Let’s find some value in your punishment

I read story about parents who were suing the school after their son was penalized for using ai to assist with his history paper.

According to the parents, the school’s handbook did not address ai use before the incident, and they believe their son was punished unfairly for using ai as a research tool rather than for writing. The school’s decision led to detention and a lower grade, which impacted his eligibility for the national honor society and his college applications.

Isn’t that story insane?

The message is basically, if you get bad grade, don’t study harder, lawyer up.

That’s the society we’ve crafted for ourselves. We’ve become obsessed with bending the rules while pretending to be righteous. Accountability is up for debate. Just like facts.

The irony is, those parents, in their quixotic quest for fairness, only made the problem worse. Their lawsuit brought the issue of ai use in school assignments into the public eye. Instead of quietly handling the situation, they made it a larger debate.

A smarter response would have been sitting their son down to have a conversation about unspoken expectations. To talk about navigating life’s many ambiguous rules.

Jimmy, you have to accept the consequences of your current situation. I know it’s unfair, I know it sucks, and I know you’re upset. Just remember, this won’t be the last time something like this happens to you. As you grow older, there will be countless incidents just like this. Where you make a choice, and then reality doesn’t sway in your favor.

But that’s a good thing. Because it will make you more resilient and adaptive.

Look, if you’re truly scared this incident is going to tarnish your record and your college applications get rejected, let’s try and get ahead of it. Why not take your anger and use it as fuel to rewrite your school student handbook? If you really believe that students need clearer guidelines around artificial intelligence, who better to author that policy than you?

You have something no other kid has. Relevant experience and insightful perspective. If your principal want this to be a teaching moment, then let’s give her a taste of her own medicine. We’ll show the school you’re not just another kid with access to the internet, you’re a critical thinker with a thirst for change.

I know it sounds like a lot of extra work, but this rewritten handbook will be your ticket to showing colleges you’ve got resilience, leadership, creativity and a keen eye for loopholes. In a sea of predictable extracurriculars, you can be the kid who single handedly shaped the educational policy of your high school.

That’s what innovators do. They don’t follow the rules, they rewrite them.

Don’t worry honey, we’ll use artificial intelligence to write the whole thing. It will take like twenty minutes. Then we’ll go to the copy shop and print out five hundred copies of the handbook. Tomorrow morning before school, your father and I will bring donuts and hot chocolate for your friends.

We’ll have them pass out copies of this new policy to every single student, teacher, administrator and janitor in school. It will go viral by lunchtime. You’ll be a legend.

The students will see you as brave and rebellious, the teachers will applaud your creativity and initiative, the administrators will find it annoying but endearing, and the janitors will straight up high five you.

We could also deputize your older sister, who’s a junior editor for the school newspaper, to capture the campaign on video. That short film will become your calling card and open doors for college admissions, job opportunities, romantic interests, and other personal growth experiences.

Come on son, what say you? Let’s find some value in your punishment.

One man’s unpleasant consequence is another man’s opportunity for growth! This could be the best thing that ever happened to you.

Jesus, dad, why can’t you and mom just ground me like normal parents?

I just want to finish school, not reform it.

Nope, not my son. A normal grounding won’t teach you a goddamn thing. This project will show you how to bend the world to your vision. If these administrators think we’re just going to sit down and take it on the chin, they’ve got another thing coming,

We’re going all in, baby. I know you think that it’s going to haunt you forever, but that’s how legends are made.

Indeed, this kid’s life trajectory would be forever altered after that fateful decision. A minor conflict would become a national flashpoint in the debate over technology, education, and the eternal struggle between rules and those who rewrite them.

I can see this kid all grown up, giving his ted talk twenty years later.

I used to think my parents were insane for making me do that campaign. It was so awkward that week after the student handbook debacle went down. Yet strangely, that pivotal moment was the catalyst for everything that followed. I earned a scholarship to the the top technical university in the country. I founded the first techno ethics consultancy. Now business schools are now using my case study in their capstone courses. My memoir is being optioned as a major motion picture. And my high school proudly displays a plaque in their main office, commemorating my parents and their encouragement.

Man, thank god that kid cheated once when he was seventeen.

Seems like he’s paid his debts and then some.

Who’s in detention now?