The Day a High School Math Teacher First Opened ChatGPT
He didn't copy and paste. He co-designed a lesson with AI — and one student stopped asking "when will I ever use math?" This is the most important AI teaching story every educator should read in 2026.
## Meet the Teacher
Al Rabanera is a high school math teacher at La Vista High School in Fullerton, California, and a **2025-26 Teach Plus Leading Edge Educator Fellow** — a prestigious national fellowship recognizing frontline educators who drive change in the classroom.
When he wrote this piece on March 25, 2026, he wasn't writing about AI technology. He was writing about how AI helped a teacher reclaim his own professional judgment.
---
While school districts worldwide were still drafting AI policies — and Google announced plans to train 6 million teachers on AI tools — real teachers in real classrooms were already making real-time decisions about AI. Al Rabanera was one of them. He didn't wait for district guidelines or approved materials. He opened ChatGPT himself. And what he discovered wasn't about whether AI should be used — it was that his own agency as a teacher, his ability to *design learning*, had long been worn away.
---
## Where It Started: A Question He Couldn't Dodge
The story didn't begin with AI. It began with a student's question.
A student named Samantha asked Al Rabanera something many teachers have heard but rarely know how to answer:
> "When are we ever going to use math?"
> — Samantha, student of Al Rabanera
He wrote honestly about his reaction: "That question kept circling in my mind. Compliance culture had trained me to deflect instead of confront. But this time I couldn't dodge it — because I knew the lesson I was teaching wasn't reaching my students."
The textbook examples didn't reflect students' lives or the issues they cared about. What he wanted was simple, but standardized district curriculum had never given him the space — he wanted students to see what was happening in their own communities, to look critically at what they were learning, to see themselves in the material.
---
## How He Used AI — Five Key Steps
This is the most important part of the story. Al Rabanera described in detail how he "co-designed a lesson with AI" — not as a technical tutorial, but as a demonstration of a teaching philosophy:
### Step 1: Articulate *what you want to design* — don't just ask AI what to do
When he opened ChatGPT, he didn't type "give me a math lesson." He typed out exactly what he wanted: "I want to design a lesson that is locally grounded, focused on real issues, and requires students to think critically rather than comply passively."
This framing mattered. He didn't throw a vague question at AI. He first clarified his own teaching intention — and only then could AI actually help.
### Step 2: Ask AI for structure, angles, and guiding questions — not answers
What did ChatGPT give him? In his own words: "ChatGPT gave me possible lesson plan structures, thematic angles, and guiding questions."
Notice: not "give me the answer" — but "give me options, give me a framework." AI provided the material. He made the choices.
### Step 3: The most critical step — he didn't copy and paste
This is the most powerful line in the entire piece:
> "I didn't copy and paste its suggestions; I evaluated, revised and shaped them into something that reflected my students and my professional judgment."
> — Al Rabanera
He used a key word: **co-designed**. Not "AI designed it for me." Not "I used AI." But "I designed it *with* AI." That distinction determines whether AI becomes a tool — or a replacement.
### Step 4: He questioned, pushed back, and asked AI to iterate
He wrote: "I selected ideas that connected student voice to the current world. I questioned AI-generated content, pushed back on suggestions that didn't fit, revised drafts, and asked it to iterate."
Four verbs — questioned, pushed back, revised, asked to iterate — that's what "human in the loop" actually looks like. Not passive acceptance. Active leadership at every step.
### Step 5: He modeled the entire process for his students
The final product was a poster project — "students explored how math helps them understand the world around them, by analyzing current events happening in their own communities."
But he didn't just assign it. He did it first, in front of his students: "I selected a news article, explained why it interested me, and showed how math helps us understand it more deeply. Together we identified the numbers, data, and patterns in the story, connected them to real math concepts, and discussed — why does this math matter, and how does it shape our lives?"
---
## Samantha's Poster: A Story About Her Own Life
Samantha — the student who first asked "when will I ever use math?" — was the first to finish her poster.
She chose an article from local independent media Voice of OC: *"How Can Fullerton Prevent a Projected $20 Million Spending Deficit in Three Years?"* City leaders were considering tax increases that would make living there less affordable.
Her math analysis did three things:
- Examined a potential 2% tax rate adjustment
- Charted long-term trends
- Questioned why lower-income residents would be disproportionately affected
Al Rabanera wrote: "For Samantha, math wasn't abstract — any tax or fee adjustment directly affected her family and the people around her."
That was the real outcome of this lesson. Math went from a subject a student avoided to a tool she used to understand her own life.
---
## The Two Deepest Observations
Later in the piece, Al Rabanera wrote two passages worth reading more than once:
> "That experience with AI made me realize: my agency had long been dormant, buried under years of compliance."
> — Al Rabanera
And possibly the most powerful line in the entire article:
> "This moment wasn't about technology. It was about whether teachers are willing to reclaim their role as designers of learning — or keep waiting for someone else to tell them what to do next. Teachers don't need permission to lead. They need to remember how."
> — Al Rabanera
The article ends with one short sentence:
> "Samantha never asked again what math had to do with her life. She already knew."
> — Al Rabanera, final line
---
## Why This Story Is Worth Remembering
Three things stand out when you place this story in the context of global AI education in 2026:
**First, it shows what "co-design" actually looks like.** Conversations about AI in the classroom often get stuck in a binary: use it or don't. Al Rabanera's story offers a third path — let AI provide the material, but let the teacher make the choices. AI didn't replace his professional judgment. It helped him find it again.
**Second, it reveals a problem deeper than AI: teacher agency.** He wrote: "AI didn't create this problem. AI just exposed it." Many teachers have already become, under compliance culture, people who execute district decisions and follow prescribed materials. What made AI uncomfortable for him wasn't that it was too powerful — it was that it forced him to confront how long he'd gone without truly *designing* learning.
**Third, it aligns perfectly with global trends.** Singapore's AICET motto is "Teaching With, Not By, AI." The International Baccalaureate's second AI principle is "Educator Agency: Competence-Led, Responsibility-Grounded." Al Rabanera's personal story is a first-hand, real-world version of these global principles.
---
## To Every Teacher in the Classroom
What's most moving about this story isn't how powerful AI is, or what math formula Samantha learned. It's that a teacher, standing in front of AI, chose to become a *designer* again.
Al Rabanera didn't wait for his district to tell him how to use AI. He didn't wait for approved materials or someone else's demonstration. He opened ChatGPT, typed out his teaching intention, and then designed, revised, pushed back, and iterated — with AI.
**Teachers don't need permission to lead. They need to remember how.**
---
*Source: CalMatters Commentary, March 25, 2026, by Al Rabanera. Licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.*
Al Rabanera is a high school math teacher at La Vista High School in Fullerton, California, and a **2025-26 Teach Plus Leading Edge Educator Fellow** — a prestigious national fellowship recognizing frontline educators who drive change in the classroom.
When he wrote this piece on March 25, 2026, he wasn't writing about AI technology. He was writing about how AI helped a teacher reclaim his own professional judgment.
---
While school districts worldwide were still drafting AI policies — and Google announced plans to train 6 million teachers on AI tools — real teachers in real classrooms were already making real-time decisions about AI. Al Rabanera was one of them. He didn't wait for district guidelines or approved materials. He opened ChatGPT himself. And what he discovered wasn't about whether AI should be used — it was that his own agency as a teacher, his ability to *design learning*, had long been worn away.
---
## Where It Started: A Question He Couldn't Dodge
The story didn't begin with AI. It began with a student's question.
A student named Samantha asked Al Rabanera something many teachers have heard but rarely know how to answer:
> "When are we ever going to use math?"
> — Samantha, student of Al Rabanera
He wrote honestly about his reaction: "That question kept circling in my mind. Compliance culture had trained me to deflect instead of confront. But this time I couldn't dodge it — because I knew the lesson I was teaching wasn't reaching my students."
The textbook examples didn't reflect students' lives or the issues they cared about. What he wanted was simple, but standardized district curriculum had never given him the space — he wanted students to see what was happening in their own communities, to look critically at what they were learning, to see themselves in the material.
---
## How He Used AI — Five Key Steps
This is the most important part of the story. Al Rabanera described in detail how he "co-designed a lesson with AI" — not as a technical tutorial, but as a demonstration of a teaching philosophy:
### Step 1: Articulate *what you want to design* — don't just ask AI what to do
When he opened ChatGPT, he didn't type "give me a math lesson." He typed out exactly what he wanted: "I want to design a lesson that is locally grounded, focused on real issues, and requires students to think critically rather than comply passively."
This framing mattered. He didn't throw a vague question at AI. He first clarified his own teaching intention — and only then could AI actually help.
### Step 2: Ask AI for structure, angles, and guiding questions — not answers
What did ChatGPT give him? In his own words: "ChatGPT gave me possible lesson plan structures, thematic angles, and guiding questions."
Notice: not "give me the answer" — but "give me options, give me a framework." AI provided the material. He made the choices.
### Step 3: The most critical step — he didn't copy and paste
This is the most powerful line in the entire piece:
> "I didn't copy and paste its suggestions; I evaluated, revised and shaped them into something that reflected my students and my professional judgment."
> — Al Rabanera
He used a key word: **co-designed**. Not "AI designed it for me." Not "I used AI." But "I designed it *with* AI." That distinction determines whether AI becomes a tool — or a replacement.
### Step 4: He questioned, pushed back, and asked AI to iterate
He wrote: "I selected ideas that connected student voice to the current world. I questioned AI-generated content, pushed back on suggestions that didn't fit, revised drafts, and asked it to iterate."
Four verbs — questioned, pushed back, revised, asked to iterate — that's what "human in the loop" actually looks like. Not passive acceptance. Active leadership at every step.
### Step 5: He modeled the entire process for his students
The final product was a poster project — "students explored how math helps them understand the world around them, by analyzing current events happening in their own communities."
But he didn't just assign it. He did it first, in front of his students: "I selected a news article, explained why it interested me, and showed how math helps us understand it more deeply. Together we identified the numbers, data, and patterns in the story, connected them to real math concepts, and discussed — why does this math matter, and how does it shape our lives?"
---
## Samantha's Poster: A Story About Her Own Life
Samantha — the student who first asked "when will I ever use math?" — was the first to finish her poster.
She chose an article from local independent media Voice of OC: *"How Can Fullerton Prevent a Projected $20 Million Spending Deficit in Three Years?"* City leaders were considering tax increases that would make living there less affordable.
Her math analysis did three things:
- Examined a potential 2% tax rate adjustment
- Charted long-term trends
- Questioned why lower-income residents would be disproportionately affected
Al Rabanera wrote: "For Samantha, math wasn't abstract — any tax or fee adjustment directly affected her family and the people around her."
That was the real outcome of this lesson. Math went from a subject a student avoided to a tool she used to understand her own life.
---
## The Two Deepest Observations
Later in the piece, Al Rabanera wrote two passages worth reading more than once:
> "That experience with AI made me realize: my agency had long been dormant, buried under years of compliance."
> — Al Rabanera
And possibly the most powerful line in the entire article:
> "This moment wasn't about technology. It was about whether teachers are willing to reclaim their role as designers of learning — or keep waiting for someone else to tell them what to do next. Teachers don't need permission to lead. They need to remember how."
> — Al Rabanera
The article ends with one short sentence:
> "Samantha never asked again what math had to do with her life. She already knew."
> — Al Rabanera, final line
---
## Why This Story Is Worth Remembering
Three things stand out when you place this story in the context of global AI education in 2026:
**First, it shows what "co-design" actually looks like.** Conversations about AI in the classroom often get stuck in a binary: use it or don't. Al Rabanera's story offers a third path — let AI provide the material, but let the teacher make the choices. AI didn't replace his professional judgment. It helped him find it again.
**Second, it reveals a problem deeper than AI: teacher agency.** He wrote: "AI didn't create this problem. AI just exposed it." Many teachers have already become, under compliance culture, people who execute district decisions and follow prescribed materials. What made AI uncomfortable for him wasn't that it was too powerful — it was that it forced him to confront how long he'd gone without truly *designing* learning.
**Third, it aligns perfectly with global trends.** Singapore's AICET motto is "Teaching With, Not By, AI." The International Baccalaureate's second AI principle is "Educator Agency: Competence-Led, Responsibility-Grounded." Al Rabanera's personal story is a first-hand, real-world version of these global principles.
---
## To Every Teacher in the Classroom
What's most moving about this story isn't how powerful AI is, or what math formula Samantha learned. It's that a teacher, standing in front of AI, chose to become a *designer* again.
Al Rabanera didn't wait for his district to tell him how to use AI. He didn't wait for approved materials or someone else's demonstration. He opened ChatGPT, typed out his teaching intention, and then designed, revised, pushed back, and iterated — with AI.
**Teachers don't need permission to lead. They need to remember how.**
---
*Source: CalMatters Commentary, March 25, 2026, by Al Rabanera. Licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.*