12 Cultural Reproduction: AIs Interrupting the Cultural Healing Work of Teachers
Belinda 'Ofakihevahanoa Fotu
Abstract
The following is a narrative where a student who unwisely trusted AI to write his term paper, based off of a prompt and a historically culturally problematic text, The Lord of the Flies, realizes that the AI wrote a racist essay for him. Because this took place in a culturally and critically conscious classroom, the student was accountable for the deeply flawed ideas written by the AI.
Keywords: cultural reproduction, Eurocentrism, AI ethics, writing assessments, autoethnography
As I finished reading a particularly egregious passage from his essay aloud, I looked up at the student who watched me with his jaw slacked and eyes wide.
“Ms. Fotu, I…I…” he said and then attempted a jumbled explanation that began many sentences but never finished them. His movements were jolting, and color rose in his cheeks. Out of mercy, I cut him off.
“Eli. In class discussions you and your classmates talked extensively about the specific problematic nature of William Golding’s Eurocentric views and how he created insults on Indigenous cultures. Do you remember some of the things from those discussions?”
“Yes, I do. I understand all about the Indigenous peoples and how he put them down and instead focused on how he thought England was the best…” Eli was gesticulating again, as if his flailing arms were searching for an anchor that would secure his explanation. “I don’t know how that…” He stopped and looked at the passage from his essay I had just finished reading, “I don’t know how that,” he attempted again and then gave up. He stood quietly looking down.
What was floating in the air within that moment was that we both knew that Eli had not written that fairly racist essay. An AI had. Both of us kept back from saying the obvious because it would change the air between us and the trust that is necessary in that particular learning environment. Eli had never cheated before. He had been a contributing member our classroom community of thinkers and writers. Under a certain amount of pressure and with a new, cutting-edge tool in hand, Eli had made a mistake and taken an AI written essay and turned it in as his own. Now Eli was sitting within a regrettable dilemma: either he admitted to cheating or he took ownership of writing racist, ethnocentric views. I gave him an out.
“Perhaps you can rewrite this essay.” I said quietly, as I closed the screen with the AI generated essay, an aggregation of what must have been a corpus of Eurocentric literature analyzing The Lord of the Flies. “Please start from scratch and just reimagine your approach to this essay, keeping in mind the topics we talked about in class. Look at the writing activities we’ve done throughout the term and consider using those as the body paragraphs of your essay.”
“Thank you, Ms. Fotu. I’ll give it to you on Monday.”
“That’s fine, Eli”
“Thank you, Ms. Fotu.”
“Ok.”
Questions to Guide Reflection and Discussion
- Reflect on the ethical challenges posed by AI-generated content that unintentionally perpetuates racial or cultural biases. How can educators address these issues?
- Explore the role of educators in guiding students to critically assess and understand the limitations of AI tools in academic settings.
- How can educators use incidents like the one described to teach students about the importance of personal accountability in using AI tools?
About the author
name: Belinda 'Ofakihevahanoa Fotu
institution: Utah State University
Belinda ‘Ofakihevahanoa Fotu (‘Ofa) has been a high school English teacher for twelve years, primarily teaching sophomore students Language Arts and senior students College Writing for their UVU G.E. college credit. ‘Ofa has her B.A. in English-Teaching from BYU and an M.Ed. from SUU where her thesis research was on building critical consciousness in writing curriculum to improve student writing skills. She is currently working on her dissertation for a Ph.D. in Education from USU in the concentration of Cultural Studies. Her research centers the Tongan American diaspora and generational cultural knowledge transfer.
