AI and the Humanities: First Questions

Like most middle-aged men, I have a few opinions that have only calcified as I get older. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a great film; wearing shorts in public should be reserved for children unless the temperature is over 92º Fahrenheit; and most pressing for my career, all education should be seen as humanities education–anything else is job training (which is important but distinct).

Thus it's with that bias (and some hard-earned cynicism) that I approach any fad entering into classrooms. Of course, the latest technology that is promised by many to change not just education but the entire world is generative AI. So, what is the role of AI in a humanities education?

I'm still collecting my thoughts on the topic, but my initial take is that generative AI is a practical disaster, a plagiarism machine that is destroying the environment as well as huge amounts of capital while providing virtually no compelling use case for most anybody. That alone should be enough to dismiss it, but the evangelists will say that's all temporary, or at least those problems pale in comparison to the benefits the world will someday reap from the fruits of AI's labor.

But beyond those practical issues with AI, I continue to wrestle with the philosophical questions raised by tools like ChatGPT in education. Is there a place for generative AI in a human-centered education? It's essentially a calculator, but for words, right? Anybody skeptical is an anti-technology Luddite who wishes students still used slide rules, or perhaps wrote in the dirt with their fingers.

Thoughtful people whom I respect hold variations of that view, and they may ultimately be correct! But I cannot shake the feeling that there's something fundamentally anti-human about the entire endeavor, and thus not only distracting or useless, but actively harmful in education. These dangers strike me as particularly stark when applied to any endeavor that requires students to think critically, to write their own thoughts, to respond to and be present with others.

I have dozens of saved blog posts and magazine articles and books on this topic, and I want to better understand my own reactions to this technology. Which of my prior assumptions are based on deep-seated convictions and values, and which are simply because I'm old and misunderstanding the possibilities?

In a recent edition of his The Convivial Society newsletter titled "To Hell With Good Intentions, Silicon Valley Edition," L. M. Sacasas put forward a series of questions that have stuck with me since reading. The entire piece is worth reading, but these questions provide as clear a starting point for me as anything I've yet encountered (emphasis mine):

I think this is it. There is a vision of the good life, a vision of what it means to be human implicated in all of our tools, devices, apps, programs, systems, etc. There is a way of being in the world that they encourage. There is a perspective on the world that they subtly encourage their users to adopt. There is a form of life that they are designed to empower and support.

Is this way of life alive enough to be shared?

If I were to become the ideal user of the technology you would have me adopt, would I be more fully human as a result? Would my agency and skill be further developed? Would my experience of community and friendship be enriched? Would my capacity to care for others be enhanced? Would my delight in the world be deepened? Would you be inviting me into a way of life that was, well, alive?

Pondering these questions as they relate to generative AI and its early uses in and around education forces me to articulate really clearly what my ultimate mission is when it comes to education. Individual teachers as well as institutions will need to address these challenging, big-picture questions (which can be challenging for some!) to have any hope of making good decisions about the practical uses of this technology.

→ "Taking the Stress Out of Grading" →

Nothing too dramatic here from Joe Feldman via ASCD, but good overview that mostly aligns with my views. The four "outdated" practices mentioned:

• Using a 0-100 scale
• Curving grades
• Including homework performance in grades
• Grading participation

Even if one would quibble with some of the details (and I do), it's a good starting place for conversations about the point of grades. One point that I've made countless times:

"Even though we preach, 'We love mistakes because you need them to learn!' our grading practices hang a sword above every student's head.

CEOs of Trillion-Dollar Companies to Schools: Give Us More Employees

From The Verge:

More than 500 notable people in business, education, and the nonprofit sector are calling for governors and education leaders to update K-12 curriculums (sic) to allow “every student in every school to have the opportunity to learn computer science,” according to a new letter posted publicly at https://www.ceosforcs.com/. The list of signatories includes many prominent figures in technology, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon founder and executive chair Jeff Bezos, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, and Meta founder, chairman, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Here is an excerpt from the letter (emphasis mine):

The undersigned commit our support by collectively creating employment opportunities for computer science students in every city in the USA, and in every sector, from manufacturing to banking, from agriculture to healthcare. Many of us offer internships to help these students find their career pathway. Many of us have funded efforts in CS education, to support underserved communities. But there is only so much industry can do by ourselves.

On the one hand, of course! Computer science opportunities should be readily available for all students who are interested.

On the other hand (because it's always two things with me), what is stopping these companies from hiring people and then training them on the job? How much of the onus should be on society at large to provide plug-and-play employees for the wealthiest corporations in the world?

Again, from the letter:

The USA has over 700,000 open computing jobs but only 80,000 computer science graduates a year. We must educate American students as a matter of national competitiveness.

What is preventing these companies from hiring people who are not computer science graduates, and then giving them the training they need?

It comes down to money, of course: it is costly in both time and treasure to teach people (see: the entire education system). The more of that training Apple and Microsoft and others can outsource to schools (and colleges and universities), the better that is for their bottom line. Why pay somebody a salary, give them insurance, and all of that when they are still learning and aren't yet a productive employee? Shareholders would not love that!

I'm not saying that schools shouldn't offer robust computer science programs, or that students in high school should not study subjects with an eye toward their future career goals. But these corporations need to do more than say, "Hey, education system, do better!"

One practical challenge: It's challenging for schools to hire a computer science teacher for $40,000, when that person can make $150,000 at Apple. Are these corporations lobbying their congresspeople for more funding for education? Are they lobbying for higher corporate tax rates to make sure that all schools can hire and retain the best teachers? Are they willing to hire somebody without a specific degree, but give them a chance to learn on the job?

We have set up a system in this country where demands like those in this letter are constantly placed upon "education," as if education is an entirely separate entity. In this, like in so many other things, it might help if these corporations saw themselves as intimately connected to each other and to the rest of society, instead of standing apart and expecting us all to bend to the needs of the and their shareholders.

→ "California Tells Schools to Start Later, Giving Teenagers More Sleep" →

Finally, some big-time recognition of all the data suggesting that students not only need more sleep, but that their bodies are naturally tuned to stay awake later at night and get up later in the morning.

The law, signed on Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom, pushes back the start times at most public middle and high schools, making California the first state to order such a shift. Classes for high schools, including those operated as charter schools, will start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. under the law, and classes for middle schools will start no earlier than 8 a.m.

My school starts at 8 a.m., which isn't that egregious compared to some others out there, but I'd still love to push that start time back a bit.

When schools in Seattle recently moved start times back nearly an hour, researchers saw significant gains:

Researchers at the University of Washington studied the high school students both before and after the start-time change. Their findings appear in a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. They found students got 34 minutes more sleep on average with the later school start time. This boosted their total nightly sleep from 6 hours and 50 minutes to 7 hours and 24 minutes.

The study also found an improvement in grades and a reduction in tardiness and absences.

Of course, if it were that simple, this could've been fixed by now. As this article in The Atlantic points out, there are a few challenges, including transportation. But because this is America, athletics are of course key:

A lot of the pushback against moving back school start times, he notes, comes from coaches, players, and parents who worry that the change would eat into precious practice and game time.

Frequently, though, athletics programs adjust just fine, as some school administrators have noted after starting school days later. And in fact, there’s good evidence suggesting that getting more rest helps athletes perform better and be less vulnerable to injuries. Nonetheless, sports-related concerns often dominate when the prospect of later start times is raised.

As that article concludes, there is no perfect solution.

Keep start times early, and teens don’t get the sleep they need. Make start times later, and people involved in sports and other extracurriculars complain, and transportation costs go up. Keep school days the usual length, and working parents are in a jam. Make school days longer, and both students and teachers might dread the added time.

There are critics of the new California law, but it is going to be fascinating to see if it begins a trend of later start times and more attention paid to school schedules.

Three Org Charts

The always-wise Michael Lopp, a.k.a. Rands, recently tweeted:

There are three org charts you must understand as a leader: the org chart, the political org chart, and the technical org chart.

Much of my formal training in educational leadership could've been condensed into those 128 characters. Without understanding the team in place, and both the formal and informal structures that shape that team, a leader has no hope of effectively managing significant change.

After reading this, I spent some time on a recent flight sketching out what those three charts might look like based on the schools in which I've worked. These are specific to my experiences, of course (but no names!), but general enough that I think others who work in schools may appreciate the exercise. These sketches are glossing over countless complexities and nuances, but the point is that it's a good exercise for any school leader to undertake.

The org chart

The org chart at the private schools with which I have the most experience tends to be very hierarchical.

My experience has been primarily at private schools, and the official organizational chart tends to be a pretty simple hierarchy. If a leader is implementing change, they must understand the formal structures within which that change will be happening, and how those structures may be impacted or challenged by the changes. The fact that schools are so hierarchical, with relatively few positions of formal leadership, is a real challenge (more on that below).

The political org chart

The political org chart can vary widely, but the point is: the head of the organizational structure may not actually have the most influence.

Obviously, this varies widely from school to school (or even from month to month within a school). In my experience, the head of the political org chart may be one of the formal administrators–but perhaps (often?) not the one at the top of the structural org. Just below them are the groups of teachers that wield quite a bit of political sway. These tend to be veteran teachers, though "veteran" could mean four years or twenty-four years, depending on the context.

Some of these teachers hold political influence because not only do they have history in the institution, but they are well-liked. They may or not be the best teachers or colleagues (cf. the next chart), but most of the faculty and staff enjoy working with them, and so their opinion carries a lot of weight. If these teachers are onboard with a change, it can make things much easier for everybody else to adopt.

There can also be a group of veteran teachers with similar influence because they (or their influence) is feared. These are the teachers who can end a discussion with a well-timed remark or a conspicuous lack of support. If these teachers aren't onboard with a plan, their gravitational pull can make it that much harder for other teachers to buy in.

The skills org chart

There's a new book written every hour about the skills needed for teaching, but I think most of it falls into mastery of these three categories.

In a school, the "skills" are much more varied than what Rands deals with in his work managing engineers, but they're just as important. There are countless ways to try and make a chart of the various skills that are evident in a school, and even more ways of trying to quantify or label those skills. This overly simple chart is just meant to show the obvious–there exist among teachers different skill levels. Again, if a leader is working to effect change, they will need to understand the skills of the people undertaking the change.

I think it would be a good exercise for any leader to try and sketch out their own versions of these three charts, both in general terms like I've done, but also thinking of the specific individuals in the organization. The real value comes in examining where the various charts align, because that's where conflict can arise, particularly while managing change.

• Is the person at the top of the org chart also at the top of the political or skills charts? If not, what does that mean for the leader's chances of success?
• What are the political forces that will need to be onboard for any change to succeed? Understanding the political org chart would be helpful in conducting a force field analysis.
• Are some of the most-skilled people at the bottom of the org chart or the political org chart? That's a recipe for disgruntled employees and a culture of mediocrity (at best).
• What's the Venn diagram of overlap between these charts? If somebody is near the top (or bottom) of one, two, or three of these charts what does that mean for that individual and for the institution?
• Is the leader's view of these charts the same as the individuals in the organization? Are there people who see their role differently than the organization as a whole sees them?
• What if somebody is a great teacher, a leader within the school, but does not want to leave the classroom to become an administrator? What are the structures in place for talented employees to grow and to benefit the community in broader ways, without them choosing an entirely new field?
• Who is around the table when the big decisions are being made? Those at the top of the org chart, the political chart, or the skills chart? If somebody is at the top of the political or skills chart but not involved in decision-making, how much support and expertise will there be for implementing those decisions?

On that last point, I recently read a passage from Kim Scott's Radical Candor that illustrates this very clearly (emphasis mine):

In his book A Primer on Decision Making, James March explains why it’s a bad thing when the most “senior” people in a hierarchy are always the deciders. What he calls “garbage can decision-making” occurs when the people who happen to be around the table are the deciders rather than the people with the best information. Unfortunately, most cultures tend to favor either the most senior people or the people with the kinds of personalities that insist on sitting around the table. The bad decisions that result are among the biggest drivers of organizational mediocrity and employee dissatisfaction.

Any leader who doesn't understand these three org charts and how they interact in their institution is likely going to have a bad time.

→ Responsibility vs. Compliance →

I've written about homework before, and it's a topic I consider often.

Over at The Teacher and the Admin, the two authors have written several posts lately on the this very topic. In one post, Gary Armida decries what he sees as the false notion that homework is necessary for students to learn responsibility.

We now give more work to kids than ever before. That “more” isn’t developing responsibility. That “more” is developing compliance.

I think the distinction between "responsibility" and "compliance" is a key one in schools today, and applies to more topics than just homework. How often do we teachers reward compliance over genuine learning?

Drowning in Information

Twenty years ago, noted biologist and author E.O. Wilson wrote:

We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely. (Source: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge)

I think this has only become more true over time. That's why all this debate about STEM vs. the humanities has been so exhausting to me. If we don't give students the opportunity to learn both, we end up with billionaires building rockets... to shoot their sports car into space.

Then there are studies like this one, that indicate STEM majors are less politically active:

An analysis that we conducted shows that college students studying STEM disciplines — that is, science, technology, engineering and mathematics — were among the least likely to vote. STEM students appear less interested in other forms of political and civic engagement, too. One study found that students who took more science and engineering courses were less likely to participate in politics by donating money to a campaign or attending a political meeting. Another found that engineering majors were less committed to social activism than their non-STEM peers.

As Fareed Zakaria wrote a couple years ago (emphasis mine):

This dismissal of broad-based learning, however, comes from a fundamental misreading of the facts — and puts America on a dangerously narrow path for the future. The United States has led the world in economic dynamism, innovation and entrepreneurship thanks to exactly the kind of teaching we are now told to defenestrate. A broad general education helps foster critical thinking and creativity. Exposure to a variety of fields produces synergy and cross fertilization. Yes, science and technology are crucial components of this education, but so are English and philosophy.

Instead of such a singular focus on a relatively narrow field of topics, we should be spending our energy on how to integrate all the subjects that have been kept in such distinct silos for too long.

→ "Ten Ways to Leverage Student Choice in Your Classroom" →

The longer I teacher, the more I look for ways to empower my students to make choices the direct the class. I enjoyed this list of simple strategies for giving students more choice in the classroom, while still respecting the role of the teacer:

When we incorporate choice, students own the learning process. We honor their agency and empower them to become the life-long learners we want them to be. At some point, they will leave the classroom and they won’t have a guide right there by their side. They will have to take charge and make decisions about their own learning. This is why student choice is so critical.

The Heroic Work of School Counselors

Recently, I was asked to put into writing the role our counselors have in our school, as the school leaders are discussing staffing. As I am wont to do, I probably wrote more than they intended to read and they regret asking my opinion. Since this week is also National School Counselors Week, I’m going to share that email below.

Cura personalis. That phrase is uttered often by administrators here, stamped on the admissions brochures, and posted throughout the school. It is at the core of everything we do here. One thing I have learned is that the work of cura personalis doesn’t really scale. If we add ten more students to the community, the daily workload of the Registrar or the Asst. Principal does not change significantly. But if a counselor has ten more students, they don’t suddenly have more time in the day to meet with those students. They can only be present for one student at a time.

The work of cura personalis is messy. It is slow work, getting a student to go from failing her classes, to passing them, to getting As and Bs. To help a student grieve for a lost friendship or a lost parent is a process full of stops and starts. The timeframe is not measured in 60 minute meetings, but often in semesters or years of the students’ time here. That work is simply not possible without our counselors. Period, full stop.

The needs of our students are not declining. In fact, there is much evidence that the mental health of adolescents nationwide is as precarious now as at any time in our nation’s history. Depression, anxiety, social isolation, addictions, perfectionism—our students have very real struggles. We are fortunate that many of our students come from homes with very supportive parents, but that is far from an inoculation against these challenges. In addition, the school is actively looking to bring in a more diverse population, to be a school for all students who want to be a part of our mission. Many of these students have even more external pressures, and our counselors are a vital source of support for them.

What would additional staffing in the counseling department mean for our community? It would mean making a commitment to live out the mottos that are so frequently bandied about. It would mean making a commitment to our students that we care about their well-being, not just their grades. I could go on for pages about the students in crisis who are still here only because of the tireless work of our counselors. One need only to attend a single retreat to hear of the times our counselors have literally saved the life of a student. However, just as important are the names I don’t know, the students who passed through here or transferred out without having made a connection.

Our counselors are not the only ones responsible for our students’ wellbeing, of course, but their role cannot be understated. I'm fortunate to work at a school with a focus on the students' whole person, and that mission is embodied in the work of every adult here. But if you are a teacher or administrator, give your school counselors an extra "thank you" this week for all their tireless work.

Stress

Every year that goes by, I find myself increasingly worried about the amount of stress that students are under–and the impact of that stress on their health and well-being. A recent New York Times article by Benoit Denizet-Lewis focused on the increasing number of students in high schools and colleges who suffer from severe anxiety. From that article:

In its annual survey of students, the American College Health Association found a significant increase — to 62 percent in 2016 from 50 percent in 2011 — of undergraduates reporting “overwhelming anxiety” in the previous year.

When I first started teaching, I would often blame the parents. And certainly I've heard from plenty of students who feel a lot of (undue) pressure from their parents to succeed. But more and more, the parents I meet are not the primary source of anxiety; rather, the students are putting this pressure on themselves. From that same New York Times article:

It’s tempting to blame helicopter parents with their own anxiety issues for that pressure (and therapists who work with teenagers sometimes do), but several anxiety experts pointed to an important shift in the last few years. “Teenagers used to tell me, ‘I just need to get my parents off my back,’ ” recalls Madeline Levine, a founder of Challenge Success, a Stanford University-affiliated nonprofit that works on school reform and student well-being. “Now so many students have internalized the anxiety. The kids at this point are driving themselves crazy.”

It's not just anxiety or depression–there are many ways in which stress impacts students' physical and emotional wellbeing. From a 2015 article in The Atlantic by Alexandra Ossola:

But too much stress has many effects on the body and mind, [Mary] Alvord says. In the short term it can cause anxiety; over long periods of time, elevated levels of stress hormones can degrade the immune system, cause heart problems, exacerbate respiratory and gastrointestinal issues, and bring on chronic anxiety and depression. That’s bad for anyone, but it can be especially bad for high schoolers... And since everyone has a different psychological capacity for stress, it’s hard to know when a student is pushed to the point of degrading his or her health.

As educators, we can't fix all these issues, but we have to be attentive to them and do what we can to help our students succeed without sacrificing their physical, mental, or emotional health. As writer (and writing teacher) John Warner puts it:

Increasingly, I think there’s a barrier I haven’t previously considered that needs addressing if my students are going to succeed: anxiety... We need to build a pedagogy that removes some measure of that anxiety and that allows students to practice–and see the benefits of–resiliency.

And you don't have to take my word for it. Ask the students, as they're acutely aware of the different stressors in their lives. In 2015, a junior at Palo Alto High School wrote about "the sorrows of young Palo Altans," and much of it sounded very familiar to me. Ms. Walworth may have only been a junior in high school, but I can't say it any better than she: "Effective education does not have to correlate to more stress."

So what do we do?

Earlier this spring, the New York Times covered some attempts to address this issue in Lexington, Mass.:

Elementary school students now learn breathing exercises and study how the brain works and how tension affects it. New rules in the high school limit homework. To decrease competition, there are no class rankings and no valedictorians and salutatorians. In town, there are regular workshops on teen anxiety and college forums designed to convince parents that their children can succeed without the Ivy Leagues.

There's a trend to say that schools should focus on teaching "grit," but to quote John Warner again, "Simply demanding greater resiliency isn’t going to work. We don’t badger people suffering from depression to be happier." I have little patience for teachers who justify policies that exist primarily to cause stress by saying, "I have to teach them a lesson," as if by simply living in a state of anxiety or stress for long enough is enough to help them learn to cope. As Alfie Kohn writes:

But people don’t really get better at coping with unhappiness because they were deliberately made unhappy when they were young. In fact, it is experience with success and unconditional acceptance that helps one deal constructively with later deprivation. Imposing competition or standardized tests or homework on children just because other people will do the same to them when they’re older is about as sensible as saying that, because there are lots of carcinogens in the environment, we should feed kids as many cancer-causing agents as possible while they’re small to get them ready.

So the key is to give students some experiences where they feel challenged, while maintaining an environment that is unconditionally supportive. Alfie Kohn again writes about the importance of "unconditional teaching":

One study found that students who felt unconditionally accepted by their teachers were more likely to be genuinely interested in learning and to enjoy challenging academic tasks—as opposed to just doing things because they had to and preferring easier assignments at which they knew they would be successful (Makri-Botsari, 2001). To provide this unconditional support, we must actively oppose the policies that get in the way, such as those that encourage us to value children on the basis of their academic standing—or, worse, merely on the basis of their test scores.

Mr. Denizet Lewis' piece spends some time discussing the use of exposure therapy, an important piece of cognitive-behavioral therapy for those suffering from anxiety. We teachers are not clinicians, of course, but those same principles could perhaps inform how we aim to challenge students while still supporting them unconditionally. How can we help students have challenging experiences, while still making it clear to them that they are safe?

If teachers are challenging our students, stretching them to try new experiences, learn new skills, and think in new ways, it's not inherently bad that they feel some stress or anxiety about the process; those moments of discomfort can be where the growth happens. At the same time, we teachers can make sure that students feel entirely supported throughout that process. For example, do my classroom policies make students feel stress or anxiety about valuable things, like trying to write the best paper they can, or do I cause them to feel stress about extraneous details like unnecessary deadlines? Many times I worry that the entire process of assigning grades to student work is counter-productive to this unconditional support, but if grades are a necessary evil, how can I minimize the damage? I can say to my students, "Don't worry about grades," but if only the students with the highest GPAs are recognized, what message does that send?

I have my own experiences with anxiety, and my heart goes out for these kids who find themselves feeling overwhelmed and helpless. Life is challenging enough, and if we in schools make it unnecessarily difficult for our students, that's not some kind of vaccine that will protect them later. We can't make their world completely free of stressors, nor should that be the goal. But I do think we have a duty to support them–in many cases, better than we have done.