High school students are constantly told to stay away from Artificial Intelligence, with most teachers telling students they can not use it on their school assignments, warning them not to try because they will find out. Many go the length of not allowing students to copy and paste from another document to ensure they are not pasting an AI-generated answer. A common concern today is that AI use may be contributing to less reading, less writing, and ultimately less thinking. Some worry that the consequences could be an entire generation unable to think critically. These concerns have fueled a complicated ongoing debate among students and educators about how AI should be used in academic settings, if at all. At the same time, most students are still using AI. According to a Newsweek report, about 89 percent of students admit they use AI for schoolwork (Blake, 2025). The world is increasingly relying on it in ways that feel both rapid and unpredictable.
Three ETHS juniors, who asked to remain anonymous, described how they use AI in their classes. One student said, “I mostly use AI to study, to explain things, or make practice questions when I’m confused.” Another student admitted, “I’ve used it on assignments where it wasn’t allowed, especially when I am running out of time. However, I edit it and try to humanize it.” A third student described how common its use has become among peers: “Pretty much everyone I know uses it, even during tests when the teacher is looking away.”
These responses complicate the idea that students simply need to “stay away” from AI. Instead, they show that AI has become an unavoidable part of academic life and that, regardless of the rules, students will use it. ETHS English teacher Cara Brooks, who teaches AP Language and Composition, described her cautious approach to student AI use. Brooks explained that she follows school guidelines closely and allows little to no AI use for writing assignments, noting that AI may be used only for limited brainstorming or idea generation. According to Brooks, this approach emphasizes that students demonstrate their own thinking and writing skills. Brooks added that “expectations around AI use are relatively consistent across the English department at the school.” She clarified that many teachers have responded to AI concerns by emphasizing handwritten work, multiple drafts and paying close attention to revision. “People really want to see each individual participating in the writing process,” she said.
Brooks has not observed major changes in the quality of student work in recent years. “As far as the product is concerned, at least in my classroom, I still see the students’ original work.” She acknowledged that students sometimes attempt to use AI and that detection tools are unreliable, noting that determining authenticity often depends on familiarity with a student’s voice rather than AI indicators.
To provide a perspective beyond the high school classroom, Professor Ricardo Court, Assistant Dean for Academic Integrity & Undergraduate Research at Northwestern University, offered insight into AI use in higher education. Aside from his work as a dean, he is a scholar interested in economic and political history, trust, enforcement and social norms. Although his research interests are not necessarily connected to his role as a dean, his intellectual trajectory has shaped his approach to understanding AI in fascinating and complex ways.
Professor Court’s central point was that AI companies misrepresent what their models actually do. In his view, the problem is not only that AI systems make errors, but also that they are marketed as if they “understand,” “research” and “verify,” when in reality they are not reliable. Court gave an example: a student can ask an AI system to write an essay and will receive a polished response with sources, only to discover that some of the citations are fabricated. What bothered him most was not just the false information, but the illusion of responsibility: the model can even pretend to “apologize,” but it does not understand truth, regret, or meaning.
Professor Court criticized the tech industry’s structure in which hype and money push companies to promise more than they can deliver. He connected that logic to “enshittification,” a term coined by journalist and author Cory Doctorow, who wrote the book “Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It.”. Doctorow’s idea is that platforms often follow a predictable path: first, they attract users with excellent service, then shift benefits toward business clients, and finally make the experience worse for everyone, in order to make more money. Even if the platform becomes extremely user-unfriendly, it does not get bad enough that people stop using it. In this way, these platforms gradually worsen, and if AI becomes the first place people go for information, the company controlling it can shape what the public sees.
For university students, though, Professor Court, similarly to Brooks, insists that the goal of rigorous education should be to develop a habit of claims, judging their truth value, gathering evidence and drawing conclusions. He does not like the term “critical thinking” (or the way it has been balanized) because, according to him, it could mean anything, and if it means anything, it really means nothing. In his role as a dean for academic integrity, he said he often sees students submit polished essays but cannot use their ideas to explain their arguments. This is a warning and concerning sign that a student who relies on AI is skipping the learning process.
When asked about the college application process, which is anxiety-provoking for most high school students, Prof Court emphasized that writing essays (and learning to write in general) should not be about producing a perfect text, but rather about being authentic. Producing a text should not be the task in itself, but instead the thinking behind it: logic, judgment and evidence of a real mind at work. This is not an easy task for many students. And definitely not a prompt one can ask ChatGPT.
Professor Court’s final advice has to do with choosing majors in college. Court advises not to base choices on credentials or on anxiety about job statistics. Instead, he encourages high schoolers to think about unexpected connections, look into professors’ research, read their abstracts and essays and consider what interests a student about a professor’s work. The court was clear that students’ first questions are usually bad, and one must be okay with knowing that they will ask bad questions, and keep asking questions. Questions will improve over time as students find mentors who correct and guide them rather than flatter them.
So, should high schoolers “stay away from AI?” Brooks was explicit about not using AI in her class. Professor Court didn’t give a simple yes or no answer. He is skeptical about today’s AI business model and hopeful about better future models. Professor Court was clear that the danger is not that AI exists, but that instant answers can train humans to stop practicing one of the most challenging parts of learning: judgment.
For now, for students curious about AI, understanding how it works (and what it hides) is more important than learning how to ask the appropriate prompt to ChatGPT.