The teacher who got students to stop using ChatGPT… by using ChatGPT
When he found out half his class was using ChatGPT to write essays, he didn’t panic. He didn’t lecture them. He didn’t block anything. He simply said: “Alright. Let’s use it better.”
His name is Marcus. He teaches literature at a high school in Manchester. One day he assigns a paper: “Write an essay on Orwell.” He gets back perfect texts. Too perfect. All similar. All lifeless.
He knows immediately. No one wrote anything. All done by AI. But instead of punishing them, he challenges them: “Now write a critique of what you submitted. Deconstruct it. Show me where the AI got it wrong. Where it oversimplified. Where it avoided taking a stance.”
The students don’t know where to start. They’ve never analyzed a text that way before. But slowly, they begin to see it. They realize the AI is vague. That it avoids strong positions. That it repeats patterns without depth. That it builds without risk.
And for the first time, they write something of their own. To criticize the machine, they have to think. They have to reflect. Choose words. Take a side.
ChatGPT had become a shortcut. He turned it into a mirror. And brought back the one thing that matters in school: Understanding why we write, not just what we write.
#ArtificialDecisions #MCC