THE DIGITAL COMMONS
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avoid discomfort or conflict. Instead, what we stand for is creating space for dialogue, reflection, and joint accountability. In this way, phone policies don’ t just support student learning; they also model the kind of partnership we want to build with every family.
AI: From Resistance to Reflection
As artificial intelligence tools become more embedded in students’ lives— from writing generators to problem-solving bots— schools must respond not just with restrictions, but with reflection. AI isn’ t inherently harmful, nor is it inherently helpful. It can serve as a mirror, revealing how we approach thinking, creativity, and responsibility. As a Health Educator when social media was exploding into our culture, I saw the ways that many educators( myself included), schools, and researchers tried to keep“ that stuff” outside of school. This was a mistake. We should have leaned into this, we should have prepared our students to live in a world of social media, regardless of their engagement. I firmly believe that AI is an even greater change to our society, and we must lean in this time, we must equip ourselves and our students to be in this future world, regardless of our perspectives, beliefs, feelings, or values.
Policies on AI use shouldn’ t solely be focused on catching misconduct. Instead, they should open up space to teach critical engagement: how students use these tools, when they rely on them, and what it means to create in a world where ideas and effort can be increasingly automated. Just like we teach students to cite sources or evaluate websites, we now have to guide them through what it means to be an ethical user of machine intelligence.
For families, this represents new terrain, and some parents may not fully understand what AI is, much less how it might appear in a student’ s homework. That’ s why school policy must not only draw boundaries, but narrate values. Policies and messaging should state how we want students to engage with learning and what academic integrity looks like in a digital era. In the schools I have been in, learning is valuable precisely because it is done together, inperson, in the moment, collaborative, and messy. When the value is on learning as a process and not a product, and when a grade in a class is not about the finished
“ AI isn’ t inherently harmful, nor is it inherently helpful. It can serve as a mirror, revealing how we approach thinking, creativity, and responsibility.”
Page 8 Fall 2025 CSEE Connections