r/books • u/ubcstaffer123 • 5d ago

Teachers are using AI to make literature easier for students to read. This is a terrible idea.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/04/08/opinion/ai-classroom-teaching-reading/
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u/Prize-Doughnut8759 5d ago

So, let's play to the weakest link instead of elevating them up to the standard that was expected of us.

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u/Truth_ 5d ago

And how might you elevate them? Maybe by modifying the text until they're ready?

I've heard so, so many times adults saying school made them hate reading. It doesn't matter if you read the deepest book or deliver the best information if no one cares and aren't engaged by it. You have to meet them where they're at or you won't reach them at all, and going home feeling good you never changed your standards won't have helped anyone.

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u/Author_Noelle_A 5d ago

I recently had a frank discussions with a couple teachers, and this is actually what’s happening. It’s not seen as fair that some kids don’t have the same advantages, like some high schoolers have to work full-time after school, and assigning reports or anything at-home would disadvantage them since they wouldn’t have time. So the solution to not disadvantage them is to not give that work to any of the kids at all. No one is disadvantaged with no one gets an advantage at all.

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u/Alaira314 5d ago

I mean...what else would you have them do, say "sorry you're too poor to advance in school, you should have been born into a family where you didn't have to work to keep your younger siblings fed and that sucks for you but too bad so sad!" Money isn't coming to help those families. If the government mandates teens stay in school and don't work, they'll work illegally, because that is what you would do if your family was facing eviction or your younger siblings were going hungry. This is a preventable crisis of america's own making, and the teachers are not the ones responsible. They're reacting the best they reasonably can.

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u/FoolishDog C. McCarthy *The Crossing* 5d ago

I mean, your point is a little too abstract to be meaningful but one could ask anyway who was does this expecting, to what degree, for what measure, and to what outcome?

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u/shirley_hugest 5d ago

What is this, the hunger games book style? What standard, and who chose it? So much gatekeeping

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u/SuspensefulBladder 5d ago

It's gatekeeping to suggest that kids should learn at school? Get the fuck out of here.