What a question to start out with for my first blog post after the “Adventures in Tutoring Daily Challenge!” But, why not? I’m being hit left and right with AI influences everywhere. And, it’s nothing new. AI’s been around for a long time, but its prevalence today is what’s so overwhelming. It’s hitting like never before. And, quite frankly, I’m already exhausted with all of it.
And if you didn’t know — I’m pretty much OLD SCHOOL. Some may say OLD NEWS. And, that’s alright. We all have our prerogatives. I say . . . you do you, and I’ll do me. And “me” is saying what in the world? Really, I’m saying, “What is this world coming to?”
Granted . . . technology has its many wonderful attributes and is helpful on so many fronts. I truly do believe that (most times) it’s being created with a positive outlook in mind. But things always tend to go wayward for some reason. And, why is that?
Is it because — in the hands of human beings (or some human beings) the positive gets skewed and ends up veering way too quickly to the negative side . . . eventually. And then, the popularity of the negative way skyrockets because it’s glamorized, made to seem more interesting, propped up to be more advantageous, and adopted as the direction to go if you don’t want to be left in the proverbial dust?
AI is “THEE” GOAT these days. And, if you don’t use it, you’re almost made to feel like you’re OLD SCHOOL, OLD NEWS, LEFT IN THE DUST, and HUNG OUT TO DRY.
Okay, maybe I’m being a little dramatic, but I, for one, am not in love with AI. Especially when I see its detrimental potential to enable our children. AI in the hands of adults is bad enough, because many of us don’t know how to set appropriate parameters around its use.
But AI in the hands of our very young learners and even our pre-adolescent and adolescent youth is just downright scary. I mean . . . what parameters are they going to put around its use if we, the adults, don’t set some boundaries? And please, please, please help the poor child whose parent chooses not to parent him or her by putting virtually little to no barriers on his or her use of AI.
Are we raising our children, or is AI raising our children? Because, AI WILL raise them if we let it. If we’re letting AI read for our children and write for our children, we’re well on our way to letting it raise our children. And, they WILL be dependent on it to think for them.
If we let AI raise our babies, that’s what they’ll latch on to. Technology. Machines. Gagets. Non-human entities. That’s what they’ll cleave to and depend on and rely on.
At least with human beings, our babies cleave to us and depend on and rely on us. But if we do right by our children, we teach them things so they can grow to be self-sufficient and to be able to get in a strong and stable enough position to stand on their own two feet one day. And, when that day comes, they’ll be in a position to support their children who will cleave to them and depend on them and rely on them.
We teach our children so they can do for themselves and help others.
But, is AI’s goal to do the same? Is it concerned with teaching a human being to be self-sufficient so he or she can do a task for him or herself and be proficient in it? Or, is AI’s goal to make things easier so a person doesn’t have to do that task or even think about the task, and therefore, become reliant on it (AI) to do that task every time going forward?
So, let’s see . . .
How do we teach our children the importance of being literate for themselves, when technology/AI will do all the things that literate people do and maybe even do them better?
No wonder our children today are struggling to read and write. You would think that, in such an advanced technological age, literacy wouldn’t be a rising problem. Wouldn’t you? Or, would you?
Wonder if the advanced technological age is adding to the problem of too high a percentage of our fourth graders being below reading level and not ready to move from learning to read to reading to learn.
Of course, there are many other factors contributing to the literacy problem of our youth today. Technology isn’t the only culprit. But, it’s adding its fingerprints to the evidence pile and is overwhelmingly claiming some of the guilt. For sure!
Okay, I think I’ve given you enough of an introduction to the next few blog posts that I’ll present to you about my thoughts on AI and the literacy of our children today. I’m pretty passionate about this topic, you know.
After all, I’m not thinking too highly of the possibility of being replaced by tech. Very much against it. I value what I do and who I serve, and I owe it to the children who can be blessed with what I do to emphasize the importance of reading and writing for themselves.
Because . . .
What would happen if AI wasn’t accessible? Wonder if some catastrophic thing happened, and the one thing you relied on to help you wasn’t there anymore. For whatever reason. What do you do then? What do you fall back on?
May sound a bit far-fetched, but our children need to be set up for success. With know-how that works even off-grid. Better to teach them how to read and write (make the cake) and use AI only for adding the icing on the top THAN TO have AI read and write for them (make the cake) and eat it too, and then leave the children with the icing only.
Just chew on that one for a minute. Hee. Hee.
Until next time . . .
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