Nobody Teaches Thinking

This is the central problem with higher education in the age of AI.

We can’t require students to do take-home writing assignments (e.g. term papers) any more, because most will cheat and have ChatGPT or Claude or Grok do the writing.

But we can’t teach critical thinking, rationality, perseverance, & scholarship without requiring writing assignments that they work on — researching, drafting, editing, revising, polishing — over a period of days or weeks.

The result may be a whole generation of students who can’t really write, or think, or articulate what they really believe and value, and why.

https://x.com/primalpoly/status/1947431531997176067?t=nMFZS6p3zfXMYxeWZrxBag&s=19

This would be concerning if we hadn’t quit teaching critical thinking and rationality several decades ago. All we’ve been teaching is how to ape the professor’s boutique left-wing beliefs most convincingly. Anybody who tried to figure out what they believe as opposed to what the professor believes would be an academic loser.

So what does it matter if the AI and not the actual students parrot the leftist slop? No thinking gets done in either case.