Remember moments where you’re reading a handout that requires a load of reading from your teacher… and you wonder: Did they actually write this? 

Sometimes on the last page, tiny text is buried in the corner: “Made by ChatGPT, with edits from your teacher.” And sometimes, most of the time, there is no disclosure at all.

Meanwhile, teachers warn you about AI plagiarism checkers and kindly remind you to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) ethically if it is allowed in the assignment. 

So, this got me thinking… is it fully fair to have different guidelines for teacher use versus student use of AI? Do you think teachers should always be transparent about using AI so that you can trust them 100%?

Well, in this opinion piece, I’ve conducted surveys, interviews, and online research to further dive into the teachers’ and students’ perspectives. Through this Op-Ed, I hope you—teachers and students—reflect on how AI should be utilised in the classroom in a way where trust and transparency is consistent (or at least most of the times hopefully).

AI in the Educational Field and in the Classroom

In the past three years, AI has spread globally and is being used more in the classroom, as teachers use it for a variety of reasons, from planning lessons to researching. According to UNESCO’s studies, published in Demandsage, “approximately 66% of students use ChatGPT for educational purposes” and “about 60% of teachers integrate AI into their teaching”. That’s quite a concerning number… but our reality.

In an interview, Drama teacher Jamie Cant describes the introduction of AI into the educational field as “inevitable” as “the entire world and every industry and every level of education is now using AI as a tool […] that we [as humans] will all need to learn how it works [best].”

Meanwhile, English teacher Paul DeMichele called it a “double-edged sword,” noting that AI has both benefits and drawbacks for teachers and students. “We’re on the verge of allowing machines to make decisions for us,” DeMichele adds, “which I don’t think is always a good thing.”

Additionally, MYP Coordinator Kate Sorrell finds AI to be a “really interesting and exciting technological advancement that is, at the moment, innovative to explore.”

On the other hand, from the students’ perspective, opinions on teachers’ use of AI are quite divided. In The Bite’s survey, conducted in March 2026 with 27 student respondents, students were asked about teachers’ use of AI in the classroom.

51.8% opposed teachers using AI while 18.5% supported it and 29.6% were neutral on the issue.

Although some students understand and see the benefits of AI, the majority were concerned about the idea of AI used by teachers in the classroom setting.

Based on survey results and interviews, both teachers and students recognize AI is being used, yet are being cautious about using it ethically as its influence grows rapidly.

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Teachers Using AI in the Classroom

According to a new study by the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education, published in NPR, the study’s authors believes that the risks of using AI in education far outweigh its benefits. The report describes “a kind of doom loop of AI dependence, where students increasingly off-load their own thinking onto the technology, leading to the kind of cognitive decline or atrophy more commonly associated with aging brains.”

Even the report’s “Pro” argument that it helps students with fixing “punctuation, capitalization, and grammar” means that an AI is doing the hard skills of written composition for the student, not with or alongside the student.

In the survey conducted by The Bite, students and teachers commonly described the following benefits and drawbacks to their own AI use:

Benefits

Saving Time

The most beneficial way teachers identified on using AI was how much time AI helped them save when creating classroom materials. Learning Support Teacher Ruta Ionascu states that “when it comes to developing material, it certainly saves time.”

Teachers need to balance lesson planning, grading, and many other aspects of their teaching within a limited time. Therefore, in this case, AI can help them generate first drafts of resources at a much faster pace, or students could have simply not received certain resources that may not have been created due to time constraints.

Additionally, the study cited in NPR reported that AI can make teachers’ jobs easier with AI automating repetitive or simple tasks such as “generating parent emails … translating materials, creating worksheets, rubrics, quizzes, and lesson plans.”

Personalized Support

AI also helps teachers personalize materials for students more efficiently, for instance, by changing the wording and adding a glossary for difficult terms.

Grade 6 English and Humanities teacher Lina Tovar shares her experience with AI, as it allows her “to create versions of the article at different reading levels in minutes. If I had to do this by myself, I would have been able to write one other version of the article at the most in my regular planning time.” This can make lessons more accessible for all students while reducing the high-pressure workload on teachers in certain scenarios.

Drawbacks

On the other hand, concerns regarding the negative effect AI has brought to education are rising. ScienceDaily reports AI’s concerning issue with its low accuracy on scientific topics. “The AI performed only about 60% better than chance, a level closer to a low D than to strong reliability,” the study’s authors concluded. “The system had the most difficulty identifying false statements, correctly labeling them only 16.4% of the time.”

Additionally, Harvard Business Impact Education discusses how AI can act as a “useful complement” to teacher’s written feedback, but cannot replace a teacher’s judgment.

Accuracy Issues

The main issue is that not only does AI have issues with hallucinating information, giving inaccurate and unreliable sources, but now, its sources provided may not be credible—or even real—as well.

Additionally, it cannot give personalized feedback to a great extent for a student, even if pasting in the assessment requirements and rubrics. DP History and ToK Teacher Alexandra Carlin says, “AI does not have the ability to provide meaningful and accurate feedback.”

Overdependence

In an opinion piece published in The New Yorker, journalist Jessica Winter shares a personal anecdote where her child in 6th grade utilises AI to write essays by simply typing into Gemini to help her write, edit and more. The author, very straightforwardly gives her opinion on AI as ” I don’t like AI” as she views AI as the “creepy neighbor” who is dangerous and manipulative to students as she questions whether AI is necessary and beneficial in the educative field.

Yet, teachers are worrying about students’ overdependence on AI more and more. MYP and DP Theatre Teacher Jennifer Lawless worries about students “using it to do all their work for them, and so there’s been a lot of pressure on teachers to make sure [students] get out in front of that.”

This connects to grade 11 student, Arjen K.‘s response on the survey, where he remarked that “[AI] can be used too much and reduce actual learning effort.”

The Impact of Feedback With or Without AI Used

The majority of teachers surveyed believe that feedback should remain human. For instance, DeMichele says that if he asks students “to put in the effort and work to answer a question on their own without AI,” then “they deserve my response back without using AI.”

Feedback should remain about understanding mistakes to grow from, and not just about being right or wrong. The head of the Languages Department Claudia Romeo expresses the importance of human connection, especially when giving feedback. “Teacher’s personal feedback should be about what the student did well,” Romeo says, “which is something AI cannot evaluate.”

And yes, I agree, feedback is crucial to students to improve their approach on the task. That’s why the communication of the feedback process should be between a student and a teacher (whether it is through Toddle or face-to-face). I believe there shouldn’t be any external factor coming in, that then causes a change in one’s opinion at different extents, for instance, a chatbot-generated response.

Trust, Transparency, and Authenticity

The main issue sparking angst and frustration among students is the idea of trust around AI usage.

Education Week recently wrote about a report released by the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology that stated: “A decrease in peer-to-peer connections as a result of AI use is also a concern for teachers (47%) and parents (50%).”

From the Bite survey, it is clear that students believe transparency is crucial to maintaining trust between teachers and students. With teachers using AI in different aspects of their jobs, their honesty about their own AI use will be further appreciated by students, according student responses a the Bite survey.

At times, the transparency is hidden. A grade 10 student reports that “some teachers use [AI] to make assignments, and they don’t always disclose that,” finding such actions disappointing, wondering how much their teachers care and would want to put in effort to help their students’ learning process.

The Double Standard of Teachers Using AI and Students Being More Restricted

This all leads to the question of whether a double standard exists.

We, as students, are often quite restricted to the strategies in which we can use AI, instead, focusing on creatively developing our skills independently, while teachers may use AI to support their teaching resources. An example is brainstorming and developing ideas for essays or projects, with the student’s critical and creative mind rather than asking ChatGPT who then responses with generic and non-creative topics.

Here are some responses from the Bite’s survey to the question “Is there any double-standard with how teachers use AI in their teaching compared to how students are told, explicitly or implicitly, how to use AI in their schoolwork?”

“I feel like this really depends. Generally, I wouldn’t say so. As a student, you have the responsibility to develop some skills and gain knowledge, things that most teachers already possess […] it really depends on how it is used, and so there are too many particular cases to look at. At the end of the day, I think the best (and the most utopian) way to prevent the double standard is if we all mutually agree to stop using AI, only for tasks that are more repetitive work than actual thinking. But even then, you are able to develop your focus.”

– Grade 10 student Elena M.

“No, because teachers have already experienced struggle towards mastery and students have not. Students today are, at a critical moment in their brain development, accessing essentially an autopilot or a congenial butler who blocks and often prevents any attempts by the student at independent thinking, writing, researching, or reading. Imagine a parent who still does their child’s homework and writes their papers for them at ages 12-18—how disastrous this would be in terms of stunted social and academic development, not to mention work ethic. And yet that is precisely what unrestricted, omnipresent access to AI tools permits. We are encouraging the development of a future society of unskilled, complacent, misinformed non-thinkers. This future is a choice; it is not inevitable.”

– MYP English & Journalism teacher Chuck Adams

Transparency Matters

As you probably have seen already, the HUGE increase of AI being used in the classroom is rising, and I have quite a mixed opinion on that. It can be a great tool at times, but being overdependent on it is…. not the best. I do think that students and teachers both have the freedom to use it, but to a certain extent, that is ethical (I believe it would be to not use it for everything).

What makes AI difficult to manage is its quick spread into the digital world from only a few years since its introduction. That’s why, I believe, it comes from the individual using AI, on how they choose to use it, that’s their responsibility.

As for teachers, Grade 9 and 10 Counselor Scott Langston stated in our survey that he “suspects people are using it more than they admit.” This is where teachers being transparent to students on how AI is used is necessary build a strong trust foundation.

I believe it’s all about how much AI was used, in what way, and if one was transparent. That’s what matters.

This is why AISB has already begun addressing these concerns of AI use in education. AI will be one of the main focuses of learning at AISB next school year (2026-2027), as teachers continue discussing how AI can be used ethically, responsibly, and effectively in classrooms. A collective of teachers and staff is working to set clearer expectations and guidance for both students and teachers.

What do you think about how AI should be utilized at AISB by students and teachers? Let us know in the comments below!