In Technology discussion on educational usage

research. When senior Sophia Mohammed was working on a debate case, she and her team utilized ChatGPT to nd sources.

“When researching we realized we can get super speci c with [ChatGPT],” Mohammed said. “When I asked it to give me ve sources on the innovation of ChatGPT it did just that. I think it is really useful to utilize ChatGPT to nd those sources and use them instead of having to scour the internet for them.” answers and asked students to say what’s right and what’s wrong and why. It saves time.”

However, ChatGPT gets its information through thousands of unchecked sources on the internet, including information that can be inaccurate, which is why Mohammed says fact checking is so crucial.

While Haskins himself has not brought ChatGPT into his classes yet, Upper School English teacher Alvaro Cantu ’99 has already used ChatGPT to write quizzes and assessments for his class.

“Over and over again, reusing old quiz questions hasn’t been e ective,” Cantu said.

“So, the way I have been using [ChatGPT] is I have found PDF versions of the text that I’ve assigned in class and then used ChatGPT to create questions. As educators, [we] need to talk to students about our expectations around how to use [ChatGPT].”

However, due to ChatGPT’s limited knowledge on the texts assigned in class, the questions that it produces can be vague and even confusing for students.

Arbuckle, a student in Cantu’s English 10 class, has voiced some hesitancy for this

“It writes quizzes for our PoetX unit, but it came up with very ambiguous questions and sometimes got things very wrong,” Arbuckle said. “So, I don’t think that it was the best method to write our quizzes.”

Nevertheless, Cantu says that ChatGPT is a tool that should be recognized and utilized by both teachers and students in di erent ways to bring awareness to its bene ts and e biggest thing for me … is to make students aware of [ChatGPT],” Cantu said. “I think that this leaves room for less surprises and if we, as teachers, can teach students how to best use it, everyone ends up bene ting.”

As ChatGPT continues to re ne its technology and become more powerful, more people across the nation are beginning to use it. OpenAI predicts that ChatGPT will generate $200 million in revenue by the end of 2023 and a whopping $1 billion by the end us, the language model is not going

Accepting this, said Almanza, allows teachers to utilize ChatGPT to the best of

I don’t think that AI is just gonna disappear,” Almanza said. “It’s here to stay ght it, I think that we, as educators, need to sit down and gure out the best way to use [ChatGPT] to our advantage because it is a neat way to create open-ended questions that help drive conversation.”

It has transformed the way I work. When I am struggling to understand something, it really helps to break down concepts and be able to ask ChatGPT really specific questions you can’t really Google.”

According to Almanza, ChatGPT can be used as a resource when students are struggling with homework. However, the potential dangers of ChatGPT are why she supports a student ban on it for now.

“I think it should remain blocked until we, as teachers, get proper training about how to use it so that we can properly implement guidelines for its usage,” Almanza

Worcester says even teacher use of ChatGPT has its limitations. In the same way that a student shouldn’t plagiarize a paper, teachers should not be directly copying comments and information sent out to students without fact-checking.

“If a teacher takes exactly what the bot provides and uses that, I would argue that is in line with a student doing the same thing and claiming it is their work,” Worcester said.

AI conversational chatbots are new to education, meaning there is no evidence on how these chatbots will change the long-term outcome of education. Many students fear that future generations will become complacent and stop using basic learning skills.

“Essay-writing skills hold such value, and if you have this machine that can do it all for you in ve seconds, all the skills and tools that you have learned in all the English classes throughout the years can’t even be put to use anymore,” senior Emily Quinn said. “I don’t think I would want to use it because I think I would get into a bad habit and start to rely on it, especially as it gets stronger.”

Worcester says that due to a di erence in development and foundation of skills, action taken with ChatGPT will di er departmentally to prevent the loss of skills as noted by Quinn.

“Long-term skills and ethical decisions are a little more ingrained in Upper Schoolers,” Worcester said. “ ink of this as a sort of digital translator in a language class. Students aren’t supposed to be using those speci cally in the language department.”

According to Melwani, while ChatGPT poses many bene ts if used correctly, if humans start to rely only on ChatGPT to solve problems, it will create an endless cycle of a lack of innovation in society.

“It has been trained o of us,” Melwani said. “If we always use it to do our daily tasks, future generations will become reliant on it.”

He says he believes this will result in a loss of low-level skills in future generations, such as writing or coding.

“My worry is that if we begin to rely on AI, we are liable to lose lower-level skills such as basic grammar when writing or syntax while coding,” Melwani said.

Furthermore, ChatGPT is trained on a multitude of human-made sources. us, it is only as smart as society is and is not capable of innovating ahead of current human capacity.

Since ChatGPT simply repurposes ideas that other people already have had, its use could negatively impact society as a whole, Melwani said.

“It could lead to a lack of innovation within the elds and a possible convergence between the skills AI can o er us and the data we can give it to be trained on,” Melwani said.

Regardless of how education evolves with AI, Hark says that he hopes students will still nd meaning and value in their academic work.

“When I was a teacher, I worked really hard to help my students see that what they were writing was a work of art,” Hark said. “I don’t want that to change, no matter what tool students are using to help them create.”

According to Hark, learning is not only about the content but also about the discoveries students make about themselves.

“No matter how much of the creative process is aided by AI, learning that your voice matters, and that it’s unique and distinct and has power, is so important,” Hark said. “I taught for a long time, and I’ve seen that light bulb go on over and over and over again: ‘My writing is distinctly my own, and I have thoughts to share.’ at’s what I never want to go away.”

Senior Ahmed Agha used to think that people who abused drugs knew what they were getting into.

“I think that’s kind of the public perception of drug abuse,” Agha said. “But a er going through high school, being older and seeing a lot of my peers abuse drugs, I kind of realized that it’s really just an unfortunate event that happens. It’s more like a disease. A lot of times it just happens.”

In the wake of nine students in the Dallas suburb of Carrollton overdosing on fentanyl, with three dying, Agha is now one of many Upper School students receiving educational programming about substance abuse.

“When I was in middle school, we had no substance abuse programming,” Agha said. “And I think as a result, people were not as aware that it happened, and it kind of caught us by surprise. So I think it’s important that especially all underclassmen get this kind of information.” e foundation holds a prevention solutions program that strives to give resources to Greenhill students and fosters open discussion.

By the end of high school, 46.6% of students will have used illegal substances, according to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics. To expand and enhance the wellness curriculum, the Upper School Counseling department is working alongside the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation to educate Greenhill students.

“I want [this program] to be for students to make di erent choices and have an e ect on the choices that they make,” Head of School Lee Hark said.

e Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has labeled youth at a high risk for substance abuse. Since the teenage brain does not fully develop until the age of 25, the use of substances can have a signi cant impact on decision-making, risk-taking and impulse control, according to the National Institutes of Health.

e CDC has found that teenagers are willing to try substances to t in or do better academically.

“Instead of just saying no, we try to caution against the abuse of substances,” said Upper School science teacher Hennah Abubaker. “I have always felt that it’s important to teach science in a way that resonates with kids so they can make better decisions.”

In addition to the direct e ects on the brain, substance use can also have indirect e ects on a teenager’s life, such as poor grades and motivation, according to the NIH.

To prevent the potential risk of substance abuse, Greenhill is providing guidance and support to help teenagers make healthy choices through education by teachers and outside organizations.

Following recent news coverage on the Carrollton overdoses, Director of Student Health Services Katie Trimmer, Upper School counselors Amanda Frederick and Kathy Roemer, and Abubaker have worked to inform the Upper School about the dangers of substances, especially fentanyl, on a more scienti c level. of programming in terms of facilitating, having background and expertise,” said Worcester. substance abuse it feels very overbearing and stigmatized, but it was really informative,” said Park. e Prevention Solutions program extends its awareness e orts to entire families.

“In Middle School, we didn’t learn much about the use of substances, so I was happy to hear that we would have a time to help us learn about the dangers and e ects of them,” said sophomore Vicky Cisneros.

According to the foundation’s website, the Prevention Solutions program strives to enhance the level of education surrounding substance abuse and create more informed environments to prevent potential dangers.

Trimmer and Roemer held Upper School class meetings to raise awareness on the recent fentanyl crisis.

Abubaker is educating seniors on the neurological harms of substance abuse.

“My delivery is focused on how substance abuse a ects the brain, speci cally the teenage brain,” said Abubaker. “[I am] just providing a little bit of education around what substance abuse actually is.”

Prior to the pandemic,

“ e Betty Ford Foundation will train them about the adolescent brain and answering questions about drugs and alcohol,” said Roemer. “With this information, I want them to make educated decisions.” e Upper School e orts will primarily target sophomores. e 10th grade is a good time because it’s when [students] start to get some independence [like] driving,” said Worcester. e programming will consist of two hours allotted toward 10th grade, with a prevention specialist engaging students in small groups and collaborative conversations.

“ e specialist will be here and will work with small groups of 10th-graders so every [student] will be assigned a group,” said Roemer.

“They’ll meet a

“We’ll have parent programs, one about responsible decision making [and one where] we will partner with prevention solutions and the same prevention specialist that’s working with the students will be talking with the parents,” said Majefski.

ese sessions were led by a recovering addict and specialist on substance abuse prevention, Eduardo Torres. He opens the sessions by talking about his story of nicotine use at age 14, then went on to discuss his experience of entering rehab at age 19. A erward, Torres opened the oor for questions.

“I really enjoyed how it was structured,” said sophomore Shreya Chhaya. “Instead of it being like a lecture, it was really easy to ask questions making it easy to engage and understand.”

Sophomore Sophie Fiedelman shares this sentiment.

I want [this program] to be for students to make different choices and have an effect on the choices that they make.”

“ e sessions were very engaging and taught me about what the e ects of drugs are when they are used irresponsibly at a young age,” Fiedelman said.

e plan going forward is to add substance abuse programming to the science curriculum and then expand this program to other divisions across campus.

Greenhill held multiple wellness sessions for both students and parents.

“Pre-pandemic we had changed the schedule to [talk about substances] instead of classes for half a day in the past,” Head of Upper School Trevor Worcester said.

Due to the pandemic and a change to block schedules, the Upper School didn’t continue substance abuse programming. Now, Worcester said, discussions are underway to ramp up wellness education.

Students and faculty expressed their support for increased substance abuse education.

is year, Greenhill partnered with the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation’s Prevention Solutions program. is partnership was spearheaded by Roemer.

“Ms. Roemer’s strengths [are] this kind couple of times during that week, and just have the chance to really learn about substances and the brain.”

Not only will the Prevention Solutions program bene t the 10th grade, but they will hold question-and-answer sessions for all other grade levels.

“We are going to have whole grade assemblies for ninth, 11th and 12th grades with the same prevention specialists that’ll be more like a Q-and-A,” said Director of Counseling Shanti Majefski.

Junior Ayne Park says that these sessions were insightful, even with a large group.

“A lot of times when talking about

“My hope and vision would be that we would start in Lower School, with wellness programming, so that as students progress through Greenhill they have the opportunity to build the skills that we know they need as they turn into adults,” said Majefski.

Integrating these sessions into the chemistry curriculum has been Roemer’s main long-term goal.

As a further e ort to safeguard students, Narcan – a medication used in spray and injection form in the treatment of acute opioid overdose incidents – will be made available to Upper School counselors, athletic trainers, the security team and nurses.

“We will have Narcan on our campus,” Hark said. “We already have key personnel trained, and we’re going to train the faculty how to use it too, so that if we ever need it, people know where it is and how to administer it.” e ultimate goal is to equip students to make informed decisions.

“I think it’s really important that if they understand the way that these drugs interact with each other, then we can help them make better choices,” said Abubaker.

Wednesday, April 5, 2023