Every week I see the same tired arguments circulating in teacher groups and faculty lounges. “AI is cheating.” “It’s making students lazy.” “It’s destroying critical thinking.” And my personal favorite: “Real teachers don’t need AI.”
I’ve been an educator long enough to recognize fear dressed up as principle. And that’s exactly what most anti-AI arguments are.
Here’s my take: The teachers who refuse to learn AI tools aren’t protecting education. They’re protecting their comfort zones. They’re clinging to routines that feel safe because the alternative requires effort, adaptation, and the humility to admit they don’t know something.
I’ve heard every excuse at this point. Some teachers haven’t updated their lesson plans in fifteen years, but suddenly they’re deeply concerned about “academic integrity.” They photocopy the same worksheets they used in 2009, grade the same essays with the same rubrics, assign the same projects semester after semester. But AI in the classroom is the threat to authentic learning? Please.
The hypocrisy is hard to miss.
And yes, I’ve heard the environmental argument too. “Think of the carbon footprint!” Look, if you’re genuinely committed to reducing your digital footprint, I respect that position. Truly. But if you’re posting this concern from your laptop while streaming Netflix at home and ordering packages that ship across the country, maybe AI tools for teachers aren’t your biggest environmental problem. Let’s be honest with ourselves about what’s really driving the resistance.
AI in Education Is Here to Stay
Here’s what I actually believe: AI is a tool. Like calculators were. Like the internet was. Like every technology that terrified educators before it eventually became so normal we forgot we ever questioned it.
Remember when teachers worried that calculators would prevent students from learning math? Remember when Wikipedia was banned from research projects? Remember when some schools blocked YouTube entirely because it couldn’t possibly have educational value?
We’ve been here before. We’ll be here again with whatever comes next. The pattern is predictable. New technology emerges. Educators panic. Some adapt. Some resist. Eventually the resisters retire or relent, and the rest of us move forward.
The question was never “should students use AI?” They already are. They’re using it for homework, for creative projects, for figuring out how to fix code they don’t understand. The real question is this: are we going to teach them to use it well, or are we going to bury our heads and pretend it’s still 2010?
What AI for Teachers Actually Looks Like in Practice
Teaching with AI doesn’t mean handing your job over to a chatbot. It means working smarter.
You can use AI for lesson planning when you’re stuck and need fresh ideas. You can use AI tools to differentiate materials for struggling readers who need content at a different level. You can draft parent emails when you’re exhausted at 9pm and still have a stack of grading waiting. You can generate practice problems tailored to exactly what your class needs to review.
Does using AI in the classroom make you a worse teacher? I’d argue it makes you a more effective one. You’re spending your limited energy on what actually matters: connecting with students, providing meaningful feedback, building relationships, and doing the deeply human work that no algorithm can replicate.
The teachers I worry about aren’t the ones experimenting with Claude or ChatGPT. They’re the ones who’ve decided they already know everything worth knowing. That mindset is far more dangerous to education than any chatbot.
AI Literacy Is the Real Job Now
Our students are going to graduate into a world where AI is everywhere. In their jobs. In their creative work. In their daily decisions. We can either prepare them for that reality or pretend the world isn’t changing.
Teach AI literacy. Model responsible AI use in your classroom. Show students how to verify outputs, how to prompt effectively, how to think critically about what these tools produce and where they fall short. That’s what teaching with AI looks like. That’s what being a relevant educator means in 2025.
If you’re still on the fence, ask yourself this: In ten years, which teachers will students thank? The ones who embraced AI in education and prepared them for the world they actually inherited? Or the ones who refused to acknowledge that anything had changed?
I know where I want to be.
