To teach in the era of ChatGPT is to know pain
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
So maybe the real question is why we ever expected “teaching at scale” to be effective.
I think that it’s quite clear that for an individual, curious student, the ability to use modern LLMs probably makes the ability to be 1-1 tutored (by a human!) cheaper/better. But I don’t think anyone claims that watching random videos on the internet will be as effective for LeBron James as having a personal trainer focused on him.
It seems like the overriding issue is to understand whether students need to take courses they’re not interested in. If the answer is yes, perhaps we need find ways of having these topics be taught by tutorial…
Everything else should be about exposure. So children are lectured on science, history, or whatever other subject; but they don't actually need a grade in these subjects during elementary school. This would reduce the work burden on students and teachers. The only purpose is to light a spark in those with true curiosity.
In high school, students should be able to choose topics of interest that they learned about in elementary school to do more intentional learning with tests and grades. Everyone else continues on a general path with the core subjects being tested and non-core subjects simply being lectured.
In college, those who chose a specific focus in highschool accelerated their learning for that subject. For others, if they didn't find anything interesting, they can go into a trade or whatever else they choose. If they are late bloomers, they go to college and cultivate their newly found interests with a larger back log of pre-reqs.
There's no point in "teaching" children things that they immediately forget only for them to go on to become a generic office worker or retail employee. We should cultivate those with the desire to be cultivated, and stop pretending that it's actually feasible to have an entire society of "intellectuals." There is a place in the world for those who don't care about learning, but there is little sense in throwing significant education resources at them.
The difference with what I'm suggesting is that they won't be forced to learn about 7 or 8 different things they don't care about at the same time.
The allocation of teachers' time will be better with a more constrained curriculum, and the classes where students choose to learn about a subject will be a more engaged.
Framing learning things you're uninterested in as "learning to get over yourself" is odd. This isn't an ego problem, and dictating personality traits to such an extent is a questionable goal.
It is an ego problem. You will not have the liberty to be choosy over whatever might be in front of you in life. You will have to shovel the shit, figuratively or quite literally in some cases. The sooner you can learn this lesson, the easier life will be for you, and the more helpful you will be to others around you.
I hope that this leads us to shift education towards helping people learn things, when they do want to learn. Instead of forcing people to learn things that they do not want to learn.
There's a reason you're only hearing this from schools and not companies. I haven't seen any corporate execs complaining that they don't know who their good and bad employees are because of AI.
The author is essentially saying "you're doing education wrong" to students who never signed up for the author's version of what education is for. Students are making a rational economic calculation: they need a degree to get a job.
Except it's not true. They don't need a degree to get a job. Maybe they need a degree to get a very specific job, but then they will be doing what the degree taught, and so they might as well learn how to do it.
This whole "I need a degree to get a job" is the problem. It's how people end up with $200k in student loans working front line retail.
The default natural state rewards value creation. Corrupt/artificial systems don't, so there are exceptions. If students reframe their reasoning from "get a degree to get a job" to "learn how to create lots of value for others in a way I find sustainable and satisfying" they are far more likely to enjoy the lives they build for themselves.
The author is more right about this than you give them credit for. Students who are getting a degree just to get a job are doing it wrong. If they don't enjoy doing the things the degree teaches, they really won't enjoy what comes after they graduate.
I agree some do, but I am very skeptical about most. It's also changing rapidly.
To be clear I'm not disagreeing that a manufacturing engineer role would require a degree in engineering (and countless other examples). I'm pushing back on specifically "most white collar jobs require any degree regardless of what it is".
I believe that assumption is incorrect and harmful.
In combination with oversaturation of university graduates, it's an easy box HR can tick to lower the applicant pool.
Still comes off as jaded and pessimistically biased. Not representative of whole white collar, just some segment in it.
It's VERY different than my direct experience, and indirect exposure including statements I've read about hiring policies at attractive employers.
Since basically anyone can graduate high school nowadays, this proves you put at least some effort into your education without being forced to.
It doesn't really matter if it's low signal, just that it narrows the applicant pool.
University is not difficult. Money is
But you still need a degree to get a job
I see it as wanting to receive the credential (biology degree) while avoiding what it is supposed to signify (having learned something about biology.) But why would regular companies want graduates in English Literature, or History? Graduates should still be able to read, think critically, and write clearly - and the way you learn to do that is by actually doing the assignments.
Of course a more cynical view is that much of formal education is just teaching compliance (which employers also value), but college usually grants more non-financial freedom than a typical corporate workplace.
In any case, I guess it's good that you can't use ChatGPT to pass driving tests or medical licensing exams. Yet.
So with that, what student expects college to be an easy pass to a job? College has always involved work, not a coupon for a free job.
> students who never signed up for the author's version of what education is
What? That's what college is. Students sign up to be taught however the college wants to teach. Students can choose to apply to colleges that match their style, but that hasn't changed at all.
I'm curious what you think students expect when they enroll in a reputable college
This seems like the root issue. In the ChatGPT era, remote student assessments cannot (remotely) be trusted. Since you cannot trust the assessment, it should probably be optional, and not used for credentialing purposes.