Ninth-grade World History students at Morris Catholic High School in Denville learned more about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 by talking to a U.S. soldier who was there. Well, sort of.
Now that Pearl Harbor survivors has dwindled to 16, these students instead conducted a virtual conversation with a fictional soldier during the previous academic year. They used the ChatGPT digital application through SchoolAI.com, asking him questions such as “What was it like seeing the destruction?” The app then formulated answers using vast databases of information across the internet and the specific methodologies it learned to interpret their questions.
“By asking the soldier questions, the students got a perspective about the ‘day that will live in infamy’,” said Matt DeFranco, the 9th grade World History teacher, quoting Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous phrase about the Pearl Harbor attack. “The students use technology in their daily lives, so they are comfortable using it in the classroom.”
Today, the three Catholic high schools of the Paterson Diocese are planning to or have already introduced generative artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, into their classrooms or administrative work. In addition to Morris Catholic, there are Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta and DePaul Catholic High School in Wayne.
AI is a technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem-solving, decision-making, creativity, and autonomy, according to IBM.
Schools everywhere, including Catholic schools, have been working to implement rapidly developing AI. The debate about AI’s potential advantages and pitfalls — and its possible existential threat to humanity — has been intensifying as the technology becomes more prevalent in everyday life.
Dan O’Keefe, the new president of the Sussex County Catholic Academy in Sparta, asserts that schools that design how they engage with AI can free up teachers’ time. Then, teachers will have more freedom “to focus on their students’ humanity and hearts — differentiating a Catholic school from its competitors.”
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In November 2023, O’Keefe and Rob Birdsell, president of Catholic Virtual, co-authored an article titled, “AI and Humanism: Keeping the Catholic Charism Alive in Education by Embracing AI.” It was published by Catholic Virtual, an organization that partners with Catholic schools and dioceses to develop and support their online education strategies.
“It is critical for school leaders to not only strategically think about how a school will use AI, but also how it can enhance a school’s focus on not only a student’s mind but their heart — how to foster and embrace the virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance — a hallmark of a quality Catholic education,” O’Keefe and Birdsell write in the article.
The Sussex County Catholic Academy staff are slated to attend an upcoming AI workshop, O’Keefe said. The academy comprises Pope John High School, Pope John XXIII Middle School, and Rev. George A. Brown Memorial School. O’Keefe was president of Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, N.Y., when he co-wrote the article.
DePaul has been formulating a plan to incorporate AI since five teachers attended a technology conference last year. One of them was Steve Sokolewicz, History Department chairman.
“AI will help reach students who have different learning abilities and preferences and make presentations come alive,” Sokolewicz said.
Also, AI can help further the ideals of Humanism, which embraces objective truth — a fundamental part of the Catholic faith, the article’s authors assert. Students can be taught to ask questions about morality through a Catholic lens.
For example, O’Keefe and Birdsell asked ChatGPT what Jesus thinks of assisted suicide for a concrete example of how the software designer’s moral perspective affects AI’s response. AI answered: “Some Christians may argue that Jesus’s emphasis on love, compassion, and caring for the vulnerable suggests that he would be against assisted suicide, as it involves intentionally ending a life.”
Then, the authors asked the AI to write a paper on Jesus’s perspective on assisted suicide: An Ethical Analysis. It responded: “This paper aims to explore the hypothetical perspective of Jesus on the controversial issue of assisted suicide, drawing insights from his teachings as recorded in the Bible.”
“The generalizations in the AI-created passages will force a reader and student to go deeper. They will need training in and support of critical thinking,” O’Keefe and Birdsell write.
The authors also write that educators should be trained to guard against potential threats in the classroom, including papers written entirely by AI without student input and supported by inaccurate facts.
O’Keefe and Birdsell emphasize that AI can never replace teachers, who develop interpersonal relationships with their students.
“The technology is there to enhance the classroom experience by helping teachers teach and students learn,” O’Keefe said.
Read O’Keefe and Birdsell’s article AI and Humanism: Keeping the Catholic Charism Alive in Education by Embracing AI.
Diocesan Catholic high schools harnessing power of artificial intelligence