Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- The fundemental problem is motivation not AI and this is simply the result of a larger societal shift that happened to correlate with the advent of AI.
Personally I've never done any homework or assignments, when I was outside school it was over. However, this motivated me to do really well in tests which in-turn made me extremely active during the limited time I had in school and I became pretty damn efficient at absorbing information and picking things up. So on the surface at minimum it appears that we should stop grading on activities outside school.
To be honest, what worked the best for me was what my history teacher did, 5 minute tests at the start of the lesson, then 10-20 minutes of teaching + self study assignments, remaining time is grading + answering any questions and if grading goes fast they usually had time to continue teaching for a few more minutes before the lesson ended. Group study was also heavily utilized as a form to take the load off themselves when they were overwhelmed from work due to 12th grade students especially right before exams, most of our classes became group study. All the students from their class always performed exceptionally well in nationals even though it was a mid tier public school. I will recognize that I am a bit special and that students are extremely varied I picked up on this when I discovered that someone in 11th grade still couldn't grasp the pythagorean theorem.
I don't really have a solution to the motivation problem when phones are just so addicting and have an atmosphere of their own, the best way I can put it is that your child becomes an outcast if they can't play roblox because everyone in their school does which is a very real thing my friend experienced with their kids.
by himata4113 - > I will recognize that I am a bit special
Should have started with that. No, your experience doesn't easily translate into some general good advice, you are probably way-above-average bright. I for example went through old school education with tons of home work and benefited greatly from having enough time to comprehend harder topics more deeply, without rush. Memorizing is another aspect, my mind is slow in that so I took my time, trying to remember everything at class' pace would not bring results.
Having some homework ain't something horrible, it became daily habit as part of education and I certainly don't see it negatively in hindsight. It also teaches things like a bit of self-discipline, a trait thats very rare in young these days, and probably the most important personality trait in overall long term life success. It doesn't come on its own, but can be taught/self-taught quite a bit over time. Again, in hindsight, those similarly mentally equipped but lacking it, after few decades, performed in life worse to much worse (I don't mean just money but overall life situation and happiness/fulfillment)
by kakacik - >"The most important thing in school is that our children learn to read, write and do mathematics," Stoere
Language is not a tool for thought. It's a tool for communication. This has been known for decades. People routinely lose all language related faculties and remain competent in other skills. Their only value is in creating an artifact that a teacher can then look over and update their mental model of the students knowledge. This is no longer the case since students can now easily create those artifact without having a mental model. You are entirely swapping the test for the goal when you say language is the most important thing we much teach them. You are optimizing for a large noise to signal ratio.
The EU's general obsession with deprecated tech is mindboggling. Teach you're kids these skills and you won't have to worry about getting sent to a nursing home, I guess.
by casey2 - Good, wholeheartedly agree with this. Too bad US legislators are impotent.by replwoacause
- Impotent? You mean bought by these companies.by asdff
- US legislators have almost no say in how schools are run. The DoE is a husk, and states call the shots. In my state of Oregon, you will have wildly different curricula and standards depending on your district, because there's almost no state oversight either.by tadfisher
- Education right now has basically become a giant AI echo chamber, and it's happening nationwide. It’s this bizarre setup where teachers use AI to make assignments, students use AI to do them, teachers use AI to grade them, and principals use AI to watch over the teachers.by jessinra98
- AI used to write homework should be banned.
AI in 1:1 tutor mode with proper hardware (live scanning pen and paper), harness and guardrails should be wildly successful (in terms of education outcomes) especially in elementary school.
by baq - Idk why you screeching AI touts are so confident about its ‘wild’ success in all areas given absolutely zero evidence to that effect.
It’s tiresome.
- I think AI should be used in higher level schools but with the added requirement that the output will be held to a much higher standard and that it's fact checked. Teach the students to use AI to reach a higher level while mitigating the inherent issues like hallucination and sycophancy.by wolvoleo
- fwiw, Alpha School is the supervised version. the New York campus is $65k/yr and not legally a school.
private school money with homeschool paperwork and an app doing the teaching.
https://www.wired.com/story/alpha-schools-new-york-city-camp...
by logickkk1 - > AI in 1:1 tutor mode with proper hardware, harness and guardrails should be wildly successful
I’m open to the idea! Show me the evidence. Then we can roll it out to our kids.
- Tutor mode sucks because even if it was actually accurate and didn't hallucinate, it isn't scoped to what the class is actually covering within a given topic.
Best AI is still your own brain, trained on paying attention in class and reading the assigned content.
by asdff - We thought the same of electronic devices in general and digital learning content specifically. In actual practice both result in lowered test scores and declining critical thinking skills.
- Disagree. AI has no business being used in 1:1 tutor mode before the hallucination and sycophancy issues are completely resolved. As is, I can easily see it being a hindrance to building actual understanding.
Just one example - it's very common to see ChatGPT and the like respond with "you're absolutely correct! Great insight" to something that is a complete misunderstanding.
by solid_fuel - I'm glad this is the case. It is the correct outcome.
I've heard students actually discussing that they will just use an LLM to shortcut work. I even have friends in their 50s who can barely think for themselves now without having to refer to "AI". And at least two of them are teachers.
Leading on from that, the staff are the most dangerous. My daughter has had generated exercises provided to her from multiple teachers, which are quite frankly entirely wrong. This was hilariously pointed out after I called a meeting with her mathematics teacher over it. They questioned my knowledge on the matter with the insane assumption that "AI is foolproof". I had to hit them with a clue stick then.
No one taught anything of value. No one learned anything of value. I am very worried we'll see a lost generation at some point rippling through the ages.
by cryo32 - > Leading on from that, the staff are the most dangerous. My daughter has had generated exercises provided to her from multiple teachers, which are quite frankly entirely wrong. This was hilariously pointed out after I called a meeting with her mathematics teacher over it. They questioned my knowledge on the matter with the insane assumption that "AI is foolproof". I had to hit them with a clue stick then.
They have also been explicitly told by the department of education to NOT do this, but it hasn't stopped lazy teachers all over. Apparently not doing your job, in direct contradiction to your given rules, is ok because "it's the future".
by Aerolfos - Completely understandable.
My 6yo kiddo recently realized that smart speaker (Google home) can not only play her favorite songs, but answer her homework questions. And it was something not that trivial, like “which animal from the list changes color of its fur when seasons change: tiger, arctic fox, something else”.
And now I need to either disable everything or figure out how to turn that off for her.
by galkk - > And now I need to either disable everything or figure out how to turn that off for her.
Why?
I tell me 6yo "That's for adults only, children are not allowed to use it" and not have to worry.
Sure, he'll push boundaries here and there, but with some things he knows "No means no" and doesn't push those boundaries.
I have literally tested this: left a cookie on the table (that he wants) and told him "You can eat that cookie after you finish the thing you are reading" and left the room.
Teaching kids to not succumb to their instant-gratification instincts is part of being a parent.
by lelanthran - Teach them right and yeet the surveillance device altogetherby toasty228
- Social media execs are already known for keeping their children off their platforms* and even phones so my question is: Do the leading ML/AI people let their children interact with LLMs yes or no?
[*] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/13/youtubes-ceo-is-latest-tech-...
by morkalork - there is a difference in a kid asking a LLM to explain 0! or 0^0 and to ask it to be its friend.by jackdoe
- Broadly speaking, the wealthier the parents the more restrictive device is in general in the household.
This used to be a tech/non-tech line. It shifted to class sometime over the last ten years. The iPad kids are probably getting served slop. The AI-employed parents don’t have to directly police AI exposure because their kids’ device use is already controlled; at school, at extra-curriculars and at home.
- Im confused, are there tasks given to 6 to 13 year old to use AI?
In the classroom, are they just throwing gpt in front of them? Is that the modern equivalent of watching a vhs?
Or do they have homework to vibe code something or given some prompts to ask at home and save somewhere?
Serious question, what does this mean?
by bko - likely preemptive
- Well one can no longer search for information in the big search engines without it just giving you the answer.
This ruins “search and topic and write about it”
by vorticalbox - A kid gets homework to do a writing assignment online. Kid goes on chatgpt. "Chatgpt do this work, heres the assignment' ctrl c + ctrl v Chatgpt spits out a good answer.
Kid spent no time doing homework and learned nothing
Or imagine a reading log(typing out what you read) to encourage a kid to read, you have AI that can copy and paste your homework for you
by JimsonYang - I have three children in that age span in a Norwegian school. For the ages 10-13, ChatGPT and the like has frequently been used in the classroom to help with the cold start problem when doing writing assignments, and for getting feedback on written work before handing in to the teachers. Also frequently used as a brainstorming tool or for writing whole speaches or presentations that should be held in front of the class or school. As for doing homework, the school-provided and school-managed iPad has (had I should say) www.chatgpt.com whitelisted, so using these tools also for homework is at least not blocked, and sometimes encouraged.
My children has at least not yet received any tasks or homework using AI for coding. They teach less coding in school now compared to when I was at the same age, at least at my elementary school.
by bendriv - There where no clear rules on the matter. Now the PM has given some guidance to schools so they know when they should use it and not.
If there are no guidance teachers and schools can do what they want and some teachers would probably go to far to early
by sisve - Teacher uses AI, creates lesson plan -> AI creates assignments -> Teacher gives assignments to students -> Students use AI to do assignment -> Teacher grades with AI -> Principal uses AI to monitor teachers progress.
This is happening at schools nationwide. It is unstoppable at this point. It's a bizarre charade.
by ransom1538