*UPDATE: I appreciate all of the feedback. This has been a real lesson about seeing what the real problems are. I dealt with this horribly, and owe my apologies.
Let me preface this by saying I’m in my 40s and I’ve been here for quite awhile, so possibly a bit of an “old man rant”.
TLDR: new teacher uses AI for everything, including lesson plans. I think this is lazy and improper for an English teacher. Wrong or am I just “too old to understand”?
I’m teaching English at a private HS and we recently got a new native teacher for communication English. He is quite personable but isn’t from an education background.
From day 1, he has requested copies of old assignments and wanted to just copy old paperwork like syllabuses. I took this to be inexperience and not wanting to make mistakes.
Then he started talking about how great AI is and he wanted to teach students how to use it. Didn’t really jump on board with this as I know how lazy my students can get. But I didn’t think it was a completely horrible idea.
Finally, I’ve noticed that all of his worksheets, handouts and even his lesson plans are AI generated.
When he is teaching our advanced SDG lessons, he has ChatGPT and GROK design his lesson plans and worksheets. They are on “theme” for what they should be learning, but usually leave the students confused and asking for clarification in Japanese.
I’ve mentioned how I thought that the quality of his worksheets and lesson plans are quite lazy and he should probably work on making them himself and not rely on AI to do his Job. There were words exchanged. Am I the asshole?
by JustAnOldManJ
29 comments
So… you’re sorta the asshole for saying it so directly.
BUT…
You **should** have been an even bigger asshole by not saying anything and letting the teacher fall on their ass when the students get their test results back.
You’re not the asshole, but it’s also not your responsibility. Do your own stuff, let him do his. They wanted to hire somebody with no background in education, they are presumably paying him peanuts like everyone else in the English education industry, so they’re going to get what they hired and paid for. Let him sink himself by teaching shit lessons that confuse students. You focus on creating your lessons and making them as good as possible to show the difference.
Half of what makes a lesson work is the materials, half is the delivery, and a third half is being able to adapt the materials on the fly to the class (cutting out stuff that doesn’t work, and making things easier or harder).
While chat gpt and grok can help, they don’t know what works in a real class and they can’t assess difficulty very well (at least without tight parameters that a new teacher probably cant give).
I use AI when I’m out of ideas or didn’t have enough time to prep, but I feel sorry for this guy’s students. AI generated everything sucks and it usually churns out low quality shit.
But, as another user said, it isn’t your problem. Lazy teachers suck but I’ve noticed they get called out by students and it only takes one persistent parent for admin to start looking into it.
If he was a licensed teacher in a public school, he’d probably just get bounced around. But a direct hire at a private school?
I think a lot might depend on the words exchanged!
Also, I think a lot might depend on what it is about the lessons or lesson plans or worksheets that’s leaving students confused.
A lot also depends on whether you’re in any official capacity his supervisor or not.
Are you and he direct hire full faculty, or are you both on 1 year assistant teaching contracts without licensure of some kind?
If either or both of you are the former, the classes you’re teaching, if solo teaching, are electives and fractional grades that are rolled in to their scores for other classes for actual credit. For an example, most “communication” classes in JHS are only about 20-30% of their English class grade, and only the tests and interviews are graded for credit. Electives don’t need to be taught by full faculty, but it can be more muddy as to the actual credit and weight they’re getting for them.
I say all that to say this, if you and or he are contractors and the actual authority is up the chain when actual school credit is concerned, then you’re not being paid to manage this guy and the school might not even care. If the school itself isn’t particularly concerned with hiring people with legit education backgrounds, hiring foreign staff as full faculty, and hiring/getting people with licensure to solo teach classes for core credit, then you’re probably just creating more work and stress for yourself trying to hold people to a standard that the school isn’t.
Hard to judge without seeing the actual materials and lessons and knowing what words were exchanged.
In my opinion: NTA, but I am also ***super*** anti-AI, especially in education.
You can genuinely tell when lessons are made with AI, especially if they aren’t checked by a real human. Look no further than how Duolingo became 200% worse after they switched to AI only. It would personally infuriate me to the point of “exchanging words” if that teacher was teaching the students to use AI to learn English. At that point the students aren’t learning English, they are learning how to use AI to bypass actually learning the language.
I use AI for lesson / theme ideas, confirming information and finding papers / articles. If what you’re saying is 100% accurate then I’d side with you in saying that your colleague is far too reliant on AI and is using it for tasks he should primarily be doing himself.
You mentioned in the comments he’s employed through a dispatch company, and it’s probably very obvious your school has opted for a dispatch employee with no relevant qualifications or experience in order to save money. Unfortunately they’re getting what they’ve paid for.
I think it’s fine to use ChatGPT for lesson planning BUT you also need to go through it and take out what doesn’t work and add what does.
I don’t know you, but this action was assholey.
1. Your opinion is your opinion, end of the story, it’s not the how things should be done, what’s right or wrong. If they are working for your students, and you; that’s great, but they shouldn’t be considered how other’s should act. You might offer them as your experience, which would be much helpful.
2. The new teacher might got hurt, not because you mentioned AI, but because how you confronted him about what you think is wrong. Let’s say this is not about AI, but about some shitty practice PDFs he found online. Imagine yourself saying the same things in the same way. How do you think he would react and feel? Also, How effective your feedback would be? Do you reflect better or worse when you receive a ” shit sandwich” instead of just full negative feedback? Students might be confused not because of AI aspect, but the lesson delivery part
3. AI was here yesterday, it will evolve into something more tomorrow. IT’s a tool like [Englishlessonplanner.com](http://Englishlessonplanner.com) ( not advertisement, but I used it when I was going through CELTA). It’s useful, it shouldn’t be just copy+paste, blindly followed, however it saves time, energy, resources. It can generate images of students or teachers in the content of the lesson to create a personalized comic, or write a choose your own adventure stories. Not a nice to thing to say but: I’m not getting paid enough to create something like that every week, even though I love my students.
4. You are not his manager, statements like ” Not to rely on AI to do his job” is a comment on his work ethics that you don’t have a right to make. Either have enough rapport with the guy to the point of you insult each other as a joke and you both laugh, or mention your concerns to the manager ask for inspection.
That’s my 2 cents ” old timer”. I don’t think you are completely wrong, but communication needs to be healthy and not come out as disrespectful. We all make mistakes, how would you like to receive feedback?
I’ve used AI to help with overviews and adding in exit tickets and homework. It’s really useful and I can then edit it to what I need it to be. I think he needs to make them bespoke for each class, but nothing wrong with using it for a base.
its fine to ask copilot or such for a idea or an example, but to straight up generate entire worksheets? nah. You are missing the stages of planning and how to deliver. It is lazy and unprofessional imo.
I understand using AI. I use AI to help create some materials and to quick research for me when I am running out of time during planning. However, I agree that is extremely lazy to use it extensively for everything.
AI does not know the student levels, capabilities, course goals and can only do so much creatively. And if his worksheets are lazy and reflect these pitfalls, I think it is appropriate to tell him that the standards of his work are subpar and discuss how AI is a good tool but should be monitored and editted extensively before presenting it to students.
NTA at all. Even if he chooses to go the lazy route and use AI, he should at least check the things later and make sure the worksheets are correct, language is clear and not confusing, etc.
I’m not sure what you actually do in your school, but just guide him on your end. Everyone has a beginning and needs proper mentorship. It’s not supposed to be your position to do that. It’s not throwing shade on you, but more on his supervisor or lead teacher.
I would just subtly correct one thing as support instead of outright criticism. If you’re motivated then you can suggest things before his lessons then ask him how it went afterward and he’ll probably admit that he screwed up.
I know other teachers with teaching credentials like you and they chose the direct-hire ALTs route because they’d rather take it easy and spend more time with their families instead of worrying about these things.
Your point seems valid, but the delivery may have taken away from that.
As someone who has done some supervisory roles, calling someone lazy is just going to get their back up. It’s better to offer some advice/resources, you tried to help and kept the peace. This also looks good as far as your employer is concerned. Everybody likes a team player.
I appreciate that you are not their boss, but I think it works with coworkers too.
If he uses AI for lesson generation and doesn’t adapt it to make sense then he is lazy.
AI is great for first draft of things. Using it properly involves having the AI revise it for you for your purposes, and then following up and editing it yourself.
He may be very lazy and just not even looking over the material before he gives it to students. He might also not have the experience to tell what good/bad/works/doesn’t work.
if he’s a first year teacher in this context, he has no experience and doesn’t sound like he knows what to keep, adapt and cut from the AI lessons. He sounds like he needs help and training but is embarrassed to ask or doesn’t care. If it’s the former then he can be helped but if it’s the latter, then that sucks for the students. I find AI wonderful for brainstorming and making worksheets but it needs to be challenged and adapted to fit the context. Are you the asshole for calling him lazy? I have colleagues who refuse to use AI for the most monotonous tasks which I find ridiculous and old-fashioned. I think they won’t be able to keep up with time if they continue to refuse using new technology but at the same time, those same colleagues probably think I’m lazy. Does it help either party to say that to each other ? No. Not really. No one would listen to the other party. I think if he could trust you enough to be able to ask why didn’t this work ? Is probably a better step. Get him to trust you for advice as the senpai versus trusting AI
The issue with them using AI for everything is that AI has been shown to *heavily* reduce one’s critical thinking skills and creativity. It’s much, much worse than always using the teacher’s book for lesson plans, which is already known to limit a teacher’s ability to make their own lesson plans when push comes to shove.
Leaving alone the huge can of worms that is “is AI art ethical?”, I can see that using AI for things like flash cards may be a better use. Though I would recommend that they just take images off Google – as long as they don’t work in a private company, it’s fair use. If they do work in a private company… ^(nobody is going to care anyway.) I’ve known people who have spent hours or even days creating images with AI when they could have stolen a perfectly fine image off Google in less than a minute.
My biggest issue is that, as a somewhat seasoned teacher myself, I have used AI to create lesson plans and **they are always horrible**. They are missing entire steps that are necessary for target language to be acquired. A new teacher likely won’t notice the gross limitations of these AI lesson plans, but a veteran would spot them from a mile away. They are simply bad.
A recently study has shown that AI use for more surface-level learning does outperform teachers, but only if the teachers aren’t using more constructivist approaches to learning. For example, ChatGPT grossly outperformed teachers in lecture and explaining concepts, but only barely outperformed in Project-Based Learning. More social, peer-to-peer activities that one would expect in language learning wasn’t even looked at because it would have been unrealistic to do with ChatGPT. But I would assume GPT would underperform here.
Finally, the students have said that the materials are confusing. That alone should be enough to know that the AI use is mishandled, but I wanted to say all of the above 😉
He doesn’t even have an educational background? Is he struggling with the workload? Is his Japanese good? You’re expecting someone on oar w/ you on a dispatch salary? You could be right but YTA because you don’t need to be an old timer nor a licensed educator to know that calling someone lazy to their face is not a diplomatic choice especially in country and industry where “face” is so important. Furthermore, you should know by now that with the peanuts they pay dispatch people, you’re lucky this person shows up to work on time and at least actively tried to adapt materials. His method is different, but no shit, he’s not a licensed teacher.
At my school and area, I take on the dual roles of both AI evangelist (efficiently do X thing) and doomsayer (deepfake porn, next gen ore ore calls, enshittification).
I’ve been in the industry for 7 years and recently got licensed as a “real” teacher by going the 特別免許 route. I was a history major as my bachelor’s and got a Masters in Ed before coming over on JET.
On my 4th year at JET I worked at a board of education in a major city and ChatGPT in BETA outperformed my coworker, who studied abroad in America and advanced English for over 30 years.* I gave up on the limited merit of this industry and learning kanji after that. Before the advent of LLMs, I was a crusader for teaching culture and pragmatics because I never passed a JLPT but lasted longer than any of my N2+ coworkers. I attribute that to all the time my old JP class spent on business culture, senpai-kohai, in group/outgroup, ect. I’m conversational enough to work in education over here for 7 years, but why spend 10,000 hours to make the same amount of mistakes as an LLM?
With the shrinking population, I’ve gotten 1st year HS students from the inaka who still can’t do present and past tense despite 5 years of education. They still don’t capitalize or punctuate, much less indent a paragraph. For the advanced kids, studying grammar may be useful, but to the regular kids, it’s obviously never stuck so far.
Rather than leave them behind, I’d rather show them another way. IMHO, if the students aren’t learning English anyway, they might as well learn about the tech being shoehorned in their devices. This way, instead of manually translating JP to English, they can get an LLM to use AI to translate JP to anything.
As for the value of language study, my tourist trap town and the tourism related businesses refuse to pay extra for language ability and rely on old retiree volunteers to guide tourists. When that fails, the tourists just use their own Google translate or chatgpt.
Likewise, how many people had a degree in Japanese, came over here, and had limited job prospects because they came to a country where their Japanese ability will always be less than pretty much everyone in Japan. The reality is that language isn’t what it used to be. There is no little to no economic value to learning other languages in the town I work in. It only pays off if you’re going overseas. I hope MEXT takes a realistic look at the outlook of language when they put out their new curriculum in 2028.
Imo the selling point of English is now to use it to access data from the 20ish countries that use it. Why? Show the students the difference between Japanese wikipedia and English wikipedia. Show then a few pages where the info is either outdated, missing, or (in case of geopolitics) drastically different. Then, show them the difference in download size between Japanese wikipedia and English wikipedia. If the students want a job in health or tech, English will keep them up to date. Likewise, AI LLMs are trained on much more data in English than Japanese. Therefore, in theory, the Japanese LLMs and even just Japanese input-output is likely far more limited in knowledge and quality.
IMO, the point of language study is to get information internationally. Idc if they’re using Google translate, ChatGPT, or w/e new thing comes out next week. I get angry when kids graduate with more than 5 years of English study and still can’t have a basic conversation. IRL is not a test environment. Unless you want to be a bilingual lawyer working with trade secrets you probably dont need native level fluency in a 2nd language. (Silicon enshittification aside).
But teacher or student, as an early adopter I teach everyone that AI that it’s a drunk intern who may not show up for work. Therefore, the AI user is the one who gets embarrassed and yelled at if the info is wrong. But at the same time, IMO simple, fast disposable educational material may be the best use case for LLMs. Example: “generate (international cuisine name) in the style of イラストや.”
TLDR: Tech literacy is way more valuable and relevant than 2nd language literacy. The best use case for AI LLMs burning the environment may be to let them produce disposable slop in the form of worksheets and lesson ideas ON THE CONDITION that the teacher is still checking over and adapting the work.
Also FYI: I’ve been ringing the alarm for years now, but my school still has no AI policy and has no plan in place whenever the kids finally notice they can deepfake all their friends.
I’m deeply worried about AI but because my office is full of bookers proudly working overtime they have no fucking idea how bad AI is getting and look at me like chicken little when I say the sky is falling. Our sister school in the US canceled their Japanese program in favor of STEM.
*A great anecdote about AI: One time at the BOE as an ALT trainer I was furious with a shit eating ALT that wouldn’t attend a mandatory professional development meeting. I opened the email with “Hey fuckstain, why dont you do your fucking job?!” I asked ChatGPT to rewrite it in a diplomatic business way and it produced “Dear [Recipient’s Name], I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to address a matter that has come to my attention regarding your absence from the mandatory meeting day.”
Sure it’s AI slop, but I knew this guy enough to know nothing was gonna change his mind. So I fired both barrels into that email and ChatGPT rewrote that draft diplomatically so I both covered my ass and did my job faster than if I agonized for an hour or so about how to sound professional while knowing it was a waste of time. He never showed.
Lastly, a tip for any teacher getting into AI would be to never pay for any AI. AI companies commit copyright violations on a scale the pirate bay could only dream of. Plus, your kids often wouldn’t be able to afford it, so see what the limits are of free AI and teach them responsibility. And if you want an AI free class, then have them close their devices and work only w/ pen and paper. Just remember, when was the last time you did anything outside of school with only pen and paper and try not to be a dick.
AI should be a tool, not a crutch. Used for ideas yes, but the person involved should be doing the actual work. I’d say NTA.
I was all ready to say “not your circus, not your monkeys,” until I read that you were direct hired and he was dispatch.
Short answer, I don’t know. The (knives) ins and outs of the politics of Japanese political structures doesn’t totally make sense to me. But at my school, even though dispatch and direct-hire teachers are formally considered the same ~~rank~~ *(better to say same “role”)*, I sometimes see Japanese teachers acting like the dispatch teachers are a step below. And while teachers at my school talk a lot of talk about mutual respect and egalitarian decision-making, the reality is that there is a hierarchy in place affecting every relationship. On more than one instance, people have acted to me like I am in charge of any non-Japanese teacher younger than I am, just because I am non-Japanese and older. Contradictory expectations abound and it is amazing we can get anything done at all sometimes with all this turmoil behind the scenes.
But it does sound like this guy needs some mentorship. His use of AI is coming out of a place of his personal insecurity, but by leaning on AI so heavily, he is doing nothing to build his skills to get out of that helpless space. So there is a way to intervene that is helpful to him, if you can find a way to pull that lever.
Is there a coordinator at your school whose jurisdiction you both fall under? If you don’t have confidence in how your roles shake out in the hierarchy, I suggest going to the coordinator and bringing up the problem from the direction of your concerns about what is good for the school (not, as I’ve seen some of my colleagues, bad-mouthing him over beers at the next enkai). Then you could offer to take on the role of mentoring if you don’t think your earlier confrontation soured the relationship.
I don’t think that you are the asshole. But if your approach is strictly corrective, if you aren’t in some way helping him build up his skills, he will almost certainly decide you are in order to protect his own fragile ego.
Just turned 50, teach at university.
AI is a great starting tool to get things on paper, but I would never use it for a “one and done” activity or lesson or curriculum. Everything needs tweaking.
It is great for generating things like comprehension questions.
It’s a useful tool, so why not use it. Like all tools, there’s a time and a place, and you should know HOW to use your tool.
But to add, you are probably BTA. You could have dealt with it differently and they should be more critical of their work.
can’t believe ppl think you’re TA when your coworker is TA for stooping so low that he’s teaching below the already substandard expectations, wasting the students’ invaluable time and setting them up for having even worse english than most ppl here already have…
Using AI is lazy, and it will only make jpn ppl even less willing to learn other languages and make them fall even further behind in the global economy. They’re already so close-minded when it comes to learning english, any tool that means they don’t have to even step a toe out of their comfort zone of nationalism is going to make them worse and we all know it
It was unprofessional to call him lazy but i think as a society we need to be meaner to ppl that think it’s “normal” to rely on AI for even basic tasks, and not an indicator of lower intelligence.
My hot take on this is that there are a couple of layers going on.
Layer one–New Guy (henceforth referred to as NG) relies too much on AI to prep his lessons. While that can be seen as lazy, NG probably sees it as “Work smarther, not harder.” Not saying he is right–I’m an old fuddyduddy meself. I can see the use of AI for some aspects of prep, but in general, it is a tool best used sparingly, or for very specific purposes. By calling out NG as lazy, it created confrontation, and chancese are, NG will probably dig in his heels even harder. You didn’t say how or where you conbfronted him, but I will give the benefit of the doubt and assume that you didn’t call him out in front of students or other staff. (DEFINITELY not in front of students).
Layer two–NG’s lesson content isn’t effective. THIS is the real issue that needs addressing. Tact and subtlety are wonderful resources here. The true concern is for the students (or should be..I assume it is). If the lessons are not giving the studetns any understanding of SDG’s or or English, then the entire thing is a flop. A “some things I noticed as an experienced teacher..” sort of notes/suggestions (let’s avoid critiquies?) would be more effective if couched in gentle terms (Could be that NG is also dealing with lack of confidence/impostor syndrome, so any harsh critisisms will rusult in severe pushback).. Something like “I noticed that a lot of the students were having difficulty understanding the SDG’s they were studying. Can WE find a different way to explain to them the content, and the goals of the assignments?” (I say it in that way as your post seems to imply that you both work with the same students–It sounds as if it is a Team teaching situation, but I wasn’t totally sure.) IF you are both teaching the same content to the same students, and his lessons are not effective, then there needs to be some adjustment for everyone’s sake.
So, my personal verdict–ETA–it was out of line to straight up call him lazy to his face. He’s out of line for not doing any of the prep work on his own. The queation is, can you employ a strategy to help him improve the lesson content and assignments for the students? A compromise, as it were..”OK, let’s use the AI to get us started, and then editi it down to stuff the students can actually comprehend.” (Of course, THAT only works if both teachers have a pretty solid understanding of the entire SDG thing anyway)
TLDR–dont call him out, but try to help him adjust his stuff for the students’ sake.
*Edited some typos
**Addendum–I wrote this before reading any other comments. Interesting to see the mix of “AI is Everything” opinions all the way to pure Luddite opinions here.
If the NG has a master plan, ideas for each class that align with that plan, and has put together some worthwhile basic activities, then AI can be useful. It can help him refine his ideas and point out what he might have overlooked.
Where he runs into trouble is when he assumes AI can carry the load for him. If he has any critical thinking skills, he should be using them to push back and get better output from the tool. It all comes down to moderation and intent.
For the older generation, try entering one of your old or recent lesson plans into AI. Ask it to suggest improvements based not just on theory, but on actual research in the field. You might be surprised by how much value it can add. The key is not letting it become a crutch that replaces your own thinking.
My take is that he’s using AI because he’s deeply insecure about his lack of experience and wants to do a good job, but he’s not confident in his ability to try on his own, make mistakes, and learn from them. So, he’s taking the safe route and defending the choice to do that because HE needs it to feel competent at his job, and without AI, he has no idea how else to do all the work without failing publicly.
I recommend ignoring the AI aspect for now and focusing on mentoring him as a teacher (but without explicitly stating that you’re doing that).
For example:
* Be openly welcoming of stupid questions, requests for help or advice, etc. Create an atmosphere where he knows that he’ll get empathy, compassion, and support while he figures stuff out and stumbles along. You don’t have to put up with rudeness, or take on his work at the cost of your own time and responsibilities. But just validating his feelings as being real (wanting to do a good job, being excited about something, getting frustrated when something doesn’t go right, etc.) feel heard and understood enough to take your advice when you give it.
* Compliment him on real things he’s doing right that you know he did by himself AND his effort in general. Positively reward the act of hard work.
* Try to treat the AI subject neutrally for now. I fully agree that it’s lazy and also just bad for learning in general, but I think he’s only digging his heels in because he feels like he has to. (That said, if you’re genuinely concerned that the AI lessons are negatively affecting the lessons and student learning experience, that’s valid and needs to be addressed. That’s not about you and him, that’s about your mutual responsibility to the school and the students.)
* Ask for his input and thank him for the suggestions AND compliment him on good ideas. Try to ask for his advice, ideas, and feedback when neither of you are near a computer so he can’t just ask ChatGPT.
* Model (not just in action but casually explaining your thought processes) how to develop a lesson plan or think of ideas without AI. For example, if you ask his input says he’ll ask ChatGPT and get back to you, maybe gently turn him down and explain that you’ll check an ALT resources website instead, or email a friend for advice, or check through your old lesson plans for inspiration. Aka, indirectly give him ideas for how to solve his own problems without letting a computer do it for him. Offer to send him links to any resources websites you visit regularly for activity ideas or images, like Irasutoya.
My take is that he’s not secure in his abilities and he’s not comfortable asking you or anyone for help. Moreover, he has no idea how to LEARN the things he doesn’t know and is intimidated by the amount of hard work and time it’ll take for him to become genuinely good at his job. He wants to skip that part and just be admired for his excellent results NOW. Except we both know he’s actually not getting results, just digging himself into a deeper pit of doing things poorly and not practicing the skill of learning to do better.
He sounds obnoxious af, don’t get me wrong. But I think based on this post you have more patience than I do (because you’re curious about his perspective and questioning your own, not simply dismissing him out of hand) so you might be exactly the right person to get him out of this pattern of relying on AI and get comfortable struggling to get results himself.