Schools Need to Stop Fighting AI and Start Teaching Students How to Use It

I spent a significant portion of my childhood struggling with reading and writing. Even today, although to a lesser degree, those challenges haven’t entirely disappeared.

I eventually became comfortable with reading because I desperately wanted to. I loved stories, history, and the opportunity to learn about things that interested me. Writing, however, was a completely different experience.

I was born in 2001, long before artificial intelligence became a widely accessible tool for writing essays, correcting grammar, or helping students organize their thoughts.

I can confidently say that if AI had been as accessible during my childhood as it is today, I probably would have relied on it far too heavily.

I likely would have learned to read because I genuinely enjoyed it. But I’m not convinced I would have developed the same ability to structure sentences, research topics independently, or painstakingly edit my grammar through what felt like a million drafts.

Those skills took years of frustration to develop.

And while I’m grateful to have learned them, I don’t think the amount of difficulty I experienced was necessary or particularly beneficial.

Growing Up With Dyslexia

Having dyslexia made me painfully aware of the shortcomings of the American public education system at a relatively young age.

Reading, spelling, and translating my thoughts into written sentences were exceptionally difficult. I could understand what I wanted to communicate, but actually getting those ideas onto paper was another matter.

I often knew considerably more about a subject than my writing suggested.

That was probably one of the most frustrating parts of school. I could read about something I found fascinating, develop opinions about it, and discuss it, but writing an organized essay explaining those ideas could become an exhausting process.

I received limited support in public school, and I certainly didn’t have the ability to advocate for myself effectively.

But why should a child be expected to?

How many children between the ages of six and fifteen genuinely understand their educational needs, know what accommodations are available, and feel comfortable demanding additional support from adults?

Plenty of adults struggle to advocate for themselves, yet we somehow expect children to recognize when their education is inadequate and figure out how to correct it.

I also question why students are so often expected to understand how to learn without being explicitly taught.

Teachers aren’t simply there to distribute assignments and evaluate the finished products. They’re there to help students develop the skills necessary to understand information, organize their thoughts, and communicate effectively.

I don’t expect every teacher to become an expert in every learning disability. But I do expect our educational institutions to provide meaningful support to students who learn differently.

My experience with dyslexia has strongly influenced how I view artificial intelligence in education.

AI Is a Tool, Not a Replacement for Thinking

One criticism of AI-generated writing is that it often lacks personality, originality, and depth.

I agree.

AI can produce incredibly generic writing, particularly when someone provides a vague prompt and expects a thoughtful, detailed essay in return.

This is especially noticeable in creative writing, where a person’s experiences, imagination, and individual voice are often what make a story worth reading.

But I think there’s an important distinction between asking AI to create something for you and using it to improve something you’ve already created.

If you’re writing a short story, for example, I believe the characters, plot, themes, and initial drafts should come from you.

Those are the parts that make the story yours.

But if you’ve written several drafts and want help correcting grammar, identifying awkward sentences, or improving transitions, why shouldn’t you use AI?

I don’t see anything inherently wrong with that.

In fact, for someone with dyslexia, having access to a tool that can correct spelling and grammar without changing the substance of what they’ve written can be incredibly useful.

The same principle applies to research papers, although the process is somewhat different.

Suppose you’ve selected your topic, developed a thesis, and decided what arguments you want to make.

AI can help you identify potentially useful articles, academic journals, and research questions that might otherwise take considerable time to locate.

Of course, you still need to read those sources yourself.

AI can invent citations, misrepresent research, and provide information that sounds convincing but is completely inaccurate. Any sources, quotations, or statistics it suggests need to be verified against the original material.

But if you’ve already done that work, developed a detailed outline, and decided how you want to incorporate your evidence, I don’t see why using AI to help organize or edit your writing should automatically be considered intellectually dishonest.

There’s a difference between outsourcing your thinking and getting assistance communicating your thoughts.

That distinction matters.

Why I Disagree With the Anti-AI Attitude

I’ve noticed that some of the strongest opinions about AI seem to come from people who have relatively little experience using it.

There are people who treat AI as though it’s going to solve every problem imaginable, and others who seem convinced that using it for almost anything is inherently wrong.

I don’t agree with either position.

AI has serious limitations, and many criticisms are entirely justified. There are legitimate concerns about misinformation, academic dishonesty, environmental costs, and the effects of automation on employment.

But acknowledging those problems doesn’t mean we should dismiss every useful application of the technology.

I also find it frustrating when people automatically assume that writing assisted by AI has no value.

If someone develops an original argument, researches it thoroughly, writes a draft, and uses AI to improve the grammar, does that suddenly make their ideas less meaningful?

I don’t think so.

The substance of the argument should matter more than whether someone used a particular editing tool.

Of course, readers are free to dislike AI-assisted writing. And schools, publishers, and other institutions have every right to establish reasonable rules about its use.

But I think those rules should distinguish between assistance and substitution rather than treating every interaction with AI as equivalent.

Our Education System Needs to Adapt

This brings me to what I consider the most important part of the discussion.

How should schools respond to a world in which AI is widely available and students are going to use it regardless of whether their teachers approve?

I don’t think pretending the technology doesn’t exist is a particularly effective strategy.

Instead, schools should focus on teaching the skills students need to use it responsibly.

Students still need to learn how to read, write, structure sentences, develop arguments, and distinguish trustworthy information from unreliable sources.

They should understand how to construct a thesis, evaluate evidence, and explain their reasoning without depending entirely on a computer.

Those foundational skills are essential.

But once students have begun developing them, I think schools should also teach them how to use AI effectively.

That means showing students how to write clear instructions, recognize generic or inaccurate responses, verify information, and preserve their own ideas when editing.

It also means explaining when AI assistance is appropriate and when an assignment is intended to measure someone’s independent abilities.

A student learning to write their first argumentative essay probably shouldn’t have AI produce the entire paper.

But a student who has already written an essay and struggles with spelling because of dyslexia might benefit enormously from having AI identify errors and explain the corrections.

Those are two very different situations.

Teachers could even incorporate AI into assignments by asking students to evaluate an AI-generated response, identify factual inaccuracies, or explain why a particular argument is poorly constructed.

That would require students to think critically about the technology rather than simply accept whatever it produces.

And perhaps most importantly, schools need to recognize that students have different educational needs.

For someone who has always found writing relatively easy, AI-assisted editing might seem unnecessary.

For someone who has spent years struggling to translate perfectly reasonable thoughts into coherent sentences, it can make a substantial difference.

What I Wish Had Been Different

Looking back on my own education, I don’t wish someone had simply handed me a computer that could complete every assignment.

I needed to learn how to write, and I’m glad I eventually developed those skills.

What I wish I’d had was more meaningful support while learning them.

I wish someone had spent more time helping me understand why my sentences weren’t working instead of simply marking them incorrect.

I wish I’d had better tools for identifying patterns in my mistakes and improving my writing without spending hours correcting the same types of errors.

And I wish the education system had done a better job recognizing that struggling to express an idea in writing doesn’t necessarily mean someone doesn’t understand the subject.

AI cannot fix every problem in education. It certainly can’t replace good teachers, meaningful feedback, or the effort required to learn something difficult.

But it can provide another form of support, particularly for students who struggle with conventional approaches to learning.

I think refusing to acknowledge that potential would be a mistake.

We should absolutely continue discussing the shortcomings of AI and the consequences of relying on it too heavily.

But those discussions need to move beyond simply criticizing students for using a technology that’s becoming increasingly integrated into everyday life.

Teach students how to think independently. Teach them how to research, write, and evaluate information. Then teach them how to use AI to strengthen those abilities rather than replace them.

That’s the approach I wish our education system would take.

And as someone who spent much of his childhood struggling to put thoughts onto paper, I think it’s an opportunity worth taking seriously.