Excellent, Wyatt. You are absolutely right about the heart of education being about "virtue formation." I sm convinced that this is the only lasting impact I have made on my own students. Long after details about Vimy Ridge and iambic pentameter have been forgotten, a student's humanity and moral compass have been formed and forged most powerfully by the example and testimony of the humanity of the teachers themselves. Many educators are already experimenting with AI "tutors" but there still must be a person to serve as the exemplar of "endgame" of both education and life itself. Every journey needs a destination to work towards. Mature, intelligent, compassionate human teachers serve that end.
I think part of the problem, at least from my observations in the UK context, is that education has already drifted so far from the "instillation of virtue" that the gap between a human delivering it and a machine delivering it has become paper thin.
Huge amounts of "teaching time" go into managing disruptive students:
So most parents will think: "If my child who wants to learn can get something that will actually teach them all day why not?"
I totally agree with your sad, Ellulian point: "Education today is technological, technique-driven, and aimed at transferring data efficiently for economic ends." But when that is how the whole society is structured. If you don't learn the knowledge as a youth, you will struggle to integrate into society as an adult (something I have seen in specific homeschooled families).
Obviously education in virtue is of utmost importance, but we realistically can't expect the state to deliver it.
Perhaps a role that the Church could genuinely fill? Education as it once was.
This article is spot on in many ways. However, I would note that the author’s use of the term “conservative” in referring to the practice of over-emphasizing skill and fact-learning and avoiding ideology is not used in a political connotation. It must refer to what educators in general believe. Developing the concepts of virtue, honesty, beauty and the Western Tradition as well as the basic skills is the thrust of politically Conservative groups that engage in private and charter school development.
And let us not forget when speaking of "Public" education, we are facing a necessarily political question.
Who gets to choose what's in the LLM data set and for what ends? California or Texas?
Marshall McLuhan said, The medium is the message. I don’t see substituting AI in place of human interaction in learning as a wise long-term option.
Excellent, Wyatt. You are absolutely right about the heart of education being about "virtue formation." I sm convinced that this is the only lasting impact I have made on my own students. Long after details about Vimy Ridge and iambic pentameter have been forgotten, a student's humanity and moral compass have been formed and forged most powerfully by the example and testimony of the humanity of the teachers themselves. Many educators are already experimenting with AI "tutors" but there still must be a person to serve as the exemplar of "endgame" of both education and life itself. Every journey needs a destination to work towards. Mature, intelligent, compassionate human teachers serve that end.
I think part of the problem, at least from my observations in the UK context, is that education has already drifted so far from the "instillation of virtue" that the gap between a human delivering it and a machine delivering it has become paper thin.
Huge amounts of "teaching time" go into managing disruptive students:
- https://www.edchoice.org/new-edchoice-report-reveals-how-teachers-manage-time-distractions-and-discipline-issues-in-school/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20survey%2C%2059,than%20one%20hour%20doing%20so.
- https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2023.1156530/full
So most parents will think: "If my child who wants to learn can get something that will actually teach them all day why not?"
I totally agree with your sad, Ellulian point: "Education today is technological, technique-driven, and aimed at transferring data efficiently for economic ends." But when that is how the whole society is structured. If you don't learn the knowledge as a youth, you will struggle to integrate into society as an adult (something I have seen in specific homeschooled families).
Obviously education in virtue is of utmost importance, but we realistically can't expect the state to deliver it.
Perhaps a role that the Church could genuinely fill? Education as it once was.
This article is spot on in many ways. However, I would note that the author’s use of the term “conservative” in referring to the practice of over-emphasizing skill and fact-learning and avoiding ideology is not used in a political connotation. It must refer to what educators in general believe. Developing the concepts of virtue, honesty, beauty and the Western Tradition as well as the basic skills is the thrust of politically Conservative groups that engage in private and charter school development.