“Just to be clear, ChatGPT can do your homework for you on almost any topic, it can totally pass, up through a sophomore year in college. It could pass almost any test on any subject.” - Andy Crouch.
I didn’t really care for school when I was growing up. My priorities were surfing, working (to pay for gas and surf wax), friends, youth group, and lastly school, a distant fifth place.
In my 10th grade sociology class, the teacher started each class period with a quiz from from the previous day’s reading assignment. Like clockwork, the teacher would stand at a lectern with the grading sheet in hand and gives us a couple minutes to complete the quiz. We would trade quizzes and she would read out the answers as we graded each other. One class period she started the quiz and unexpectedly left the classroom, leaving us with the instruction to finish the quiz and she would be right back. Within seconds of the teacher leaving, the murmuring in the class began. “What is number 4?” “Is number 6, A or C?” I think we all scored pretty well on that quiz.
The next day in class, the teacher began by showing a video. The video was of us! She had secretly put one of those old VHS video recorders in the back corner of the class room and filmed each of her six classes taking the quiz after she had left the room. We were mortified! There we were, all high-fiving and celebrating that we aced the quiz and pulled it off before our teacher returned. It turns out the quiz didn’t count because she was teaching us a lesson about the social pressures to cheat in school and how people engage in cheating. We all felt bad for cheating, but mostly because we had been caught.
Today, cheating has become easier than ever, especially with the introduction of artificial intelligence, or A.I, and even more specifically, ChatGPT. ChatGPT is a language-specific “artificial intelligence” that was recently opened to the public in December.
I recently listened to an insightful podcast titled “The Spirituality of ChatGPT,” hosted by Curtis Chang with guest Andy Crouch; it is linked below in case you would like to listen to it. In the podcast, Andy Crouch gives this startling perspective of ChatGPT as it could potentially play out in education. He says, “just to be clear, ChatGPT can do your homework for you on almost any topic, it can totally pass, up through a sophomore year in college. It could pass almost any test on any subject.” Here’s hoping your students haven’t heard this! Better yet, let us pray they will rise to this new occasion to live with integrity.
Many students have started using ChatGPT to complete their homework assignments. I recently saw a video of a student using their 3D printer to hold a pen and “hand write” an essay that was composed entirely by ChatGPT. All this to get a good grade, avoiding to have to do the work, for a teacher who might not even care, as long as they turn in the assignment. There is also talk of a newer and more advanced artificial intelligence that will write your paper, quote sources correctly, and create a bibliography.
Is this a concern for us as Christian homeschoolers?
An important aspect of education is the formation of our children’s hearts and minds. As homeschoolers, we have an even greater opportunity to truly engage our kids in learning and help them grow in character. Learning is not just checking boxes, or even simply adding knowledge to their brains, it also helps form the people they become. Researching for a history paper, reading a wonderful book, finally understanding a mathematical formula, seeing a science experiment support a hypothesis, organizing ideas into a coherent essay, cooking something delicious by carefully following a recipe, shapes our children. Passions are realized, spiritual gifting is revealed. Deeper understanding of the world can bring forth anger, tears, or awe, and inspire students in ways they might never even realize. But using artificial intelligence to complete an assignment bypasses this type of positive formation and instead creates habits of dishonesty and laziness.
In the podcast, Andy Crouch has a wonderful conclusion that I think relates to one of the greatest strengths of homeschoolers. He says that students are tempted to cheat because “they don’t actually believe there is a teacher who loves them enough to care whether they get developed. They believe all their teacher wants is for them to show certain work to get a certain grade. But if they knew they were truly loved by that teacher, it would make all the difference.”
As Christian homeschoolers, this is our ace in the hole! Our students were born into the deep love of family and hopefully know their parents’ caring desire for them to learn, apply, and be formed by education. Not only that, but we have God’s help in training up our children in the way they should go. This is just one more opportunity to pray for discernment and guidance.
As the writer of Ecclesiastes says, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Cheating has been a temptation as long as humans have existed. Our job as parents is not new. Some kids will be tempted to use AI to cheat. We as parents must remain actively engaged in our children’s education so that we know they are doing their own work and learning well. We must also discuss these ideas and the dangers, both educational and spiritual, of cheating to get ahead, with our children. Chances are they already know what AI can do and crave our guidance.
Artificial intelligence invites much more discussion and discovery. This technology is still in its infancy, so it is hard to determine if it will be more detrimental or beneficial in the long run. Our job is to keep our eyes and hearts, and those of our children, on the One who knows all and will guide us into all truth.
by Mike Sedgwick, HCS School Board Member
The Spirituality of ChatGPT - podcast on Apple