[Tea] Why teach writing in the age of ChatGPT?

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Cincinnati, October 5, 2024

Hi Friend,

October's topic is Online Life: Learning vs. Entertainment, and today we're looking at the question: Why teach writing in the age of ChatGPT?

Before diving into writing and AI, though, let's talk briefly about the love of language and why we write (and much of the following is from our podcast if you'd like to listen to it).

The Missing Element

When designing the Brave Writer program, I felt that the missing element in writing education was love.

Think about it. Have you ever found yourself reading a sample paragraph out of a teaching program and thought to yourself, “What happens next? I want a second paragraph!” If the answer is no, let me ask you this: Why would you want to use a lifeless piece of writing as an example for your children?

We know good writing when we see it — that’s love. We should be teaching the writing that lights us up, and that wants us to keep reading.

Why do humans write?

What drives us to create art, hieroglyphs, and alphabets? It’s the desire to preserve and share valuable information. The excitement of capturing something in a lasting way is contagious — it taps into our awareness of our own mortality.

To teach a five-year-old the value of writing, they must see the purpose behind it. Why do we read and write? To preserve and share information. This is seen in how parents record their baby’s first words and share them with others. There is a strong desire to preserve original information in a written form.

When you start from a foundation of valuing the human being and the writing voice that lives inside, it makes the work more meaningful and you can take it at a pace the child can handle. Kids need to understand that there is something of value at the end of it.

But what about ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a sophisticated AI technology built to understand natural language. You can ask it a question and it will answer with what is often eerily human-sounding responses.

Some questions:

Will professional writers be out of a job?
Do kids even need to learn how to write now?
What role should ChatGPT play in our culture and education systems, like college?

At first glance, ChatGPT is surprisingly impressive. But as you see more examples of it, you begin to realize the limitations of what it can create or how reliable it is in its accuracy.

Is writing over?

It’s not. But this new technology is here to stay and it has some powerful uses. Think of it a bit like a calculator or Adobe In Design. It’s a tool that has the capacity to launch more writing, more prolifically. But to use it well, one actually does need to know a thing of two about writing.

AND—writing from scratch still has supreme value. The trick is: people who write have to value writing.

The reason students are turning to ChatGPT in droves is that they haven’t yet had the experience of their own writing voices mattering. They write for teachers and grades. They don’t write to self express or know their own thinking or to explore an idea.

So demonstrate how valuable a child’s inner life and thought world actually is. ChatGPT can never replace the thoughts YOU have about a topic. But if you don’t think your thoughts are good, why work so hard to think and write them?

An Adventure!

Once children understand their thoughts and words are valuable then, if you want to incorporate ChatGPT and other AI tools into your child’s writing and education, start by treating it as an adventure that you can go on together. Explore and see if you can arrive at an understanding of:

where it’s useful
and where it’s lifeless.

And for teens, check out our recorded webinar: High School Writing in the Age of AI.

There are no easy answers when it comes to adopting and adapting to new technologies. We’ve seen it before with the rise of the internet, smartphones, and ever-present screens — it takes time to find a balance that works for your family, and you’re going to have questions along the way.

We’re all still figuring it out!

Warmly,

P.S. Catch up on all the “Tea with Julie” emails here!