Recent data suggests that educators may be embracing AI more than they avoid it, as Bond has done. About 60% of teachers surveyed said they used AI at least a little in their classrooms, according to one study. July 2025 EdWeek Research Center survey.
Initially, Bond says he tried to incorporate AI into his teaching. He had the students read and annotate the poem. Still I get up by Maya Angelou, and then allowed them to use AI to write a thesis statement for a literary analysis.
“It was terrible,” he says, adding that it was clear that the students who used AI were not really interested in the text.
“They didn’t know the material because they had outsourced that level of thinking and they didn’t have to come to a conclusion or an argument on their own about the text they were studying.”
He realized that his students couldn’t always discern whether what AI generated was valuable or not, and they still needed to develop fundamental skills, such as how to write a thesis and construct an argument.
“Where will those skills be developed if not here?” Bond asks.
What teaching looks like without AI
Bond says keeping a journal on hand at the beginning of each class helps her students practice writing and builds their confidence to write longer articles. It also allows Bond to learn their voices for writing.
“I know I have a lot of students who don’t think their voices sound academic enough,” Bond says. “I like to give them low-stakes opportunities to start cultivating what they want to say and how they want to say it.”
And instead of grading just the final essay or presentation, Bond grades different parts of the process, including the thesis, outline, bibliography, and handwritten draft.
“Steps are important to the overall cumulative score because that’s how I know you’re thinking,” Bond says. “I think a student is less likely to convert to something written by AI if they’ve had to show me the beginning, middle, and end, and the different pieces that make it up.”
When students reach the final stages of this process, Bond asks them to write their essays. Unless they have accommodations for a disability, Bond says this is the only time students use computers in their class.
The students’ response
Junior Meyah Alvarez was initially confused by Bond’s approach. She says that at the beginning of the school year, she turned in a typed outline for a poetry analysis podcast and Bond told her to do it again by hand because it would help her think and write better.
“It was different, but now I like it,” says Álvarez. “I feel like it really makes my brain think.”
Literature classes haven’t always been Alvarez’s favorite, but she says she loves Bond’s lessons. She likes the interactive nature of her assignments and that Bond provides students with opportunities to write about their opinions and experiences.
“Ms. Bond’s approach is very good. It gets to a point where AI can’t even help you right now,” says Alvarez.
Several of Bond’s students told NPR that they appreciate Bond’s AI ban because they oppose the technology to environmental and ethical reasons. But virtually all of them say that the use of AI in schoolwork is widespread among their peers.
“Maybe some of us don’t want to admit that we use it because it’s kind of a cultural taboo,” says sophomore Eligh Ellison.
Ellison says he has used AI to help him with schoolwork in the past and to come up with character names in the stories he writes. But he supports banning Bond’s AI. He says his class is a chance to find out what Hey think, not what the AI thinks.
“I think AI has a time and a place, but especially since it is still evolving and many of us have not yet made strong opinions, we are on shaky ground.”
Even students who were caught using AI in Bond’s class say they have learned from the experience.
T, a third-year student, says he turned to AI after waiting until the last minute to complete a bibliography on his chosen research topic: the adultification of children. His family requested that we only use his first initial so he can speak freely without it affecting his college applications.
“It probably wasn’t smart, but I also had other work to do. So I ran it through AI. I asked him to write it for me.”
Bond says he immediately realized that T had used AI. She was disappointed, but tried not to take it personally.
“He really felt overwhelmed and it got to a point where he was really afraid of not delivering something, so he delivered something,” Bond says.
T redid the task from scratch with Bond’s help.
He says he now has this advice for students who might be tempted to use AI to do their schoolwork for them: “Take a second and think about it. Would you rather really grow from an experience of doing some work and thinking critically about the things you’re writing or talking about, or just use a robot?”
How others are adopting technology
Not all teachers agree with Bond’s approach, including his friend Brett Vogelsinger, who teaches English at Central Bucks High School South, outside Philadelphia.
He says he tries to model responsible use of AI for his students, showing them the difference between using the technology to cheat and using it to advance their learning.
Vogelsinger says he wants his students to be able to “determine that this particular use is short-circuiting and shortchanging my thinking and this use is pushing me and actually making me think harder.”
And it allows the use of AI in some tasks, as long as students are transparent about it. as they used it.
But even Vogelsinger, who wrote a book about using AI in teaching writing, says he’s still figuring out how and when to incorporate AI into teaching: “We’re in the experimental phase of all of this.”
And while Bond and many of his students see the value of an AI-free classroom, the federal government, some states and some school districts are embracing the technology.
Miami-Dade County Public Schools, one of the largest districts in the country, gives high school students access to Google’s Gemini chatbot.
“The future is now,” said Miami-Dade Superintendent José Dotres. in a video posted on the Google for Education YouTube account. “We have to accept the fact that AI is becoming an important tool not only for learning, but also for teaching.”
secluded new jersey about a million dollars in grants last year to advance the use of AI in the classroom. Then-governor Phil Murphy said it was an effort to invest in “the next generation of technology leaders.”
And last spring, the Trump administration issued an executive order to expand AI education in K-12 schools through public-private partnerships and AI teacher training grants. Guidance from the U.S. Department of Education also supports “responsible adoption of AI” in schools.
Bond says she’s willing to change her mind, but right now she doesn’t see much value in AI for her students.
“It’s less harmful for me to make sure they can do things without AI than to try to introduce AI into my classroom knowing that, at least for some of them, that will mean they won’t be able to acquire the skills they need,” Bond says.
