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# A Society of Underdeveloped Minds: An Optimistic Defense of the Confused Learner
- URL: https://www.itsthespark.com/a-society-of-underdeveloped-minds-an-optimistic-defense-of-the-confused-learner/
- Published: 2026-10-28T00:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-28T00:00:00.000Z
- Description: Students today are learning to think critically in a world of AI. As schools tighten restrictions to prevent cheating, the resulting atmosphere of distrust risks discouraging the very curiosity that education is meant to foster.
- Author: Maia Lim Laurie
- Tags: Issue 2: AI Special Section, Issue 2: Intelligence, Opinion, #active

My brow scrunched as I read through [John Paul Rollert’s “A Society of Cheats”](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/08/ai-use-college-cheat/688451/?ref=itsthespark.com) in *The Atlantic.* His argument about the moral decay of college students as a result of AI felt raw and very emotional, decisively claiming that “Students’ use of AI is teaching them to…believe that integrity is for suckers and wimps.” He laments that academic integrity is eroding, and that an entire generation is being taught to prioritize personal gain over honesty, ultimately undermining the trust and shared values that hold society together. 

His message was relevant, understandable, and accurate in many ways, but I felt that it overlooked an important perspective. It may be true that educators in higher education were completely unprepared, and that the arrival of AI can only be likened to “what it might have been like had a tribe of Neanderthals discovered a flying saucer hovering just outside their cave”, but students were unprepared as well. 

The prefrontal cortex, which handles impulse control and long-term planning, is often [described](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-7-things-to-know?ref=itsthespark.com) as still developing into the mid-20s. Many adults take for granted that they completed their education before the advent of AI. They were able to develop their critical thinking skills before being presented with this conflicting tool. 

Students, on the other hand, are often faced with an impossible decision. If they do the assignment honestly, they can improve their critical thinking and exercise the thought processes their education was designed to provide. But in doing so, they might risk a lower grade than their peers who opted to use AI, as seen with a [recent case](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/learning-assessment/2026/07/08/brown-professor-suspects-most-his-class-used-ai-cheat?ref=itsthespark.com) of academic dishonesty at Brown University. Or, they can use the all-knowing genius machine and save hours of effort. There are students who care deeply and want to learn and improve.

> I hate to see her frustration with the system turn into a disdain for writing as a whole. 

At its core, this is an issue that plagues all levels of learning, not just college. I personally am grateful that I was able to complete the majority of my most foundational schooling without the interference of AI. My eighth-grade sister has not been so fortunate. She often relays to me stories of tense classroom atmospheres due to extreme AI-prevention measures, with middle school teachers desperate to curb burgeoning unethical AI use. It is particularly frequent in her National History Day class, where students conduct yearlong, in-depth research on a specific historical topic. They were given only eighty minutes to write an 800-word Document-Based Question (DBQ) essay, a skill very recently introduced to them, with severe consequences for accessing any outside sources or viewing work outside of the allotted time. More than half the class—including my sister—received a “Developing” on that paper, the lowest possible grade.

I get why teachers are afraid, and why certain preventative measures must be implemented. But my sister is a talented writer, and I hate to see her frustration with the system turn into a disdain for writing as a whole. My eighth-grade NHD experience was extremely valuable precisely because I was permitted to sit over my work at home without time pressure, discuss topics with peers, and look up synonyms on *Thesaurus.com*. I would not be surprised if my sister and her peers struggled because their high-surveillance environment limited opportunities for curiosity and exploration. If their desire to learn and improve felt suffocated by a pervasive air of distrust.

As someone with a developing prefrontal cortex, this argument has its ironies. If young brains struggle with impulse control, why provide access to such a dangerous tool that can do the thinking for us? I don’t have the perfect answer. I don’t think many people do have that answer right now, but I can speak on what I have observed as being helpful. Part of my answer is the Gemini Assistant in my AP Economics class, a tool my teacher created that I use frequently. The chatbot is programmed to answer questions in a way that directly connects to the AP textbook, our most recent learning, our future learning, and exactly where in the curriculum it applies. I use it for understanding difficult concepts when a teacher isn’t available, and it has helped me tremendously. Not every school has the flexibility or resources to experiment with advanced AI learning tools, but simple and accessible apparatuses like this could be beneficial toward positively integrating AI into education. 

Adapting teaching methods to changing technological atmospheres is not a novel concept. After all, the arrival of the internet in the 1990s and its resultant concern among educators regarding academic dishonesty draws many parallels to today’s discussion around AI in schools. Many academic institutions, faced with a new battle of endless access to online information, gradually changed the way in which they carried out assignments and exams. Turnitin was founded in 1998 to improve plagiarism detection, teachers shifted more focus toward process evaluation, and responsible internet use was taught. Young people learned modern skills like understanding the reliability of a source and proper citation methods. Many of us are familiar with OPVL, CRAAP, RADAR, and other source credibility acronyms that were taught as early as elementary school. Why can’t we apply the same lens to AI?

While Rollert is correct in that “universities are medieval creations” that should be preserved, he doesn’t acknowledge enough that teaching processes evolve. I choose to embrace the hopeful conviction that the intrinsic nature and purpose of our schooling remain fundamentally the same. It is the world our education should prepare us for that is ever-changing, and the methods of our learning that require continuous modification along with it.