At the Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC) last month, seniors from Mountain View High School shared how even in their tech-forward school environment, the absence of formal policies forced them to navigate a landscape where AI is either a forbidden shortcut or an essential life skill. Schools, they said, must move away from punitive measures surrounding tech use and work toward a framework of self-regulation and AI literacy.
According to one student, Drew, when generative AI tools first entered the mainstream, his teachers responded with immediate restrictions. Early on, he said, there was a noticeable lack of dialog regarding these tools, even among the student body, leaving students uncertain about the boundaries of acceptable use.
“AI tools were not talked about very much, even among students,” he noted. “No one was going around bragging that they were using AI to do their schoolwork just because no one really knew what the rules were, and teachers hadn’t really set clear expectations.”
Unlike other academic challenges where students could turn to teachers or their peers, Drew added that AI became “the word that couldn’t be said,” leaving students to figure out any ethical and practical boundaries on their own without explicit expectations surrounding its use.
“There was just not a lot of communication, so a lot of students were sort of figuring it out on their own,” he said. “Even if a school doesn’t specifically train a student on how to use an AI tool to specifically do a certain job that they might do in the future, students need to leave school comfortable using technology and using AI tools, or else the school is doing them a disservice, since in the future, I think it’s pretty evident that a lot of jobs are going to require those types of skills.”
Students described how this lack of communication fostered an almost adversarial dynamic, where students felt that the use of AI was almost exclusively viewed through the lens of academic dishonesty. Claire, also a senior at Mountain View, shared that any strict no-use policies in her classes led to feelings of guilt, even after being encouraged by her parents to experiment with AI tools for legitimate learning.
“I think because [AI is] such a novel concept, we’re losing track in the goal of education, which I think is ... to best prepare students for their future and what’s to come,” she said. “And we’re more getting caught up in the little parts of, ‘oh, did you use this for one of your essays’ instead of just, ‘OK, what is this, why are you writing this essay, what is this supposed to serve you for in the future?’”
Moreover, these high schoolers see a fundamental mismatch when schools ignore tools that are already ubiquitous.
“Especially when AI first came out ... students were framed as the bad guys and always cheating,” said Sophia, also a senior at Mountain View High, adding that students began to feel like their teachers were punishing them for engaging with a technology that had already made its way to their pockets. “So the initial response may have been a little bit negative ... I think the way that we use it now has changed to ... more of supplementing our learning and making it more individualized.”
But while these students advocate for the use of AI, they are not blind to the pitfalls of overreliance on technology. Claire described how technology can at times be used as a crutch, or a tool to avoid social interaction.
“If I forget my phone at school, it feels very bare because it feels like it’s a part of your arm,” she said. “But I think removing [technology] would also be continuing this idea of not having education aligned with what our reality is.”
Thus, rather than banning AI, smartphones and other tech, some students called for a shift toward self-regulation.
“AI is a great tool, and I think one thing that students should really know is that you don’t have to use ChatGPT for everything. There are so many more resources that specialize in so many things, and you could get much better products out of using those resources,” Nikita, another senior, said. “But when you’re using these products, it is really important that you are absorbing the information, because if you don’t have that fundamental information, you’re not gonna be able to fine-tune it and really understand what you’re learning.”
