Public Statements

Ethics & Safety Australia Opposed perspective

I will not let my classroom become an AI sandbox

Opposed Posted by Sarah Okonkwo Reading time ~ 2 min

This is community opinion, not fact. Moderated before publication.

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I teach middle school in a suburb of Melbourne. My district has signed a contract with an AI platform that pushes personalized lessons and tracks student engagement minute by minute. Teachers were informed, not consulted. I am opposed to this rollout and I am saying so publicly because several of my colleagues feel the same and are worried about their positions. The research base for these platforms, from what I have read in peer-reviewed summaries rather than vendor decks, is thin. The privacy implications of feeding children's reading histories, attention patterns, and incomplete essays into a commercial system are real, and our parents were not given a meaningful choice. The displacement of teacher judgment worries me most. I do not want a platform telling me which student needs attention today. I want to make that judgment, as a trained professional, with the full context of a classroom I see five days a week. I am not asking for AI to be banned from schools. I am asking that districts stop entering into large contracts before doing their homework, that parents be given real opt-outs, and that teachers be treated as professionals rather than implementation staff. If those conditions were met I would listen to the next proposal with an open mind. They have not been met here, and so I am opposed.
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