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I haven’t yet titled this post but I just marked it under the “education” category because an opinion piece in the NY Times had me reflecting on how I learned to take notes and write back in college. The piece was prompted by teachers struggling to teach children who are quite satisfied to provide what AI tells them as answers to their didactic questions. All those parents of yore who threw up their hands at the non stop questions of curious children now have AI to satisfy their insatiable curiosity. How this access to God like omnipotence will enhance or cripple our children will continue to be on the minds of any serious teachers. Donald Trump back in the 60’s wouldn’t have had to fork over a hundred bucks to get some brain to take his college entrance examination. AI could have done it.
The piece titled, Students Hate Them. Universities Need Them. The Only Real Solution to the A.I. Cheating Crisis. was one of three AI related stories including one about AI being a friend for a Suicidal student.
The thing that kids hate in it is the blue book which I never dreaded and only saw a couple times. Its in the illustration by Kyle Patts for the story:
I recall a few blue book writing assignments as tests where no student could bring in a cell phone with AI to compose an essay on whatever question the teacher asked. I was daunted only by me adolescent style of writing in which I had no confidence not the ability to answer the questions. But even when kids still learned cursive (my neighbor Becky was so mad that my sencond grade teacher began teaching us before here second grade teacher).
But much of this article was devoted to explaining how over the last thousand years teachers at what amounted to colleges taught and tested students.
Here’s a sample of the text behind the paywall:
Opinion: “The words “lecture, lecturer” and “lectern” all derive from the Latin verb “lego,” which typically means “to read.” In the medieval university, lectures involved teachers reading to the students from a book, sometimes the only copy the institution had. Sometimes professors added their commentary to the reading; sometimes they did not. Some students were expected to write down what they heard, some merely to listen. At times, writing was discouraged. In 1355 the arts faculty at the University of Paris forbade masters to lecture at a slow speed that would have allowed students to copy their words verbatim.”
It goes on to describe how the practice at Oxford and Cambridge led to orals or the requirement that students who had written a thesis “defend” it as profs peppered them with questions.
In my 2 years at Morgan Park following Proctor and subbing I was shocked at how much trouble kids had writing. I dug out one of the paltry journals my grandmother had got me in the practice of writing for our family vacations and showed it to them to make clear I was no gifted writer at their age and then I put heavy emphasis on essays on the tests I gave them. I was very forgiving for all the grammar and spelling and looked to see if they had gotten the drift of the subjects I was testing them on.
The story prompted me to dig up the college notebooks I kept for future reference and look through them to remind me how I took in data back then: Here is a spread of 8 of the 9 notebooks I kept. (I couldn’t find my notebook of Dr Doren Hunter’s poly sci class for which I learned the philosophy of national constitutions as contracts. I took a contracts class from my Dad one of only two Bus Adm classes I took the other was typing and I got a D in that. The Reader column I wrote inspired by Denfeld’s recent showing of the musical Legally Blonde was about a Harvard Contract law prof.)
So, I spent a good hour looking through my old college notebooks. My three month long trimester classes were too short to fill up my notebooks and I found I put all sorts of other stuff in them during my college time and even afterward. I found a nonsense piece I wrote for my Dad’s “double nickel” (55th) birthday with dozens of dictionary words no one ever uses. The birtday was in 1980 six years after my graduation. I found an earnest practice note I wrote to my girlfriend that was a precursor to making sure I didn’t drive her away. Its embarrassing reading. There were notes on how much my fraternity raised for the American Cancer Society at a 100 hour marathon I organized. Here’s a peak:

I also used yellow markers as I still do in the history books on my shelves at home which I put in them studying for tests. My teachers often told me our tests would be heavily based on their lectures which, if you ask me was pretty dismissive of our text books. Frankly text books tend to be pretty banal and inoffensive. The only books I read for class that didn’t fit that description were my Novels Class for which I read far more than any other class. I finished five of them of the six I was supposed to read. It was a great class the only one better was my short story class taught by Jane Early who was the first person to make me realize I shouldn’t try to read too much into a story lest I get led astray into some word gibberish analysis. I love big words so that was a useful insight. Like the overuse of swearing they can turn people off but in the right sentence they can be captivating.
Originally, I intended to explain how it occurred to me that the New York Times was like the Reader’s Digests I devoured in seventh grade. Every day there are fascinating articles on all manner of subjects. Reader’s Digest abridged them which I appreciated to get to the point quick and speed up my understanding. The Digest also had the good sense to only come out once a month so I had 30 days to go through it and often read up to 60 percent of its content. Two hours a morning is not enough to devour the avalanche of info I get from four newspapers on my cellphone each morning. I suspect my years of taking notes helped me learn to sort things in my brain. Maybe AI will be programmed to help its users place yellow markers in their memory banks. If so, Jeopardy may continue on television well into the future.
