Why banning AI in schools is an equity issue—from an entrepreneur who lived it.
Two decades ago, I moved to the United States with big dreams and zero English.
I wasn’t living in a college dorm surrounded by other students. I was staying with a host family, immersing myself in their daily lives just to survive linguistically. Every dinner conversation was a lesson. Every casual exchange was practice.
I remember sitting alone in my room at their house, spending hours perfecting a college presentation. I obsessed over the design, structured the logic carefully, and polished the visuals until they looked professional. I knew the material inside and out. I knew I had one of the strongest ideas in the class.
When I turned it in, my professor didn’t congratulate me.
He looked at me with suspicion.
“Did you do this yourself?”
He couldn’t reconcile what he saw with what he heard. In his mind, the student who struggled to conjugate verbs in class couldn’t possibly be the same student who produced that work. He assumed I cheated because my presentation was “too good” for my English.
That moment shaped everything that came after. It exposed what I now call the Language Trap—the false belief that if you cannot speak a language perfectly, you cannot be intelligent, creative, or capable of leadership.
The Disconnect in the Faculty Room
Today, I sit in faculty meetings as an educator with an MBA and successful businesses behind me, and I see the same disconnect playing out again—just in a different form.
My colleagues are well-meaning. But most have never had to learn a language from scratch just to survive. They don’t know the frustration of having a sharp, fully formed idea trapped in your head because you don’t know the right preposition to release it.
They worry that AI is “doing the work” for students.
I worry that without AI, some students’ work will never be seen at all.
From “I Wish” to “When Can We Start?”
AI’s power goes far beyond grammar correction. It bridges the gap between having an idea and having the skills to execute it.
For years, I had lyrics and melodies sitting on a shelf, untouched—not because I lacked creativity, but because I wasn’t a musician. Recently, I used Suno AI to turn those lyrics into full songs. The creativity was mine. The AI simply handed me the instrument.
The same thing is happening in my classroom.
I’ve always had big technical ideas, but coding was a weak spot for me. In the past, that would have been a dead end. Now, thanks to AI bridging that gap, my students and I are building a fully autonomous delivery robot for our school.
We didn’t wait four years to master syntax before building. We learned the syntax while we built.
This is the same wall I hit years ago—only now, my students don’t have to stop at it.
I no longer look at projects and think, I wish I could do that.
I look at my students and ask, When can we start?
“Polite” Labels Don’t Fix the Problem
In education, we love changing acronyms. ESL became ELL, then MLL—each shift framed as more politically correct.
But changing the label doesn’t change the reality.
Political correctness might protect a student’s feelings, but it doesn’t protect their future. It doesn’t give them equality.
What actually helps is tools.
Giving students the power to compete on the same level as their native-speaking peers is far more respectful than offering them a nicer label while leaving the barrier intact.
The Futility of Prohibition
History has already taught us this lesson.
- When calculators arrived, math teachers panicked.
- When the internet emerged, schools tried to block it.
- When Wikipedia launched, students were warned never to touch it.
Did any of those bans stop progress? No. They simply widened the gap between students who learned to use the tools and those who were left behind.
We cannot label an entire generation as “cheaters” because a few misuse a tool. Cheaters will cheat with or without AI. But when we ban the tool for everyone out of fear, we punish the honest student who just needs a ladder to climb over the wall.
The Great Equalizer
This is why I embrace AI in my classroom.
If I had access to these tools twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have been cheating. I would have been leveling the playing field.
- I would have written my complex thoughts in my native language.
- I would have used AI as an editor to translate those ideas into professional English.
- I would have spent my energy on innovation, not battling syntax.
AI doesn’t replace thinking. It removes friction.
The “Real World” Standard
As an entrepreneur, I tell my students:
“In business, nobody asks if you used a tool to write the pitch. They ask if the pitch won the client.”
I don’t teach my students like test-takers. I teach them like future executives.
- If AI helps a student translate their intelligence into clear English, that’s not a shortcut—it’s efficiency.
- It frees them to focus on strategy, problem-solving, and creativity—the same skills that earned me my MBA and built my companies.
A Challenge to Educators
We need to stop treating AI as a threat and start treating it as a bridge.
For native speakers, AI may feel like a convenience.
For immigrants, dreamers, and learners with gaps, AI is dignity.
It allows intelligence to be seen clearly for the first time.
I teach to uncover hidden potential.
Let’s not block it with outdated rules.
About the Author
Honor Anar is an MBA graduate, successful entrepreneur, and passionate educator. After moving to the United States over two decades ago with no English, he built a career in business and now dedicates his work to preparing the next generation of leaders. He is the founder of CTEzone, a platform designed to bridge the gap between education and the real business world.