My dc goes to school and uses ChatGPT for everything and I’m thinking the education system needs a good shake up to prevent becoming almost useless, aibu

I've said this before but year 9 is wasted. Other than maths, science and English students that start GCSE work in year 9 really are treading water for a year.

When I rule the world and when education is properly funded year 9 would be totally different.

Yes keep the core subjects but allow children to explore other options, first aid, cooking (not food tech but how to cook a certain number of meals from 1 to 4 people). How to put petrol in a car (OK that has problems with the law) how to turn off the water, electricity and gas.

Trips to the theatre and cinema, not just the big productions in London but local shows too. Teach the kids how to book the tickets for a group, hire a minibus / coach etc.

Some basic DIY - how to put a shelf up.

How to clean things properly from windows to pans.

Basic sewing, how to repair things and make a simple garment from a pattern.

Surely this is a behaviour issue? They are cheating. I think you should be taking a firmer stance on that. And chatgpt won't sit their exams for them, so they're doing themselves a disservice.

I don't think they need to rethink that system, just let them fail and resit so they learn the natural consequences of using AI to do their homework.

Why don't you do some parenting of your own children?

I live abroad and tutor English (to non-English speaking children) and Maths.
ChatGPT has become a major problem recently.
All of the kids I tutor are using it as much as possible to avoid having to make any effort with homework.

Text to write in English? Copy and paste or type the task into ChatGPT and tell it to write like a 14 year old learner of English as a foreign language. One of the boys says to avoid being detected you just ask it to make mistakes. They then copy it into their exercise books, hand it in, job done. A couple of them shove everything through deepl or google translate.

Grammar exercise? Ditto, copy and paste, ChatGPT churns out the answers, copy and hand in.
Maths problems you don't know how to do? There are apps where you can take a photo of the problem and ask it to solve it. It gives the steps with an explanation and then you copy the steps into your exercise book, making a couple of slips so it's not that obvious and then you hand it in.

The same applies to other subjects, they tell me.

They have access to laptops during lessons and a lot of them are using AI at school too.

Of course, the issue is that they still have exams to pass. The school system here involves one exam each semester in the language of the country we are in, English and Maths. They have to pass these and can be held back a year if they don't make the grades.

I'm getting more and more students failing these exams and being threatened with resitting the year and the reason, in most of the cases, is that they are relying on ChatGPT to do homework and then of course, when they come to do the exams they have no clue whatsoever!

The entire system is going to need a rethink because this is not doing anyone any good at all.

Obviously I don't tutor the ones who are doing really well at school because they don't need it so I presume they are actually applying their brains to their work, but there are more and more who are opting for the easy way out by getting AI to do it for them.
The future is going to involve may AI so the school system does need to adapt. There are so many questions to be asked here and so many issues it's difficult to know where to start, even when just sitting and thinking about it or discussing it on a forum like this.

Yes, but you should always have an idea what sort of size the answer that comes out of your calculator should be. If nothing else, because of user error.

Some people need to be able to do this. You were just being taught the skills that you might have needed in the future. If you don't need it then there is no harm done.

I'm old enough to have been told not to use a calculator in class as "you won't always have it with you". Look how that turned out. 🤣

Latin was dropped at the majority of state schools due to a lack of teachers and funding. A surprising number of children still opt for it when it's offered (at my comprehensive, for example).

Ditto music.

A lot of DC don’t use chat gpt, it’s instantly recognisable by most teachers.

How do / does your DC get on in formal exams?

Some things for you to consider

A) What life skills would you like taught? A new subject, curriculum planning, teachers to deliver, that takes time and effort and a lot of money

B) new 'qualifications' are often not very popular with students nor parents (look at T Levels)- you cant just put a fancy label on it and expect that people will flock to do that instead of the 'traditional' GCSEs
One of the schools I didsupply tried to introduce life skills sort of lesson, hardly any uptake and the etachers who were allocated to teach it were a random bunch with underallocated periods. A recipe for success.

C) You seriously undervalue what is on offer.
While lots of students use chatgpt to cheat and do homework, it does not give them the knowledge they need and they still know nothing about the subject. Lets say Im a student, sure, I can ask AI to write a paragraph or a story or whatever, but it does not mean I will know/understand the content. If ever I want to for example get a job in banking, Im not gonna bring chatpgt to do the interview for me. Would you like to be treated by a doctor who used AI to do all his assignments? Or would you like a house designed by AI 'architect'? Go abroad and rely on google translate for all your communications with the local people? Pretty sad.

Does your kid want to outsource their brain to AI? Because that's what they're doing. Do I think we should change education so people can do this more easily? No. No, I don't.

Those subjects are the basis for later careers

That's why until 13/14 they do a host of subjects which are narrowed down for GCSE and then again at A Level and into a relevant field for university. Or they discover school based learning isn't for them and move to vocational college at 16 (where those skills of learning, discernment and critical thinking are still applied. Plus things like ratios, acids and alkaline, trigonometry, cause and effect etc can all still come into play)

Is it teaching them the massive environmental cost of using AI?

I suppose they might need to know how to grow their own veg, sew their own clothes and stuff when the ecological disasters occur that using AI so readily are contributing to...

What irrelevant subjects do you think should be dropped?

So, if they stop learning geography at school, where is the next generation of specialists going to come from to keep people safe from the effects of earthquakes, landslides, volcanic activity? You can’t suddenly start at university level without the foundation of GCSE and A levels. Even if you can sew a nice seam. How are we going to make advances in medicine and science if nobody studies the relevant foundations at school so they can then go to university? Your plan abdicates the responsibility of parents to the school, while depriving children of the secondary education they need for tertiary study or to be successful in work. You can’t really be serious?

teach your child the value of learning and understanding something. To use your examples they’re not going it be able to understand the workings of a volcano if they don't do basics at school.
All children have caregivers so every child does have someone who could teach them life skill, they don’t again have to be left to schools. Schools do already teach bias, critical thinking and perspective, encouraging children to build a foundational knowledge that prepares and supports them in learning what they want in the future when the formal system is over.

I honestly despair.

It’s an easy fix. It can be banned on the school network, just like we have blocked YouTube at home.

The bigger issue is that schools are being a bit lazy. Or more than a bit. Ours is supposedly no phones, but teachers ask them to get out their phones to use in class all the time and they are often left with subs doing homework on their phones when no one can teach. I work in higher ed and if I did that to my students, I’d be in big trouble.

The vast majority of what we learned at school in the 80s and 90s was already pretty pointless for everyday life. That's not the point of education as far as I can tell. I have never had to use trigonometry in my whole life, nor do I particularly need to know what sort of plants are prevalent in South Africa and what is annual GDP of Poland. But for some of my classmates who went on to become engineers, maths teachers, geologist and economists, his was what ignited their passion. Similarly, I had passion for chemistry and Human biology which led to a degree in clinical science.
Given that AI is rapidly developing, it seems crucial that kids are aware of how to use it, what its limitations are and given an opportunity to utilise it as part of their learning. Seems much more useful to me than sewing own clothes.

DC’s school have very clear policies on using AI for homework and teach them how to use it responsibly. Fine for research, and help if you don’t understand something, absolutely not for copying verbatim. Most importantly, not to believe everything it says and double check that what it’s telling you is correct.

So tell us what job you do Op? Then I'll tell you what you did in school to help you be prepared to do that job.
There's no bloody wonder schools have such a difficult job when parents think everything they do is useless, yet also expect them to educate students on absolutely everything.

Also stop your child using AI to do their homework. Make them actually use their own brains. That's on you OP.

Take your volcano example. Chatgtp might be able to tell you how one works. But how does it know that in the first place? Because geologists worked it out. Because field scientists collected information over years. It's not just a question of being able to look something up. We still need students to be able to critically think, to look at a problem and work out how to answer it. To be able to get to a mountain and measure what's happening. And know if those measurements are believable or not. We have information, but it's vital to know how to interpret it. Having chatgtp do your homework is no good if you aren't good enough to understand it, or know if it's spouting shite or not.

Perfect!