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Forbes
10 hours ago
- Forbes
What's Really Going On With AI In Schools? A High School Student's POV
There's a conversation about Artificial Intelligence happening in school administration offices and teacher social media circles. It's full of words like 'disruption,' 'guardrails,' and 'the future of work.' Then there's the conversation happening in high school students' group chats. It's about how to get the history essay done by 11 PM. The two conversations have almost nothing to do with each other. I recently had a chance to talk with William Liang, a high school student from San Jose, California, and frankly, he offered one of the clearest views I've heard yet on what's actually happening on the ground. This isn't just any student. William is a seriously impressive high school journalist, with published work in places like the San Francisco Chronicle and The San Diego Union-Tribune. He's living and breathing this stuff every day, and his message is simple: our school system is playing a game of checkers while its students are mastering 3D chess. The way we teach and test kids is fundamentally broken in the age of AI, and our attempts to "catch" them are missing the point entirely. Here's the first truth bomb William dropped, and it reframes the entire issue. We need to accept that for a huge number of students, an assignment isn't a journey of intellectual discovery. 'For most students, an assignment is not interpreted as a cognitive development tool, but as a logistical hurdle,' he told me. Think about that. It's a hurdle to be cleared as efficiently as possible. 'Right now,' he said, 'that mechanism is generative AI.' This isn't really about kids being lazy or immoral. It's about them being smart players in a game we designed. For decades, the system has screamed one thing above all else: grades matter more than understanding. When the goal is the A grade, and a tool exists that gets you there in a fraction of the time, why wouldn't you use it? As William put it, 'If there's an easy shortcut, why wouldn't we take it?' He sees it as a predictable outcome. When you have a high-pressure, competitive game where a growing number of players can cheat with a huge upside and a tiny risk, everyone else feels forced to cheat just to keep up. So, what about the teachers? The plagiarism checkers? The honor codes? According to William, it's mostly security theater. The whole enforcement system is, in his words, 'incoherent.' He explained that 'students are 'warned' all the time but rarely penalized because the enforcement apparatus is incoherent. Detection tools operate on heuristics, which include vocabulary uniformity, sentence structure, and semantic burstiness; however, students generally learn quickly how to avoid triggering them. Teachers are busy. They rarely follow up unless something seems egregiously wrong, and even then, they have little evidentiary protocol. And when they do think they've 'caught' someone, they're often wrong.' The anecdotes he shared are both hilarious and horrifying. He told me about a friend, who described a situation at his school. 'A guy I know who used AI to write an essay literally had the words 'as an AI language model myself,' and he kept it in and didn't get caught for it,' William recounted. Think about that. The AI confessed to writing the essay in the essay itself, and no one noticed. 'Meanwhile,' he continued, 'another person got flagged on an essay they spent a week writing and had to show the version history on the essay to prove he wrote it.' This is where things got really interesting. He argued that we're all using the wrong words. The line between 'using a tool' and 'cheating' isn't about academic integrity anymore. In the real world, it's about one thing: Can you get caught? 'The designation of 'cheating' doesn't rest on the method but on the detectability,' he argued. Because detection is basically a coin flip, the official labels of "legitimate" and "illegitimate" use just fall apart. If the old system is broken, the only move left is to change the game board itself. William's solution isn't more complicated software or another all-school assembly on academic honesty. It's one, simple, radical rule. I asked him what single policy he would mandate in high schools. His answer was: 'Teachers should not be allowed to assign take-home work that ChatGPT can do. Period!' Read that again. He's not saying 'no more homework.' He's saying that any essay, problem set, or report with a predictable structure that's done without supervision is now an invalid test of a student's knowledge. It only tests their ability to write a good prompt. The real work. The thinking, the analyzing and the creating, has to be brought back into the classroom where it can be seen. How do you assess real understanding? The old ways, it turns out, still work beautifully. "Drafting essays and solving math problems," he said. You just have to watch them do it. Think in-class essays, oral presentations, and group projects where the process is as important as the product. But here's the thing that makes William's perspective so powerful. He's not an AI doomer. In fact, he's incredibly optimistic about the technology. He just thinks we're focusing on the bad use cases for it. 'There is no inherent tension between embracing AI and preserving critical thinking or creativity, unless schools force one,' he insisted. The problem isn't the tool; it's the task. He asked me to flip the question. 'Imagine students had daily access to the greatest minds in science, literature, and art?' he posed. 'Students working closely with advanced AI will be like directly apprenticing with Ernest Hemingway, Isaac Newton, or Leonardo da Vinci. Why would we deny students this opportunity?' Now that's a vision. Imagine your kid getting feedback on their short story from a bot that thinks like Hemingway—a bot that could say, "Great start, but a master of prose would cut these three adverbs and find a stronger verb here." Imagine an AI tutor that can generate a thousand different math problems tailored to exactly where your child is struggling, offering hints 24/7. That's the right use of the tool. AI shouldn't be the thing that completes the assignment for the student. It should be the thing that helps the student complete the assignment better. He gave a perfect example: a good assignment could be grading students on a conversation they have with an AI chatbot on a complex topic. The AI is part of the learning, but the student is still doing all the critical thinking. The takeaway from William is a wakeup call. For anyone in a leadership position. A parent, an educator, or a business leader. It's time to get honest. Stop asking "how do we catch them?" and start asking "what should we be asking of them in the first place?" The students are already living in the future. As William put it, 'The biggest misconception surrounding AI adoption is that adults don't realize students are light-years ahead of them. I use ChatGPT more than Instagram, which is astonishing.' It's time for the rest of us to catch up.
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
SeaWorld San Diego's emperor penguins moving to Florida
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — While SeaWorld San Diego was once able to boast the theme park was the only place you could see emperor penguins in the Western Hemisphere, that distinction now goes to SeaWorld Orlando. SeaWorld San Diego sent off its emperor penguins to SeaWorld Orlando, which will be debuting the birds on June 14 at its Antarctica Realm habitat. It is unclear if or when the penguins will return to San Diego. FOX 5/KUSI's reporting partners at the San Diego Union-Tribune say SeaWorld San Diego is going to be reimagining its Penguin Encounter exhibit. SeaWorld San Diego had long been able to claim the title of the only place in the Western Hemisphere to see emperor penguins — the largest of all penguins. Emperor Penguin chick becomes first to hatch at SeaWorld San Diego in 13 years Since making history in the 1980s with the world's then only successful emperor penguin breeding facility outside of Antarctica, SeaWorld San Diego has since hatched and raised more than 20 emperor penguins, including most recently in 2023, according to the park. All 18 species of penguin are legally protected from hunting and egg collecting. Penguins are vulnerable to habitat destruction, overfishing, ecological disasters such as oil spills, ocean pollution, and human encroachment into nesting areas. In celebration of the aquatic birds heading to Florida, downtown Orlando has three giant penguin art installations you can find around the city through June 19. Annual Pass Members were able to get early access to see the emperor penguins at SeaWorld Orlando on June 12 and 13 ahead of their Saturday debut. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Sky News AU
12-05-2025
- Sky News AU
Disgraced teacher Jacqueline Ma gets 30 years in prison for sexually abusing elementary students
She went from Teacher of the Year to having the book thrown at her. Jacqueline Ma, 36, is heading to prison for grooming and sexually abusing a pair of elementary school students. On Friday, a judge sentenced her to 30 years behind bars, according to the San Diego Union Tribune. Ma, San Diego County's Teacher of the Year in late 2022, was arrested in April 2023 and pleaded guilty in February to two counts each of forcible lewd acts on a child and possession of matter depicting a minor engaging in sexual conduct. The disgraced educator taught fifth- and sixth-graders at Lincoln Acres Elementary School in National City. At her sentencing Friday, Ma said she was 'deeply ashamed of my actions,' and apologized for ripping 'away their childhood.' 'Instead of following the path of what a teacher should be, I let my selfishness override the boys' best interests,' she told the court through tears. 'I just pray for an extra hand of protection and strength to all of those I've hurt. I'm so sorry.' Police began investigating Ma after the mother of a 12-year-old boy she'd been grooming contacted authorities upon finding love letters and suggestive text messages she'd written to the child. The grooming occurred over a 10-month period, prosecutors said. Years before, police claim Ma had also groomed an 11-year-old boy. Neither victim or their parents attended Friday's sentencing. Originally published as Disgraced teacher Jacqueline Ma gets 30 years in prison for sexually abusing elementary students
NDTV
11-05-2025
- NDTV
US Teacher Gets 30 Years In Jail For Sexual Abuse Of 2 Minor Students
Jacqueline Ma, a 36-year-old former teacher at Lincoln Acres Elementary School and previously honoured as one of San Diego County's top educators, was sentenced Friday to 30 years to life in state prison for sex crimes against two minors. According to the San Diego Union Tribune, prosecutors stated that Ma groomed two boys and began a sexual relationship with one when he was 12. Prosecutors said Ma groomed the 12-year-old boy over 10 months, sending him love letters and suggestive texts, which prompted the boy's mother to alert authorities. She sexually assaulted him in her classroom over three months while his parents believed he was in an after-school basketball program. They also alleged that years earlier, Ma groomed an 11-year-old boy. She had groomed young boys with "gifts, food and special attention and even completed their homework for them," the district attorney's office said. The teacher pleaded guilty in February to two counts of forcible lewd acts on a child, one count of lewd acts on a child and one count of possessing child sexual abuse material, the San Diego County District Attorney's Office said in a news release. "This defendant violated the trust she had with her students in the most extreme and traumatic way possible, and her actions are despicable. Her victims will have to deal with a lifetime of negative effects, and her 30-year sentence is appropriate," District Attorney Summer Stephan said. "No child deserves what this defendant did, and I hope this sentence brings a measure of justice to the victims, their families and the community that was left reeling from this defendant's crimes," Mr Stephan added. At her sentencing, Ma expressed remorse, stating she was "deeply ashamed" and apologised for taking away the children's innocence, acknowledging the harm her actions had caused. "I abused my authority, I exerted my power and control over them, and I deceived them. Boys this age should be playing outside, feeling carefree … I ripped away their childhood. Instead of following the path of what a teacher should be, I let my selfishness override the boys' best interests. I just pray for an extra hand of protection and strength for all of those I've hurt. I'm so sorry," Ma said while handcuffed and crying in court. Ma, a former San Diego County "Teacher of the Year" for 2022-2023, taught fifth- and sixth-graders at Lincoln Acres Elementary School in National City before facing controversy.
New York Post
10-05-2025
- New York Post
Disgraced teacher gets 30 years in prison for sexually abusing elementary students
She went from Teacher of the Year to having the book thrown at her. Jacqueline Ma, 36, is heading to prison for grooming and sexually abusing a pair of elementary school students. On Friday, a judge sentenced her to 30 years behind bars, according to the San Diego Union Tribune. Ma, San Diego County's Teacher of the Year in late 2022, was arrested in April 2023 and pleaded guilty in February to two counts each of forcible lewd acts on a child and possession of matter depicting a minor engaging in sexual conduct. Advertisement The disgraced educator taught fifth- and sixth-graders at Lincoln Acres Elementary School in National City. At her sentencing Friday, Ma said she was 'deeply ashamed of my actions,' and apologized for ripping 'away their childhood.' 'Instead of following the path of what a teacher should be, I let my selfishness override the boys' best interests,' she told the court through tears. Advertisement Jacqueline Ma had been facing over 100 years in prison. FOX 5/KUSI) 'I just pray for an extra hand of protection and strength to all of those I've hurt. I'm so sorry.' Police began investigating Ma after the mother of a 12-year-old boy she'd been grooming contacted authorities upon finding love letters and suggestive text messages she'd written to the child. The grooming occurred over a 10-month period, prosecutors said. Advertisement Ma was honored as the Teacher of the Year in late 2022, prior to her April 2023 arrest. FOX 5/KUSI) Years before, police claim Ma had also groomed an 11-year-old boy. Neither victim or their parents attended Friday's sentencing.
