Students will always find a way around the rules
Some teachers have gone fully handwritten to stop AI. It works in the classroom. It doesn't change what happens after the bell rings.
Daniel Gibbon25 August 2026A head of department told me some of her teachers have "completely ditched laptops altogether… and gone fully handwritten everything." I understand why.
In a 2026 Learning First survey of NSW teachers and school leaders, 73% of senior secondary teachers who say their students use AI say they use it to complete assessment tasks. That's a lot of cognitive offloading.
So I understand going fully handwritten. Ditching laptops prevents students from using AI in the classroom. But it doesn't change what students do after the bell rings.
“If students are always going to find new ways to use AI incorrectly, we should create an environment for them to use it correctly first.”
A VCE consultant working across 38 schools told me about a private tutor who uses AI to generate annotated sample essays. In her words, the students then "dutifully copy these essays out, and submit them to the school during class." Teachers are then effectively marking AI, now without being able to detect it.
This isn't entirely new. A Head of English told me students used to spend 12 months perfecting one essay to reproduce in an exam. But instead of memorising and copying something they pre-wrote, they are now memorising and copying something AI writes.
Unfortunately, students are always going to find ways to get around measures designed to promote the learning process. I think if teachers tell students that AI use is accepted, but with thoughtful guardrails, then students will be less inclined to use it for cognitive offloading.
We're building this system across Australian schools right now, where AI helps provide rubric-aligned and teacher-approved feedback, instead of just giving students "the answer".
There's no magical solution to helping students find appreciation for the full learning process, and how many teachers have responded makes plenty of sense. But if students are always going to find new ways to use AI incorrectly, I believe we should create an environment for them to use it correctly first.