Writing is the most reliable (and often the most painful) method our species has devised of transforming half-formed notions and stray fancies into rigorous, logical thought. I cannot be the only opinion columnist to have discovered that ideas that sounded impressive when I was declaiming them in the pub have a habit of looking lame and illogical when transferred to that most stark and inhospitable of environments, the blank page. Ah… perhaps that’s not what I think, after all. Time to try again.
A paper published last week by scientists at MITrestates Didion’s thesis with less elegance but with more empirical rigour. The researchers used wearable brain scanners to measure the cognitive activity of a group of students who used AI to help them write their essays and a group who did the work themselves. The AI-assisted writers “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic and behavioural levels” compared with those who wrote their own essays. They needed to write in order to think.
The MIT study is an important reminder of the central importance of reading and writing to thinking, at what is a historically dangerous time for literacy. Human writing is threatened by AI and reading is threatened by addictive screens. According to a study published last month, childhood reading has fallen to an all-time low. Indeed, almost half of British adults did not read a book in the past year and a recent report found adult literacy “declining or stagnating in most OECD countries”. The link has not been definitively proven but it’s hard to believe it’s merely an accident that average IQ has begun to decline, and that reasoning and problem solving skills have fallen among adults and teenagers since the 2010s.
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Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability
The taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery…
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
