Using AI as a Parent

As I've said in recent articles, I'm intentionally not good at most things related to teaching. To me, this is the key to being a good teacher while having a life. It's the crux of the two books that represent my core thinking, These 6 Things and The Will to Learn. Both of those books are basically asking, what work and ideas matter most in teaching?

Which is all to say, I'm not an expert on AI. It's effects on teaching, how to use it in the classroom, what it's doing to us and our students, where it will take education in the next five years…my answers to these questions are about as authoritative as any random teacher you'd ask. While I love and respect teachers who are at the cutting edge of these technologies and their implications, I'm happy to let them explore and innovate without me. In the meantime, my students and I will keep writing in our spiral notebooks like it's 1959.

But the other night, as I was helping my eighth grader on her algebra homework and once again feeling the pain of having forgotten most of the math I learned in secondary school, I decided to ask ChatGPT for help with a problem.

And it was a godsend.

It didn't just tell me the answer — I had the back of the textbook for that unhelpful bit of info. Instead, it gave me the full method for solving the problem. Once I read it, I knew how to help Haddie — that old algebra knowledge from decades ago came back to life, and Haddie and I were off to the races.

So, the first point of this article is, if you're a parent with a middle or high schooler and they are stuck on their math work: give this a try! Seriously, I am so grateful.

But the second point is, notice what AI can and can't do for people.

• It can't make us care about others. I had to care about helping my daughter with homework to use the tool. And then I had to care way more to use the tool to help my daughter learn versus just using the tool to skip work.
• It can't make us learn. Learning takes work — there's no away around it. You only remember what you think about, and if ChatGPT or its ilk do all the “thinking,” well…you won't do the learning.

But mostly, this is just a blog post by a thankful parent.

Best,

DSJR