“The cool thing about reading is that when you read a short story or you read something that takes your mind and expands where your thoughts can go, that’s powerful.”
Taylor Swift
Much has been written in the educational press about AI and how it may lead to the end of education as we know it. It was the same when the internet became commonplace; I remember reading books with alarming titles like Why do I need a teacher when I’ve got Google? We are having the same debate about AI and its place in schools. AI is set to gain a normal and accepted place in our lives, although I heed the recently garlanded Nobel Laureate, Geoffrey Hinton who has warned of the danger of letting the machines take control. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been hearing from educational writers such as Sir Anthony Seldon and Daisy Christodoulou who are suggesting ways in which we might work with technology in creative and constructive ways. More interesting to me than a teacher who thinks that nothing goes out of date faster than ideas at the cutting edge, is the link between reading skills and mastery of AI’s potential.
Take assessment. Give a bot an essay to mark and depending on the time of day it will assess this at different levels, it will give different grades. I’ve seen it mark things right that are wrong and vice versa. Unless you give it clear instructions about the style of marking it can rapidly change temperature, sometimes warm and constructive and at others harsh and analytical. That AI can hallucinate is also becoming more well known. But I’m not too worried about this, if I used AI to grade long history essays, I’d have to re-read them and I’d (hopefully) know enough to be able to check the marking. I’d use my own knowledge to make certain that the grade was accurate. I’d moderate the work of the machine. By outsourcing we fail to appreciate that reading work produced by students gives us far more information about them than simply their ability to string a sentence together. We can hear their voice and see where they are confident or more anxious. That essay can tell us far more about a student and how they work than simply being a record of their appreciation of the causes of the First World War. AI can’t accomplish this.
If we are to make the most of AI we need to ensure that we are able to read both critically and deeply and that comes from us having experience of reading a wide range of quality texts. It is a fact that once young people leave primary education they read far less. We know that an exam driven educational system leads to us learning the right “bite sized” pieces of information to use in the exam hall. Alongside this skill I would suggest that we all, parents, teachers and students, need to make sure that we are spending enough time reading – carefully and critically. We need to ensure that we remain able to concentrate for longer than the average sound bite and think beyond the eye-catching strapline. These skills are fading, and it is important that we as adults set a good example, setting aside time to accomplish this. So, I’m off to my armchair with a good book.
Nicholas Hammond
Headmaster
