Staff Editorial: Potential new club fees

WHAT’S THE POINT

ChatGPT poses a threat to education

Sarah Peterson

In schools everywhere, it feels as though robots have become increasingly more present in students’ and teachers’ lives. The robot in question, ChatGPT, is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that can write college-level essays within seconds. Its creation has already begun to affect our education system greatly and will continue to for years to come.

ChatGPT seems like futuristic science-fiction. AI can come up with an essay on any topic in seconds. It feels illegal that a computer can now instantly do something that once took hours — or even days — to complete. Is this necessarily wrong, though? ChatGPT may be the future, so why not embrace it now?

Un-bowl-ievable: Sylvia Tolzin works on a clay project in Art Club April 18. Starting in the fall, there will be fees to join some clubs.

Recently, Parks administration has been considering the idea of having a $25 club fee. If this idea is approved, clubs will be charging a $25 fee for students to join. Clubs that are considered service clubs, such as JSU and SOAR, will be exempt from this fee.

The Echo Editorial Board sees a large number of problems with this possible fee. Some students simply won’t be able to afford it. This alone isn’t cheap, but for students who are involved in multiple clubs, the money will add up and become expensive quickly.

Another issue with the fee is that it’s the same amount for every club. Not all clubs meet the same amount of times or do an equal amount of activities. For example, the Spanish club typically meets once a month, while the environmental club meets only once a week. Charging both of these clubs the same price doesn’t make sense. Additionally, having this fee will make clubs less accessible to students. Students might be curious about a club and come to it a few times before officially signing up. With this fee, there isn’t really a way to see if you like the club without wasting money. This will discourage students from trying out new things, because they will have to pay when they might not necessarily like it. The Board believes that a trial basis would be a good idea for each club to have set up — a way for students to come to a few meetings and then decide if they want to join and pay. This way no one has to waste money on a club they end up not enjoying.

This fee would be more understandable if the money was going directly to the clubs, but as of right now, it isn’t. While paying club advisors and building upkeep is extremely important, the Echo Editorial Board believes that there are other ways for the school to raise money for these things, for example a fundraiser.

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The fee limits students in many ways. For one, Park often preaches about getting involved and the importance of participating in different clubs or sports. But the fee restricts students from being involved in too many activities simply because it is too expensive. Also, being in clubs looks great for college. For the part of Parks student population that is looking to attend college after high school, being involved looks great. This fee will decrease the amount of students participating in clubs which could decrease students’ likelihood of getting into a better school.

Another problem that the Board saw with the fee is that some clubs will most likely be shut down. With students who start new clubs, in order for it to be approved it must have a certain number of members. Oftentimes people will just put their names down so the club can get started, even if they aren’t positive about being involved in the future. With the fee, people wouldn’t want to sign up for a new club that they couldn’t test out without paying for. This will definitely make it more challenging for student-led clubs to begin. Lastly, due to the fees, lots of clubs will most likely lose a lot of members. Especially clubs that don’t meet that often, which would ultimately just lead to them having to be canceled. Another issue the Echo Editorial Board noticed was how much of a hassle this could be for PSEO students. Full time PSEO students are rarely in the building, but many are still a part of sports and clubs. If a student was a part of a club that met only once a month and since they were not in the building they weren’t there regularly, it wouldn’t make sense for them to even be in the club.

The Echo Editorial Board unanimously believes that Park should not charge students to participate in clubs.

Some believe that it will reshape the way we think about education and work, while others believe ChatGPT will cause the loss of all originality and creativity within people. ChatGPT will do more bad than good. We have already seen its effects in school, with teachers discovering more of their students than ever have been cheating on all sorts of assignments using ChatGPT. The scale of this cheating, especially at Park, has been raising concern among staff and parents.

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What’s the POINT?

AI chatbot sparks concern words and may be e-mailed or submitted in room C275. Anonymous letters wherein the publication name does not know the identity of the writer will not be printed.

In addition to causing cheating, AI also brings concerns of major privacy problems in the future. If it were ever to gain full access to the internet, it would be able to pull from anywhere and disseminate that information into its works. Some of this information could also be false, as ChatGPT lacks a absolute accuracy in detecting misinformation.

There are a few ways to minimize the issue of ChatGPT in schools. First, teachers can shift from online-based work, to more in-class writing and oral work. Teachers can also take advantage of GPT detectors, however these can sometimes be innacurate and flag student written work as AI written.

ChatGPT does pose some important questions about how our education system will look in the future. What if the things we value now as skills in school aren’t as important in the coming years? Although students should always be inspired to use the resources available, they should be using them as a way to inspire their creativity, not inhibit it.

ChatGPT isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s an incredible creation that can do a lot of good. However, it should be kept out of schools.

It’s a fundamental part of learning that students can use their minds and personal experiences to formulate their own thoughts and learn how to put them into words. ChatGPT can only chew up information and spit it out in a different order. There’s nothing wrong with using it every once in a while. But, if we ever get to a point in our world where we depend on ChatGPT, we’ll be no better off than a world controlled by robots.

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DESIGN

BY Crystal Diaz