Most college professors I know believe that students learn to think — critically, creatively, reflectively, tenaciously — only by writing. At Williams College, where I am a professor, writing skills are among the very few general education requirements.
It’s no surprise, then, that universities see artificial intelligence as an existential threat, and have launched an arms race of countermeasures: more proctored essay exams; test-taking rooms shielded from the internet; requirements that essays be composed on platforms that track all edits, so the word-for-word genealogy can be verified. I’ve heard professors rejoicing when they see typos or grammatical errors in an essay, as if they proved that a student wrote it without any help from A.I.
But what if we are mistaken in treating writing as the highest cultivation of thought? The evidence that supports this belief is thin at best. Writing can be useful cognitive scaffolding for memory and self-regulated learning, but the notion that it is the best process for developing thinking skills is a fairly recent idea, traceable to the 1970s writing-across-the-curriculum movement.
In 1980, James Britton, an educator, hypothesized that we discover what we think in the act of writing. “Hypothesized” is the correct word here, since Mr. Britton’s anecdotal and introspective suppositions never amounted to proof of a stronger claim, and studies since have been limited or inconclusive.
I mean a deep oral tradition full of memorization and discussion like the proto-greek city states had would work too (for philosophy), but universities don’t have the resources to implement the small classes and staff the oral examinations that would be required to make that style of teaching effective. Administratively it’s wildly inefficient.
Most college professors I know believe that students learn to think — critically, creatively, reflectively, tenaciously — only by writing.
I doubt there are many professors that would agree with this statement. Especially engineering and science professors.
But what if we are mistaken in treating writing as the highest cultivation of thought?
What if the author is mistaken in understanding how universities teach, and what other people believe?
This guy is a fucking idiot. Writing is a nice form of communication, and mastering it, helps communicate thought, and helps the learning process.
But there’s an expression, “a picture is worth a thousand words” it’s so common that it’s not a phrase that really gets attributed to anyone (although Wikipedia credits Arthur Brisbane).
And since this idiot professor seems to be in a bubble that shields him from any understanding of people or the outside world, we should look directly into what he teaches: philosophy. Let’s look at one of the most foundational and accessible parts of philosophy:
I couldn’t read the rest of the article, but it seems he’s going in the direction of jerking AI off - this makes sense considering he can’t make a coherent argument or even set a good foundation for a coherent argument in 4 paragraphs. If the rest of his article could read and comprehend and make faces, this would probably be the expression it’d make:
yeah I was a bit confused at the attitude. Writing is about expressing what you learned and is important for that purpose. I remember going back for a masters and I had forgotten how redundant formal writing could be. Its good that it is though as formal papers are relating complex and in the case of science and math sometimes completely novel things. Its hard for someone to pick up the ideas unless they are repeated. Now its been so long Im pretty sure it would take me awhile to write a good paper again.
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I had nothing nice to say about the article and decided to refrain. Indeed, the author does get a lot wrong. Most of what I could follow, anyways. The critiques here are, in my opinion, strong and on point.
The professor is simply wrong and I’ll leave it at that.
your assumption was unfounded. the conclusion:
Consider what we might gain if we practiced speaking more and carrying around the resources of mind through our own attention, memory and engagement with one another. We may end up spending less time isolated, gain more practice resolving disagreement and find ourselves a clearer sense of what we believe. This is the moment to claim critical thought back.
he wants us to talk to each other more, and to not consider writing the end-all-be-all of critical thinking that most academicians tend to assume.
