Is AI doing to student writing what calculators did to mental math, and does it matter?

There was a big debate a few decades back about whether letting kids use calculators in class would rot their number sense. Some schools banned them, some embraced them, and we still argue about it. Now the same argument is playing out again, but with writing and AI tools.

A student who uses ChatGPT to draft an essay might still understand the argument they're making. Or they might have no idea and just submitted something that sounds coherent. The problem is it's getting hard to tell from the outside, and maybe from the inside too.

What bugs me is that writing isn't just output. The act of struggling through a draft is where a lot of the actual thinking happens. If you skip that process, you might be skipping the learning entirely, not just the assignment.

But then again, a calculator doesn't stop you from understanding what multiplication means, it just handles the execution. Maybe AI can work the same way if used right.

The posts here about students wanting to stop using AI suggest this isn't a theoretical concern anymore. Curious whether teachers are drawing any useful distinctions between AI as a crutch versus AI as a tool, and whether that line even holds up in practice at the high school or college level.

Alt titles: Are we repeating the calculator debate but with AI and writing skills | Does using AI to write actually skip the thinking or just the typing | The calculator argument is back and this time it is about writing

Submitted July 13, 2026 at 06:52PM by nighthawk2906 https://ift.tt/5BQFG4p