The Wrong Johnson

Eighth grade US history. Fifth period. 

It's the end of the year, so the eighth graders are on the Civil War and Reconstruction. (Eleventh grade US history starts studying after Reconstruction.) 

As Mr. C was going to be out for a week, he had left them a lot of bookwork to do. They had questions that went along with their textbooks. And many of them were using their textbooks to find the answers.

But nowadays, many students use Google rather than their textbooks. (We've explained to them that Google is way harder as the questions are constructed to go with the text. And Google can go way off topic.) Although, that was before.

Axel had his questions out. And his phone. And he decided that he was going to use ChatGPT instead of his textbook. 

Of course, I told him this was a bad idea.

He input the question. It had something to do with President Johnson and his conflicts with the Congress. 

He read out the answer: "Congress and Lyndon B. Johnson..."

At which point I stopped him. "Wrong Johnson."

As most US history teachers do, Mr. C had the presidents' portraits running along the top of the walls of his classroom. George Washington was at the front on the right wall. Joe Biden was at the front on the left wall. 

I found Lincoln on the wall. I pointed to him. I reminded Axel that they had just studied Lincoln's assassination, and the president following him was right next to him. Then I pointed to LBJ, who was on the opposite wall. 

"Different centuries."

Did that send Axel back to his book? Nah. He refined his question to ChatGPT. 

Sigh.

I made sure that Mr. C knew about how Axel found his answers. If nothing else, at least Axel learned that we had two different President Johnsons. I hope he remembers that.