AI in the secondary classroom

Over the past three years, secondary teachers have wrestled with what to do with Large Language Models (LLMs) powered by artificial intelligence (AI). LLMs are rightly understood as transformational technologies and thus it is not surprising that teachers have been asked to find ways to leverage their capabilities for the benefit of students. Latent in these requests is a belief that if teachers can simply figure out how to integrate AI into their classrooms, then all the perceived benefits of this impressive technology will flow to students. This emphasis on how to integrate AI has far outstripped any discussion of whether AI should be integrated at all. Therefore, this paper intends to address if AI in the form of LLMs is an appropriate tool for students to use in a secondary classroom. Given the fact that LLMs are being used as pieces of educational technology, this paper will use the Media Ecology and educational theories of Neil Postman to sift what is known about LLMs today to answer the question of appropriateness. Postman both offers insights on how to make sense of the technology we use and that we are used by while also offering a vision of what education is ultimately for, which establishes a clear position from which appropriateness can be evaluated. If this paper is successful, it will give its readers an opportunity to pause and set aside the pressure of deciding how AI is to be employed so that they can ask the more fundamental question, ‘Is AI use by students critical to meet the goals of education?’.