Have you ever used AI for work? When it’s late at night and you want to sleep but forgot to do your homework? The deadline is in 20 minutes, so you load up ChatGPT to do the work for you….I definitely have done that.
As a teenager with lots of extracurriculars outside of school, a lot of times you will find yourself in these situations where you have the option to be truthful but sacrifice your sleep or use AI to do it for you. But the questions that keep surfacing are what are the pros and cons to using AI for school, and why has there been such a big increase of students in the United States using it?
Many high school and college students seem to have been using generative AI a lot more frequently this past year. I’ve even seen some teachers using Generative AI to plan classes and lessons. But overall how is this affecting the society of 2026 and what do the students of NYC iSchool think about this?
Curtis Green, an iSchool sophomore, said that he is very against AI. Because of his religious practices with Christianity, it says that he shouldn’t cheat and should always do things the right way. Using AI in schools to get answers for homework and assignments would technically be cheating, so he steers away from it and just completely doesn’t use it even if it’s used the right way. It’s very tempting to use, however, because of the accessibility and the fact that it is free. He stated, “I enjoy the feeling of turning in an assignment that I worked hard on then getting a good grade on it, there is a certain sense of happiness that comes to it.”
According to time.com, the younger generations are used to quick dopamine spikes because of TikTok, Instagram, and other scrolling apps. So they are more tempted to use AI because of the fact it can finish their work almost instantly.
Abe Benenson, an NYC iSchool sophomore, stated, “Society using Generative AI is overall bad for the planet because it contributes to large amounts of water consumption and can be easily manipulated to framing people, however a lot of people use it because of the accessibility and how easy it is to use.” He overall thinks that generative AI in schools is connected to work ethic and your certain values. However using AI can be useful sometimes because it can give valuable insight and information. In addition it is cool to use because it can also create cool things. In addition it can answer certain questions fast and also give me the best answer.
According to MIT News, generative AI is detrimental to our planet because water is needed to cool down hardware used for creating things with generative AI which can strain municipal water supplies and disrupt multiple ecosystems: “Beyond electricity demands, a great deal of water is needed to cool the hardware used for training, deploying, and fine-tuning generative AI models, which can strain municipal water supplies and disrupt local ecosystems. The increasing number of generative AI applications has also spurred demand for high-performance computing hardware, adding indirect environmental impacts from its manufacture and transport.”
Naima Diallo, an iSchool sophomore transfer student, said that he used to use generative AI to help him get his outside school work done for his SAT prep tutor. Similarly to Abe, he said that generative AI is very easy to use and saves him from missing deadlines /homework. In addition, he said he didn’t know too much about the bad effects it has on earth. However, he thinks that generative AI takes away from learning properly and the overall meaning to coming to school. I’ve seen a lot of teachers use generative AI to create lesson plans for students. It’s honestly crazy because you are a teacher so I feel you are supposed to know these things so you can create your own lesson plans. But it is very easy to use, so I see why they do it. AI can be helpful but students use it in the wrong way.
I think even if school was to officially allow AI in classrooms it would still be used in the wrong way because of how easy and accessible it is to us. According to Education Week, it stated, “ Overall, the lessons generated by AI mostly engaged lower-order thinking skills—like memorization—as opposed to deeper ones, like analysis or creation, said the researchers, who were scheduled to present their findings at the ISTELive 25 + ASCD Annual Conference 25 in San Antonio, June 29 to July 2”. In other words it means that when teachers use AI to create lesson plans the AI creates lessons that get you to focus on the wrong stuff. Instead of thinking about a topic deeply and how it affects you or society it focuses on memorization. However this could be useful in some cases for different subjects like math.
Jeremiah Bourne, an iSchool sophomore, said that AI could sometimes be useful in certain situations to elaborate on your ideas and thoughts. He overall thinks that everybody shouldn’t be using generative AI too often, because of the fact people get too reliant on it, which dulls their cognitive and abstract thinking skills. However he uses AI often for quick solutions and specifically when he doesn’t understand what an assignment is telling him to do then he will ask AI to make it easier to understand. He said he doesn’t know too much about the specifics on its environmental impact but he heard a lot about its large water usage. He stated AI is most tempting to use when there is a difficult assignment he needs to do. He rather not stress and just use AI.
However, he doesn’t use AI often for hard assignments but it’s most tempting to use for history class because of the amount memorization needed and in addition math because of complex equations and memorization formulas. According to Iowa Edu it stated, “AI can help streamline tasks—organizing schedules, summarizing lengthy emails, or identifying actions items from meeting notes. Offloading mundane, stressful tasks can reduce stress and free mental space for creative thinking or relaxation”. In other words AI can be a huge stress relief specifically for students with busy schedules.
My personal opinion is that AI in school is detrimental to students. This is because it takes away from your learning process. My older brother told me personally that there is no point in using AI for schoolwork. Even though it is easy it takes away the whole point of even coming to school. For example how are you going to come to school five out of 7 days of the week just to do work that isn’t yours. Like would that diploma even be yours? It can get repetitive and hard to do work but all of the things you do in life are hard so you might as well get it done.
In addition, using Generative AI harms our planet so why would I continue to use it? I think most students would use AI in dire situations where they cant get homework/ assignments done but I feel that now after using AI for the past two years it’s become a habit to use it regularly for assignments and homework. I’ve personally seen friends use it outside of school which is pretty crazy. He usually asks for advice and thoughts on topics. I feel like he uses it for quick answers when he is stuck on a topic. It makes me think about what ever happened to simply researching a topic.
Believe it or not, lots of articles released opinions similar to the iSchool students. Stats show how this is true.
According to the College Board, they stated, “The percentage of high school students who report using Generative AI tools for schoolwork is growing, increasing from 79% to 84% between January and May 2025”. This statistic from the College board is extremely concerning. It shows that the majority of high schools are currently using AI for schoolwork. This shows the learning process wouldn’t be working and they would weaken their cognitive skills that they would achieve by doing that work properly. Not only does this affect students’ learning but also has side effects that affect the planet. It also can take away from social interactions in a classroom. For example the University of Illinois article AI in Schools: Pros and Cons stated “Relying more and more on AI may reduce the teacher-to-student interactions and relationships and take away from the social-emotional aspects of learning. If those interactions diminish, students’ social skills and interpersonal development will suffer.”
Overall, I think this connects back to my claim that generative AI shouldn’t be used in classrooms because of the effects it has on students. In addition, the most detrimental effect it has is that it harms our planet. Our planet is harmed so much already so why would we keep harming it. If we were thriving before AI, why can’t we now?
