspire” to raise them up, and frankly, it’s utter nonsense. We cannot expect these kids to become the child prodigies who will change the world for the better that everyone wants them to be if we keep ignoring the issues plaguing them. Their declining mental health, standardization and categorization into different knowledge groups, continuous degradation and demeaning of their intelligence and more all ruin students. And yes, however inconsequential it may seem, the five-paragraph essay also is part of the problem, because limiting the complexity that students use to write on paper will inevitably limit the complexity they view the world with. It is the set up of the school system that is failing students today, and to ignore that is to ignore the problems that lie ahead in the very near, very tangible future. As a society who claims to care about the well-being of young and impressionable students, we must take a stand against the injustices that these kids face in what should be the places uplifting them. Otherwise, it may just be too late to protect them.