Chat GPT at school –
AI belongs in German lessons
Banning artificial intelligence from school would be wrong: with clever concepts, young people learn to master AI – instead of being mastered by it.
Guest commentary by
Gieri Cavelty
Published today at 9:58 p.m
How digital should it be? Some teachers don’t want to know anything about AI in the classroom.
Photo: Keystone
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High school students today write better essays than any previous generation of students – and receive criticism for it: Some German teachers struggle with super writing aids like Chat-GPT and want to ban artificial intelligence from school. As a result, young people can be inspired by it unaccompanied.
In fact, German teachers cannot avoid the question: How do I prepare students for a world in which AI is part of everyday life? None other than Goethe himself provided them with the most grateful material imaginable for an initial approach to the topic of AI in class. Goethe’s ballad “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is about a young man who tries out his master’s magical powers in the absence of his master and thus causes chaos. The parallels with AI and our overwhelm when dealing with powerful technologies are obvious.
At the same time, this text can also be used in a very practical way. A first assignment to the class could be: “Try to put yourself in the shoes of the sorcerer’s apprentice who is overwhelmed by the spirits he summoned. Write about that feeling and give an example of how you felt in a similar situation.” Ideally, learners find the task stimulating; In any case, they will be stimulated to think about themselves.
The following exercise is to give Chat-GPT the same write request. The AI will then say, for example, that she wanted to throw a party while she was studying, but there were too many guests. The young people here witness that hot untruths are served to them. And when the speech generator – using a different wording of the prompt – declares that it has no emotions, we can also learn from this: young people can obviously do more than the oh-so-smart machine.
Four central messages for the class
Finally, the students have the texts they wrote in the first exercise revised using Chat-GPT and the AI writing assistant Deepl Write and compare the results with the original. You may notice that some phrases appear more successful – but also that one or two ideas are no longer formulated the way they were intended.
The central messages that German teachers convey to their classes could be:
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Don’t trust AI blindly.
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Use AI as a writing aid if you see fit. But you can also say no, i.e. not use the AI at all or reject a suggestion. Because AI is a massive language and thought leveling machine. You won’t get anything really new from her.
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Writing without AI can be fun; Such a flow experience cannot be created synthetically.
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Writing is not uncommon, but it is also exhausting. Things are often only truly understood through one’s own writing.
In short: The learners should not let the AI determine them, but rather determine the AI themselves. But to do this you have to let them into the classroom first.
Gieri Cavelty was a journalist for 25 years. Today he works as a German and history teacher.
AI and chat GPT in school
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