Учитель из Калифорнии вводит в классы пишущие машинки и запрещает смартфоны для борьбы с искусственным интеллектом

Los Gatos High School teacher David Homa has been on the cutting edge of classroom technology for years. Homa was among the first teachers to get a recordable DVD player in 2003. He even used virtual reality technology to teach his classes while he was out of the country. But when ChatGPT was released, Homa knew he had to change the way he taught his students. “As soon as I saw what it was capable of doing, I was like, ‘Well, that’s going to force change in the classroom,'” Homa said. For the last year, Homa has been requiring students in his honors economics and social entrepreneurship classes to handwrite their notes or use one of the five typewriters he acquired with funds from the high school’s New Millennium Foundation. Homa’s approach to education is part of a trend of educators who are trying to combat AI use and smartphone reliance in their classrooms. Last year, the Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District banned cell phone use during school hours. An opinion piece in The Atlantic defended blue book exams as not just a method of preventing cheating but as a way of proving students’ grasp of what they’ve learned. And in a high-pressure school district, Homa said he wasn’t angry that students in the district admit to cheating, but acknowledged the need for teachers to change their environments. “Change your behavior instead of getting mad at the kids for doing what they’re trying to do because they want to get a great grade,” Homa said. Homa said the benefit of making students handwrite their assignments or use a typewriter is that it challenges their developing brains in new ways. He said he believes “we’re removing too much of the struggle of education.” He noted examples of grade inflation and constant cell phone use during school and AI tools that can write entire essays for students, even including spelling mistakes to mimic a real person’s writing. But once he implemented more analog techniques, he said he noticed his students’ answers were getting better. “The struggle is creation, not editing,” Homa said. Another one of Homa’s unconventional teaching techniques is asking each of his students to go on a 30-minute walk every week without their phones or a smartwatch–for no grade. He explained that the walk is a moral lesson for his students, because any action a student takes after they graduate will not be assigned a grade. Every week, Homa asks his students if they did their weekly walk and why they missed it. He admitted to making them feel guilty all semester about it, which sets a different kind of expectation for students because they “know this is good for you.” As an economics teacher, Homa professed that the tech billionaires who lobby the government only care about making a profit, even when they know about the harmful effects this technology can have on children, so his low-tech approaches to education are ways to encourage his students to take back their time and energy from these corporations. He encouraged his students to take a walk without any music or anybody else with them, other than a pet, because “constant access to information means that you’re forgetting how to be bored.” “When people forget to be bored, then they forget how to create,” Homa said. Roxanna Abdollahi, a senior in Homa’s honors economics class, said she was excited to learn that she would be able to use a typewriter in Homa’s class because it’s a new experience. However, as she expanded on her experience in his class, she said reducing reliance on technology made her approach her assignments more like a learning opportunity to “try things out first before trying to get it right all the time.” Abdollahi said that she doesn’t like using AI and she mostly uses her phone to listen to music. She also said she was “bummed” at first when the school district passed their no-phones rule because she liked listening to music while working.In general, though, Abdollahi said she tries to stay off her phone as much as possible, especially while she’s focusing on writing essays for her college applications. Transitioning between Homa’s class and her other classes isn’t that difficult, she said, because she isn’t allowed to use a computer in other classes, like AP Environmental Science and AP Biology, as other teachers try to curb AI usage and distractions in their classrooms. Although Abdollahi said that she didn’t really notice that she felt less distracted during class without her phone, she noted that the classroom became a more social environment as she began to collaborate more with her peers. While some might consider Homa’s methods old school, he begs to differ. “I wouldn’t say me using typewriters and handwriting is going back,” the teacher said. “I’m just moving forward.”