By Martin Davis
Perhaps because I make my living with words, it's not surprising that I'm fascinated with foreign languages. So my wife was nonplussed a month ago when she noticed I had purchased a book to learn Egyptian hieroglyphics.
"There you go again," I could almost hear her saying while watching me trying to draw a baby chick (the hieroglyph for the letter w) that didn't look too much like an owl (the hieroglyph for the letter m), "learning another dead language!"
Those who don't know me tend to look at me funny when they find out, and ask why I would bother. The answer's fairly straightforward. Translations are often wrong, and don't capture the nuance and beauty of the original writers.
We grow more by wrestling with the original, than with someone's translation.
Could we be on the verge of asking the same why-bother type of question about writing? Daniel Herman, a high school English teacher in Berkeley, California, writes in The Atlantic magazine that we're already there.
A new technology, ChatGPT, has Herman trying to explain to his students why they should bother to even learn to write anymore.
With a simple query, ChatGPT can crank out personal letters, essays, "think pieces," cover letters, and more in just seconds.
"I asked the program," Herman wrote, to compose "a playful, sophisticated, emotional 600-word college-admissions essay about how my experience volunteering at my local SPCA had prepared me for the academic rigor of Stanford."
The end result was pretty darn good. Would it pass muster with the Stanford admissions' office? I suspect the day is soon coming when we'll find out.
That's because students in Herman's English classes are increasingly turning to ChatGPT to crank out their writing assignments.
Lest one believe this technology is a passing fad, think back to when pocket calculators first came on the scene. What was unthinkable just 40 years ago ― schools turning over basic math to a computer ― has become commonplace.
The consequences have been profound. In a world awash in data, the rate of innumeracy is growing. In turn, fewer people are able to understand basic data, are more easily duped by pseudoscience, and more easily taken in by everyday pricing games.
ChatGPT and related technologies are creating a similar problem for English education.
"I believe my most essential tasks, as a teacher," Herman wrote, "are helping my students think critically, disagree respectfully, argue carefully and flexibly, and understand their mind and the world around them. Unconventional, improvisatory, expressive, meta-cognitive writing can be an extraordinary vehicle for those things."
And he's correct. The problem, he notes, is that there are strong headwinds against that type of learning.
"[I]f most contemporary writing pedagogy is necessarily focused on helping students master the basics," he asks, "what happens when a computer can do it for us?"
ChatGPT does it for us. And it will speed the education breakdown into two distinct classes. At the top will be those who are taught to appreciate the importance of writing as a tool for developing thought, thinking logically through an argument, and crafting reasoned, respectful objections that don't devolve into insults.
Those people will access the full range of possibilities in their professional and personal lives.
Others will be taught the basics. Rather than learning to struggle with composing complex essays and wrestling with troublesome grammar and spelling, they will be passed on through school with instructions for how to use ChatGPT, and little else.
As with math, those who have their intellectual muscles strengthened by writing will have the world at their feet. And at their feet will be those who on their own can't write a simple cover letter without assistance from a computer.
Challenging ideas create strong minds. Instead, we're getting technological hand-holding to pamper the next generation and overzealous parents wanting to decide what to feed students.
What parents' rights advocates call "indoctrination" and "brainwashing," and what Gov. Youngkin and his education department call "divisive topics," are nothing of the kind. They are the rich soil from which fertile minds grow.
Good teachers not only talk about topics like racism and gender identity and the complexities of understanding the Constitution, they force students to struggle with difficult questions. The ability to write about those issues strengthens students' minds and prepares them for a life that is not defined by simple answers.
Education is a journey filled with hard questions, and hard work.
We start with the basics. But to be successful means wrestling with raw, original ideas, not someone else's translation.
Martin Davis is Opinion Page editor of The Free Lance ― Star, Frederiksburg, Va. This article was distributed by Tribune Content Agency.
Perhaps because I make my living with words, it's not surprising that I'm fascinated with foreign languages. So my wife was nonplussed a month ago when she noticed I had purchased a book to learn Egyptian hieroglyphics.
"There you go again," I could almost hear her saying while watching me trying to draw a baby chick (the hieroglyph for the letter w) that didn't look too much like an owl (the hieroglyph for the letter m), "learning another dead language!"
Those who don't know me tend to look at me funny when they find out, and ask why I would bother. The answer's fairly straightforward. Translations are often wrong, and don't capture the nuance and beauty of the original writers.
We grow more by wrestling with the original, than with someone's translation.
Could we be on the verge of asking the same why-bother type of question about writing? Daniel Herman, a high school English teacher in Berkeley, California, writes in The Atlantic magazine that we're already there.
A new technology, ChatGPT, has Herman trying to explain to his students why they should bother to even learn to write anymore.
With a simple query, ChatGPT can crank out personal letters, essays, "think pieces," cover letters, and more in just seconds.
"I asked the program," Herman wrote, to compose "a playful, sophisticated, emotional 600-word college-admissions essay about how my experience volunteering at my local SPCA had prepared me for the academic rigor of Stanford."
The end result was pretty darn good. Would it pass muster with the Stanford admissions' office? I suspect the day is soon coming when we'll find out.
That's because students in Herman's English classes are increasingly turning to ChatGPT to crank out their writing assignments.
Lest one believe this technology is a passing fad, think back to when pocket calculators first came on the scene. What was unthinkable just 40 years ago ― schools turning over basic math to a computer ― has become commonplace.
The consequences have been profound. In a world awash in data, the rate of innumeracy is growing. In turn, fewer people are able to understand basic data, are more easily duped by pseudoscience, and more easily taken in by everyday pricing games.
ChatGPT and related technologies are creating a similar problem for English education.
"I believe my most essential tasks, as a teacher," Herman wrote, "are helping my students think critically, disagree respectfully, argue carefully and flexibly, and understand their mind and the world around them. Unconventional, improvisatory, expressive, meta-cognitive writing can be an extraordinary vehicle for those things."
And he's correct. The problem, he notes, is that there are strong headwinds against that type of learning.
"[I]f most contemporary writing pedagogy is necessarily focused on helping students master the basics," he asks, "what happens when a computer can do it for us?"
ChatGPT does it for us. And it will speed the education breakdown into two distinct classes. At the top will be those who are taught to appreciate the importance of writing as a tool for developing thought, thinking logically through an argument, and crafting reasoned, respectful objections that don't devolve into insults.
Those people will access the full range of possibilities in their professional and personal lives.
Others will be taught the basics. Rather than learning to struggle with composing complex essays and wrestling with troublesome grammar and spelling, they will be passed on through school with instructions for how to use ChatGPT, and little else.
As with math, those who have their intellectual muscles strengthened by writing will have the world at their feet. And at their feet will be those who on their own can't write a simple cover letter without assistance from a computer.
Challenging ideas create strong minds. Instead, we're getting technological hand-holding to pamper the next generation and overzealous parents wanting to decide what to feed students.
What parents' rights advocates call "indoctrination" and "brainwashing," and what Gov. Youngkin and his education department call "divisive topics," are nothing of the kind. They are the rich soil from which fertile minds grow.
Good teachers not only talk about topics like racism and gender identity and the complexities of understanding the Constitution, they force students to struggle with difficult questions. The ability to write about those issues strengthens students' minds and prepares them for a life that is not defined by simple answers.
Education is a journey filled with hard questions, and hard work.
We start with the basics. But to be successful means wrestling with raw, original ideas, not someone else's translation.
Martin Davis is Opinion Page editor of The Free Lance ― Star, Frederiksburg, Va. This article was distributed by Tribune Content Agency.
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