For many decades, students have attended school that really hasn’t changed much -we sit in desks, take notes, listen to lectures, write essays – while the world around us has undergone significant development, most notably with the incorporation of computers. Since the early 2000s, technology has developed rapidly. As high school students in 2026, all our teachers have lectured us about how we should not use artificial intelligence to complete our assignments and that the purpose of homework is to provide us with extra practice, not to replace the computer. 

What is AI?

Many teachers have struggled with their students overly relying on artificial intelligence (AI) to complete their assignments. AI is a complex computer system that can respond to tasks it is being asked. It analyzes countless data systems to respond extremely fast to the problem at hand. Artificial intelligence was created and released in 1955. Clearly, AI in 2026 is not the same as it was in the 1950s, but now it’s learning information at lightning speeds – 10x faster than the average human. This isn’t just school-related; AI can personalize algorithms, plan a trip to Europe, or even find recipes to cook chicken in mere seconds. 

AI in Schools

The number of students relying on AI assistance to complete classwork is increasing rapidly, according to Newsweek. AI usage in 2024 was about 66%. In the short span of one year, “85% of teachers and students (age 14-22) now use AI in some capacity.” To prevent students from overly relying on AI, most teachers will assign essays for class work so they can monitor the students on programs such as GoGuardian to ensure the students are doing their own work individually and not with the help of AI systems. 

Flash Back

The irony is that in April 2002, The Torch staff wrote about the increasing number of plagiarism cases with the internet’s expansion; students used to just copy and paste text from an online source without crediting it properly. Meanwhile, copying and pasting from the internet has become the least of the Olympic Heights faculty’s problems with the creation of AI.  “There is no way I would pass English without SparkNotes,” Emily, an OH student who asked that we not share her last name, said. “It’s such a lifesaver because I usually don’t have time to read the book.” Now in 2026, with the help of SparkNotes and asking ChatGPT for summaries on books, students don’t even have to order the book. This is an epidemic in schools across America: “less than 20 percent of U.S. teens report reading a book, magazine or newspaper daily for pleasure,” according to the American Psychological Association.   

A Teacher’s Thoughts

Deborah Posner, an English teacher who has worked at Olympic Heights since the early 2000s, was highlighted in The Torch Volume 16, Issue 1 of November 2006. She was recognized in the Teacher Feature for “motivating her students to succeed” and “hoping to make a difference in her students’ lives.” She still goes by this today, almost 20 years later. In an interview with her, I discussed the parallels between school now and then, particularly in relation to the rapid development of technology. 

Q: How has AI affected your styles of teaching to ensure the credibility of your students? 

A: All writing has been moved into the classroom, and none is done at home as we don’t trust the authenticity of the students’ work. They can plug in prompts to AI and develop a piece of writing that is not their own. This prevents teachers from seeing students develop their own personal voice and understanding what each student needs to work on as an individual, rather than what AI needs to work on. If they are using AI, then I have no way of knowing what they know versus don’t know, and this is a huge problem as a teacher. Our goal as teachers is to understand where our kids are and to support them. 

Q: Has AI affected this year, particularly in your teaching?

A: We assigned two articles for students to read and write a paragraph about, but my students just plugged the articles into AI and let AI generate writing for them. Now, I have to adjust what I do. 

Q: How has the increasing presence of social media affected in-class learning?

A: The students spend so much time on social media, such as TikTok. They are reading less and less and are consuming more videos than articles. With the increased reliance on spell check, students are seen to care less about their grammar, which largely affects their ability to write. We are seeing a big decline in their skills because many students are not reading at all. 

Overall, children have been so heavily influenced by the media they consume that they have been less focused on their academics. They have been more reliant on technology than ever to complete their assignments, which is causing their skills to decline rapidly each year.  Posner does highlight that AI isn’t all negative, and that if a student needs help on a particular grammar topic, AI can create examples and tips for them. AI can be used to help students to an extent, but it’s important for them to balance its usage.