Schools have been doing this work all along, they’re just being asked to do it under impossible conditions. If we want people who can imagine, reason, empathise, and lead wisely, the things AI cannot replicate, then we must support the institutions that have carried that work for generations.

It’s easier to say schools are churning out workers, not creative thinkers, or to blame schools as beholden to corporate interests than to confront the harder truth:

Read Tagore not to learn about imagery or verse, but to anchor the soul with moral purpose in the search for a more dignified society: "Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls"

Read Orwell's Burmese Days not to learn how to write a five paragraph essay or a literary paper (the former useless, the latter undervalued). But to feel the pain and longing for human connection when alone: "We walk about under a load of memories which we long to share and somehow never can.”

The public education system, particularly in Canada leaves much to be desired. It faces immense internal and external pressure, and needs serious invigoration. But in the rush to declare that “AI has changed everything,” we sometimes erase the quiet truth:

So while Chat GPT may indeed churn out a nice A+ essay on the historical significance of the French Revolution. Let’s not pretend this demands a reevaluation of the utility of essay writing.

It demands the skill of revision which requires both an intellectual humility, and a disposition that values meaningful and measurable progress over instant perfection and gratification.

It broadens the mind and places the individual within the wider annals of literature, and puts you in conversation with the world.

It necessitates the ability to weave disparate threads into a cogent, and compelling narrative (which itself requires an understanding of structure, time, theme, and the clever use of logic and emotion).

Essay writing demands the ability to develop a nuanced and creative perspective on a topic.

It requires the capacity to research, read, understand, and interpret evidence within its context and apply it to a new argument.

A great problem to have :)