Gaines, Lee V. “To keep AI out of her classroom, this high school English teacher went analog.” NPR, 28 Jan. 2026, https://www.npr.org/2026/01/28/nx-s1-5631779/ai-schools-teachers-students. Accessed 28 Jan. 2026.
Gaines provides readers with a timely account of Chanea Bond, a high school English teacher in Fort Worth, Texas, and her efforts to limit student AI use in her courses. In addition to detailing Bond’s reasoning behind the move, which primarily centers on a desire to build authentic critical thinking capabilities in her students, Gaines also provides a summary of the methods being used. These include mandated handwritten assignments, daily writing to develop student voice, and more frequent feedback throughout longer writing processes. The article also gathers feedback from students, several of which feel positively toward their teacher’s decision. Gaines also offers a counter perspective by discussing how other teachers, districts, and even government entities are implementing or encouraging AI use in education.
As AI and the debate around it becomes more pressing in society at large and in school settings in particular, I find stories like this important for framing the argument and describing the perspectives and approaches that people are taking toward it. Because it centers the real, lived experiences of students and teachers, the article puts a human face on what can feel at times like an abstract issue. Questions about how AI should be implemented in educational environments need to involve consultation with the experts who are directly engaging in the day to day work.