LettersToday’s students are in danger of graduating without learning
Readers discuss how AI intensifies a culture of performance encouraged by social media, and change in Hong Kong’s Central district
Graduation season comes with familiar spectacles: proud parents crowding school gymnasiums, students receiving diplomas that symbolise years of sacrifice and aspiration.
Yet for teachers today, graduation evokes uneasiness. As I watched my students recently, I found myself revisiting the work of sociologist Erving Goffman, particularly The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1956). Goffman argued that social life resembles performances where individuals manage others’ impressions of them.
In the age of artificial intelligence (AI), this presentation has taken on a new form. Students today increasingly present AI-curated versions of themselves.
When generative AI became publicly accessible in 2022, it was introduced as a tool meant to assist learning. But many students no longer use AI merely as aid; they depend on it to think, write and even to formulate questions.
Comparing handwritten classroom outputs with AI-assisted submissions reveals a glaring difference. Suddenly, essays contain polished grammar, sophisticated jargon and highly structured arguments that students themselves struggle to explain orally. Some use terms like “juxtaposition” or “exacerbate” fluently in writing yet cannot define them when asked.