The AI threat to critical thinking in our classrooms

Technology has no place in kindergarten through eighth grade (K-8). Evidence abounds that learning through books, pencil and paper, and dialogue with real people builds the strongest foundation for learning and provides cognitive, emotional, and practical benefits.

The expensive private Waldorf School of the Peninsula in the Silicon Valley, where technology executives send their kids, has ZERO technology in grades K-8. Their website says, “Brain research tells us that media exposure can result in changes in the actual nerve network in the brain, which affects such things as eye tracking (a necessary skill for successful reading), neurotransmitter levels, and how readily students receive the imaginative pictures that are foundational for learning.”

Antero Garcia, Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University, explains why he has grown skeptical about digital tools in the classroom: “Despite their purported and transformational value, I’ve been wondering if our investment in educational technology might in fact be making our schools worse.”

States like Ohio are now requiring artificial intelligence (AI) policies for all K-12 schools, and AI appears to be the latest technology fad for government-sponsored education.

Most government (public) schools have already morphed into digital-based learning centers, relegating teachers to facilitators, with no improvement in student achievement. But adding AI to the tech-driven education system poses a great threat to a child’s cognitive development and safety.

According to Harvard University, “Brains are built over time, from the bottom up. The brain’s basic architecture is constructed through an ongoing process that begins before birth and continues into adulthood. After a period of especially rapid growth in the first few years, the brain refines itself through a process called pruning, making its circuits more efficient.” These “use it or lose it” developmental phases of the brain happen in early childhood and through adolescence. If an adolescent depends on AI to think for his academic success, rather than his developing brain, his brain, and he will be shortchanged. Harvard says, “While the process of building new connections and pruning unused ones continues throughout life, the connections that form early provide either a strong or weak foundation for the connections that form later.”

An MIT study, coordinated with OpenAI, involved over 1,000 people who interacted with OpenAI’s ChatGPT for over four weeks. It revealed that some users became overly reliant on the tool’s capabilities, leading to “an unhealthy emotional dependency” on ChatGPT as well as “addictive behaviors and compulsive use that ultimately result in negative consequences for both physical and psychosocial well-being.”

A more recent study by MIT found that using ChatGPT and similar tools to write essays resulted in lower brain activity. Students who relied on AI got worse at writing essays when asked to perform that task without the AI assistance. The lead author of the study, who released the findings prior to the traditional peer review process, said, “What really motivated me to put it out now before waiting for a full peer review is that I am afraid in six-to-eight months, there will be some policymaker who decides, ‘let’s do GPT kindergarten.’ I think that would be absolutely bad and detrimental.” She went on to say, “Developing brains are at the highest risk.”

AI can pose other serious risks to children, as recently proven when ChatGPT was caught steering gender-confused children toward radical LGBTQ groups that prey on their vulnerabilities, according to a Daily Wire investigation. The investigation revealed that ChatGPT encourages gender-confused children to reach out to radical LGBTQ organizations, obtain so-called “gender-affirming” resources like chest binders, and directs them to YouTube channels that contain graphic reviews of fake male genitalia. This information is provided to children as young as 12 years old, and the platform egregiously advises how to access services behind their parents’ backs!

Many concerns have been raised about data privacy during the technology boom of the last few decades. The data privacy threat with AI is much more concerning! A white paper from Stanford University reports, “AI systems are so data-hungry and intransparent that we have even less control over what information about us is collected, what it is used for, and how we might correct or remove such personal information.”

Supporters of AI in education argue it prepares children for the job market, but this is questionable since technology evolves so rapidly — even current computer science majors are obsolete! Teaching advanced math and science equips students better for an unpredictable future, as forecasting technological trends is unrealistic.

Given that there is already evidence that AI can lie, be biased, and make up source references, it should not be a tool used by anyone trying to teach children to understand truth, logic, fairness, values, and subjects like literature and history.

Dependency on AI technology will only add to the decline of academic achievement and a student’s desire to learn. And, what’s worse, AI can corrupt children and extract untold amounts of private data without their knowledge, much less the knowledge and consent of their parents.

As schools — especially government schools — rush into using AI and other technological crutches, children will suffer.

I pray that decision makers will take a long pause on implementing AI in schools, especially in grades K-8. As the MIT study proved, AI actually impedes learning, while there is abundant evidence that books, paper, pencils, and human teachers are effective learning tools.

Sheri Few is the Founder and President of United States Parents Involved in Education (USPIE), whose mission is to end the U.S. Department of Education and all federal education mandates. She has written extensively about Critical Race Theory and served as Executive Producer for the documentary film titled “Truth & Lies in American Education.” Few is also the host of USPIE’s podcast, “Unmasking Government Schools with Sheri Few,” which educates Americans on the various forms of indoctrination, harmful policies, and affronts to parents’ rights occurring in government schools across the country. Listen to “Unmasking Government Schools with Sheri Few” on YouTube, Facebook, Spotify, and X.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.