An Even Higher Order
For the first time in history, you don’t actually need to learn how to write.
I found myself saying this out loud on the floor of ISTE last week. I was trying to explain my thinking to someone about why meta-cognition is of such importance in the age of AI.
It’s been a while since I was a regular conference attendee, but I still find them enjoyable when I do attend. They are enjoyable not just because of the people you meet, but also because you can see in real time when the stories you want to tell start to work. And it lights a fire in you to tell them even better.
Last week, I had many conversations where I experienced the opposite: the stories didn’t work. They were too complex. As a team, we didn’t hit the right points. And I am grateful for every conversation that taught me this.
But the particular conversation I’m about to relay was different. This conference-goer was engaged with the initial idea. And in the way that you always hope will happen, it turned a light on inside me to explain myself even better.
What prompted the conversation was a section in our booth made to inspire dialogue about AI. It gave us a forum to explain the range of new tools Swivl is offering - Engageable being one of them - at a higher level, and why we think of ourselves as a reflective tools company.
Here’s the narrative that emerged from what got lit.
For the first time in history, you don’t actually need to learn how to write. You don’t need it to participate in society or have a job. You never have to struggle with a blank page to express a thought, feeling or idea. You can just ask AI to write it for you.
This realization raises the question - should we continue teaching writing? Or should we stop teaching it like we stopped teaching cursive handwriting? Writing is hard. It takes effort and struggle to do well. What’s wrong with taking the more convenient path and leaning into using AI to do the work?
Educators will surely make the case that teaching writing is critical. And they are right to do so. But this isn’t enough of a narrative at this point. To make the case to students, educators will need to understand the narrative developing outside of education. So far, it is developing like this.
Finding Order
For one, writing is a forcing function for better thinking. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, famously advocated for writing in his company and many others have followed suit. The reason is, when you consume a lot of information, it’s easy to believe that your thoughts are great and you have everything figured out. It’s only when you start to try to write that you realize your thinking isn’t that clear. That much of what is in your head is jumbled up. The process of writing is one of the best and most accessible ways to order your thinking. The act of sequencing words on a page to be coherent changes your mind for the better.
Writing is also the only way to know you are expressing your own thoughts. Yes, AI brings bias. And the overtly wrong hallucinations and inaccuracies are the ones getting the most attention these days. But more subtly, AI just brings groupthink into your brain. Today’s AI statistically captures the most common view on anything and embeds it in your mind.
Once you prompt AI without challenging yourself to think much in advance, its response influences your thinking - there’s no way around it, really. It can make what you do end up producing less authentically your own. Your writing inevitably becomes less of a representation of your unique capability and experience.
So the developing logic is when uniqueness and authentic expression are the priority, you should write without AI. Or at the very least you should start without AI. The blank page can, and should, be your friend and teacher. There is value to you and others when you take this struggle on.
Does that mean you should only write without assistance? No, of course not! Not every instance of writing requires uniqueness or the challenge of figuring things out. Sometimes crowdsourcing the common way of thinking is ideal.
And there are endless hybrid ways to use AI for feedback during the process - including to make sure you’re original and are avoiding groupthink. In fact, if your goal is to contribute truly original knowledge or ideas to the world, AI can help you understand if you are actually onto something original. The key is to think through your intentions and guide your actions with AI appropriately.
Aiming Higher
That’s the narrative as I’ve observed it today. And narratives like this are some of the most important ingredients to consciousness itself. They are what we tell ourselves through intention and reflection to help us guide our actions. They are what separate us from our biological instincts and explain the majority of human progress in the last few thousand years.
Without this narrative or one like it, it is almost certain most of us will use AI to write for everything. Future generations might even fail to ever learn it. It’s human nature to take the easy path when there isn’t a good reason to do otherwise. And especially relevant to educators - without narratives and strong reflective routines to reinforce them, students will continue to resist every second of the challenge.
This is roughly what I explained on the exhibit hall floor (with some improvements as a byproduct of writing it), and it led to some meaningful dialogue in exchange.
Beyond Expectations
Meta-cognition is obviously already an emphasis in education for both students and teachers.
But what got us thinking about meta-cognition in new ways over the last few years was the realization that the 21st Century movement got some things wrong about technology. It failed to anticipate that technology could do the higher order skills identified - that it could actually become creative and collaborative. It also failed to anticipate the rate of technological development. We didn’t have a century of stability to work with before there was more destabilizing change.
But we also recognized that the 21st Century movement was right about the need to move to higher order skills. They just didn’t emphasize a high enough order. They didn’t aim to elevate meta-cognition to new heights - to the heights we are really going to need.
As AI outmatches many of our individual capacities on any task, what becomes most important is the meta-cognitive narratives we tell ourselves about learning and growth. Thriving, now more than ever, depends on the intentions we set and the reflective routines we practice. It depends on the meta-awareness we cultivate for challenges to avoid the distraction that surrounds us. These are the ingredients that will keep us engaged in developing our human capabilities to new heights - for students, teachers, and us all.
So for the first time in history, you don’t actually need to learn how to write - but you do need a new higher order of thinking to be able to thrive.
The Optima List
The best possible list of opportunities
📝 Writing, Technology, Attention, and AI - Guest blog by Greg Kulowiec
This new blog by Greg Kulowiec outlines a possible classroom strategy for implementing use of AI in the writing class, while understanding the implications for meta-cognition with and without it. Check it out and share with anyone looking to step up their approach to writing alongside AI as a “thought partner.”
🧠 How Engageable Are You?
In any moment, we have the power to change how we are engaging with the world in front of us. A truly engageable person is always aware of how they attend to things in life, and we built the Engageability Score to help you track how you’re doing. This article includes a breakdown of how your score works within your Engageable account, and how it can help you understand your progress towards even better attention.
📣 Bi-monthly Product Tours
You have two opportunities each month to join the Engageable Team for a product intro! Learn how you can build routines for better attention using the structure of Engageable, and meet other educators who are looking to connect and share ideas.
🗣️ The Optimalist Podcast - 10-Episode Celebration
If you haven’t had a chance to indulge in the Optimalist podcast as much as you’d like to, the 10-episode celebration is a great place to start. In this special episode, we bring you clips from our first 9 guests, highlighting their unique experiences and how they’ve informed their views on mindful living and teaching - from using AI in the classroom to navigating parenthood. Plus, hear a supercut of each guest’s own trusted method for better focus. The podcast is always available through this Substack publication, and also wherever podcasts are found.