Parents, Here’s What Teachers Wish You Knew About AI

It was once generally touted that successful cheating demanded more effort than simply learning the class content, but that is no longer true. If you’re the parent of a secondary or college student, you’re likely somewhat invested in your child’s education. At the very least, I assume you would hate for your student to be suspected of illicit AI use on an assignment, and you would be willing to go to lengths to minimize that possibility if you only knew where to start. But AI moves fast. Its capabilities have quietly expanded, and it takes diligent study to understand exactly how. 

I taught high school English at a private Christian school during the height of AI’s debut. Since the birth of my son, I’ve stepped into a remote position requiring me to devote a staggering percentage of work time to authenticating suspicious student work. My aim is to come alongside you in the endeavor of understanding student AI use so that you can feel equipped to enter the coming school year. While a student will generally get out of their education what they put into it, that yield will almost certainly be no more than what you’re willing to put into it yourself. Here’s what we want you to know.

First, AI’s temptation does not discriminate. If you’ve made it this far but still believe your student would never dream of cheating, I would encourage you to reconsider. As a general trend, there is little discrepancy between the number of “standard” students and the number of honors students suspected of using AI. These honors students often bear other distinctions as well: National Honors Society participants, student government officers, team captains, or otherwise beloved and highly regarded members of a school culture. It is simply a desire to do well, not a desire for expedience, that does them in. These are the students whose need to succeed overrides their moral compass: They know it’s wrong, but AI feels like the only way out for a student whose day is filled with extracurriculars and stacks of honors and AP homework.

Parents, if I have just described your student, my recommendation here is twofold. First, do not mistakenly assume your student will always overcome the temptation to use AI. Capable as they seem, they still need your oversight and your encouragement. Second, check in with your student; no number of resume-building pursuits will be able to distract from an academic integrity infraction. And while developing grit is important, developing virtue is crucial. Your student may be silently craving the space to act virtuously without feeling that their efforts will fall short. 

Next, signs of cheating may not be what you think. You won’t catch your student copying off their friend’s assignment. Even work that appears to be human-written may have been authored by AI. “Humanizer” tools have been cleverly crafted to turn those predictably robotic AI writing patterns into variable, choppy, and even error-ridden passages. Why? This makes a piece far less likely to be flagged as AI content by an AI “detector,” and, unfortunately, less likely to draw a teacher’s eye. Now run that same piece through a humanizer tool multiple times, or through several different humanizer tools, layer in some student edits, and you have a patchwork piece that will fly under any number of radars.

Thorough teachers will notice when a piece that may initially appear human does not actually correspond with the particular individual’s writing style. We get to know our students’ voices well, but the bright side to this is that you can do the same: Familiarize yourself with your own student’s “writing” voice, review their final work, and get acquainted with their stylistic quirks. And if this feels daunting, consider at least checking their browsing history from time to time; this only takes a moment, but it could be the supervision that causes your student to decide AI is not worth the risk. 

Additionally, just because your student spent hours on an assignment does not prove its authenticity. Students have realized that copying and pasting AI content directly into their online document can be caught by a teacher with access to that document’s “version history,” an embedded log that captures, edit-by-edit, the document’s evolution over time. This viewable version history once provided clear-cut evidence for a conviction: One moment, a page would be entirely blank; the next, paragraphs of perfectly polished prose would appear all at once — an entire essay crafted within minutes. But students caught on to us.

Now, rather than copying and pasting, they manually transcribe AI-generated content they have open in one tab into a document waiting in a different tab. This creates a human-looking writing process captured by the version history even though the piece is, by no means, human. Parents, look just a bit more closely at your student’s screens: Do they have only their document up, or are they switching back and forth between tabs? Knowing what to look for may allow you to intervene before your student fully commits to a deceitful choice. 

Finally, parents, we want you to know that we dread confronting you. My coworkers and I regularly work long hours beyond what we are compensated for, pouring ourselves into lesson plans, providing comma-level feedback on writing submissions, and designing new experiments to see what we can improve upon. We do this not out of necessity, but simply because we are dedicated to our craft and to our students. But the increased volume of AI infractions, along with the general rise of disengagement and disrespect, has put us at odds with the job we love. Often it is not the cheating itself, nor the students who double down on their deception, but the reactions by parents whom we have to confront over their students’ use of AI that are the most crushing.

Parents have personally insulted and hastily attributed the worst possible motivations to good teachers in response to raised suspicions surrounding AI use. These reactions have the potential to erode the passion that keeps devoted educators in the classroom. Good teachers can succeed elsewhere, and they are the ones who will eventually throw up their hands in defeat after too many disheartening battles with the families they desire to serve. You will be left with teachers who complain recreationally about your students behind their backs but will never bother to enforce AI infractions. 

By all means, plead your student’s case. They are innocent until proven guilty. But know what it is that you’re arguing first. Have conversations with your student to make sure they’re not so overwhelmed by extracurriculars that they feel the only road to success is dishonesty. Get to know their writing style. Check their browsing history. Keep an eye on what tabs they have open. And when you’ve done all that, I implore you, conduct yourself as one who is simply in search of the truth, whatever that may be.

The teacher on the receiving end will be tremendously blessed, but the real beneficiary, in fact, is your child. Regardless of what his or her actions may have been, they’ll have the opportunity to watch you go to bat for them while still demonstrating civility. They’ll see, in practice, that virtue outweighs grades — and emotions. And they’ll be reminded of that boundless love you have for them, a love that doesn’t fluctuate according to grades or supposed infractions. Remember, they’ll get out of their education what you put into it, and maybe they will come away with just a little bit more after all. 

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Emily Hunker is a former high school English teacher who currently supports her department in developing curricular processes and upholding academic integrity.

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.