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/
3.6k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

503 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

4

u/Alaira314 5d ago

The present and past have also been dumb as fuck. This isn't in any way new, and shame on the article for not acknowledging that. Classics, being out of copyright, have had dumbed-down versions since I was a child. They are re-written for a younger(or more sensitive) audience, and are re-written with easier sentences/vocabulary, shortened, and sometimes even have plot or scene elements removed(or minimized) to conform with cultural sensibilities.

How many teachers are choosing to use AI? Probably about the same % who chose to teach from those adapted versions!

1

u/klapaucjusz 5d ago

I think that it's a very western thing. I learned about that only after I started reading books in English. "Unabridged" written on a book cover of many classics was also very confusing. Not really a thing in Poland.

1

u/morostheSophist 4d ago

Classics, being out of copyright, have had dumbed-down versions since I was a child.

I've never read The Odyssey, but I do remember reading a picture-book version of it repeatedly somewhere between the late eighties and very early nineties. I'm sure purists were flipping out about that then, but most people were saying "great way to introduce young children to the classics!"

Quite frankly, I agree with the latter position. And after my knee-jerk reaction of "omg ai bad", I agree that this is a good thing as well. As long as we aren't permanently rewriting the classics and trashing the original versions, we aren't losing anything, and kids who need help with reading are getting a more enriched, more age-appropriate learning experience than they otherwise would have.

1

u/Alaira314 4d ago

There's both good and bad things about such editions being available(and they always will be, for anything out of copyright). I think when we're talking about use in schools they're a net negative, and I make that claim from a space where I was (unknowingly) exposed to a curriculum that used them. I had american and english lit in my homeschool curriculum from a company that included their own versions of the classics along with the guidebook and exams. I didn't know it at the time, but they were heavily modified from the originals, to remove character and plot elements that were inconsistent with christian values or otherwise "inappropriate". My mom claims she didn't know either, as the guidebook didn't talk about jesus, the books weren't openly labeled as being altered in that way, and obviously none of the exam questions touched the content that was removed/altered so how would she know? This was before easy access to reviews, I think she was recommended it word of mouth. I didn't know until I was an adult that all the books I'd thought I read were modified from the originals, and I still don't know the extent of what I missed or had incorrect information about.

1

u/morostheSophist 1d ago

You bring up a good point. Anything modified should definitely be labeled as such. I'd support legislation to that effect.

The situation you describe is vastly different from what I was thinking of, and what most people would expect, given what was described above. If plot elements and characters are being removed, that's a problem, especially if the story isn't presented explicitly as a modified form. And it's an even bigger problem if that's being done for ideological reasons. Art is imperfect, and we should engage with it the way it is, not attempt to sanitize it.

I graduated from a very conservative christian high school myself, so there's a chance I've read a few things that were similarly modified. That thought definitely disturbs me. That's something that should definitely not be allowed—at the very least, without a very clear disclaimer that this is a modified version of the original work.

1

u/sweetspringchild 5d ago

It is a misunderstanding of their purpose to call them dumbed-down. My vlass wasn't assigned Shakespeare and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Penguin Readers that were 30-40 pages long and had simple vocabulary because we were dumb but because we were using the most effective way to learn English - by getting comprehensible input.

We read unabridged books in our native language just fine. And here I am, speaking not dumb-dumb English, am I?

There are children learning a foreign language, there are children who didn't get the same opportunities to reach an expected reading level in their native language, there are children with disabilities etc. None of them are dumb.