Text Generative AI– Good or Bad for the Cate Faculty? (Madeline Losey ‘26)

Text generative AI has drastically altered how students write papers in its short lifespan, but is that change in the practice of grammatical and analytical skills really helpful in the long term? Using generative AI to write and edit essays may cut down on hours of editing for simple grammatical mistakes or even just essay writing in general, but what is really important is practicing the mistakes and struggles at hand to be better prepared as the difficulty of assignments continues to ramp up. With no struggle, there is effectively little to no learning. On the other hand, it allows the writer in question to focus on the general themes and big pictures of the topics at hand, enabling them to take more time to understand the actual topic instead of spending too much time on the grammatical piece. Both sides of the AI argument hold firm, at least from the author's perspective, but what really matters, especially to Cate students, are the opinions of the people grading them.

When it comes to AI, there is no clear good or bad. Rather, working with AI requires working in a pretty large gray area by knowing the limits of what actually helps versus what is just AI doing the work for you. When asked about her general opinion specifically concerning analytical writing, Ms. Barry seemed to agree with this statement, saying, “My opinion on AI concerning analytical writing is that it is too soon to tell what the impacts will be. On the one hand, I worry about how AI-writing tools may hinder neuro-cognitive development. For instance, we know that analytical writing isn't just about "writing": writing also helps the brain in identifying patterns, developing organizational skills, problem-solving, building vocabulary, etc. -- in all these ways, writing grows the brain by creating new neural networks. What happens if AI does more and more of this work? I don't know the answer to that.” AI itself is relatively new. Therefore, unless you dedicate time into studying its inner workings, the average understanding of it is in turn, relatively basic. So how can teachers work to quickly incorporate AI into class instead of banning it altogether?

Ms. Barry’s main concern is with the lack of thought process behind clicking a button and having your problems go away. Yes, it sounds great in theory, but again, there are no critical thinking skills built and as the level of work ramps up, you won’t be ready or able to keep up. Long term, this weakens both the level of analysis you are able to do and the regular practice of simple grammatical habits. Put simply, she compares this system to athletics, saying, “Consider it differently: you can't be an elite athlete without drilling skills, right? Or, you can't get stronger without putting in the time to do laps, weights, burpees, etc? In the same way, our critical thinking and writing ability necessitates that we practice, routinely drilling and building on essential skills. Thus, just like in athletics, if you want to grow your brain, you have to do the work”. If you want to write good essays, believe it or not, you have to practice writing essays.

On a similar hand of the literary perspective, Mr. Hansen also agrees with the idea of using AI for grammar, but finds it rather pointless to use it for any sort of generated writing, as he thinks it is quite obvious when a student uses blatant text generative AI. However, this does not take away from the benefits of grammar checking, as the English Department is taking a “glass half full” approach. A huge chunk of time spent editing papers is spent on just making sure there are limited grammatical errors. Using Grammarly would both save that time and boost the overall quality of the paper, but again, would also hinder neurocognitive development and is very obvious. So, what is the right answer?

Both faculty opinions coincide with the idea that there is not really a right or wrong when it comes to AI. It has upsides and downsides, and really it is just too new to be able to tell, especially on something as grand a scale as education. What is really important is to understand that AI, especially at Cate, doesn’t fall under a clear right or wrong. When used correctly, it benefits and saves time for those who use it. When abused, it can eliminate the crucial step of struggling that learning is based off of and hinder both learning and the practice of skills being taught. What is most important to the Cate Faculty is being able to use the benefits of AI to better help students learn without impeding learning or banning AI altogether. The general opinion concerning analytical writing and essay writing in general is that spell checks and grammatical errors can and should be fixed using extensions like Grammarly, but text generative AI hinders learning and according to Mr Hansen, produces “homogenized writing styles”, and it is “glaringly obvious” when a student uses it.