AI Real Talk: The Curiosity Connection

Jake Rupp teaches AP Lang and public speaking, and he built his TikTok following by breaking down rhetoric in bite-sized lessons. In this episode we get into what voice actually means, why AI-written text is so easy to spot, and why Jake has decided AI has no place in his classroom at all.

Jake grades without points. He built a feedback and revision system years before AI showed up, and students are still using AI to write their own reflections on their own AI-generated work. That single fact reshapes the whole conversation. We talk about a student who told him flat out she wasn't thinking about getting caught; she just needed the assignment done. We talk about the curse of knowledge and why group work and presentations fail when we assign them without ever teaching them. And we talk about whether early AI exposure builds better judgment later or just moves the desensitization earlier.

This one gets a little heated, a lot honest, and ends with Jake handing me one of the best lines I've recorded on this show.

Find Jake on TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and beyond!
Connect with Matt on LinkedIn!

Timestamps: 
0:00 Introduction

2:00 Jake's background teaching rhetoric and how his TikTok lessons grew out of the classroom

21:00 AI and student voice, the cognitive offload problem

24:00 The student who said "I wasn't thinking about you at all"

30:00 Jake's gradeless classroom and why it hasn't stopped AI misuse

36:00 The curse of knowledge and why we assign skills we never teach

41:00 Tech giants, AI in schools, and the shift from preference to reliance

50:00 The doctor question, and proving what you actually know

56:00 Gen Z, work ethic, and whether AI anxiety is about something else

1:01:00 Student disgust at AI generated feedback and Jake's non-negotiables

1:05:00 Being curious about the future, without AI

1:07:00 Wrap-up and where to find Jake

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