The rules for working are very very different from being at school.
No you were not cheating, you did what was expected from you. But you knew that.
How so and or AI is changing the rules everywhere no? Today it seems not good yet tomorrow it's how things are...
The goals are very different. It was like this also before AI.
The goal in school is to learn things. To learn to write you can't just copy an article from a paper and say it is yours. You have not learned.
At work, the goal is to get things done.
In our field you needed / need to learn new things to stay relevant yet now the new thing does it almost all for you.
As well if one generation is using AI to get things done why wouldn't a younger generation do the same? Do as I say and not as I do.. that never has held well over time.
But you already learned the web stack--school kids haven't. Your mental model is what prepared you to use LLMs well to solve a problem. So if they're going to do as you did, they need to learn the subject first and then learn how to extend their reach with LLMs. Otherwise, they're just cheating in school.
You don't need that knowledge as i just went to GPT and asked it ...
"I need to create a dropdown for a website can you help me make it?"
And then I asked,
"How do I make what you wrote above work?"
It detailed the things one needs to do ..copy/paste each block of code in three separate notepad files and save each one accordingly (index.html, style.css and script.js) all in one folder. Once that's done double click on the index.html to run the dropdown.
the kids are going to be in a different world than we are. just like it was useful for us to learn a foreign language (still being taught it schools but those days are numbered) for kids these days it is a waste of time (I am sure there are many studies that say being bi/tri/… lingual has benefits beyond communication but you get my point).
I think while we may think “they need to learn the subject first…” do they really? and if they do why? e.g. someone teaching their kid “web development” in soon-to-be 2025 is insane given the tools we have now… so while there are things for sure kids should learn it is not easy to figure out what those things actually are