- Family, education, and non-conformity - Fatherhood is a form of insanity, a state in which love and worry become forever entangled. I discovered this insanity one winter night, a few weeks after the birth of my daughter. A blizzard was raging over the town where we lived, and I woke suddenly with a panicked thought: What if the front door is blocked with snow? What if … [Read more...] about The Making of Un-Machine Minds
Young Writers Against the Machine Short Story Contest – Winners
Today’s post is dedicated to all the young writers who participated in the Young Writers Against the Machine Short Story Contest. At the end of May, I published Raising Writers Against the Machine in response to the rise of AI word processing tools encroaching on our ability to independently use language with accuracy, authority, and creativity. And thus by extension crumble … [Read more...] about Young Writers Against the Machine Short Story Contest – Winners
From Feeding Moloch to ‘Digital Minimalism’
Child sacrifice, kicking the chair, and forming digital detox community Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.Matthew 18, 6 The original image I had in mind for this post was stark and disturbing, something along the lines of … [Read more...] about From Feeding Moloch to ‘Digital Minimalism’
The Great Forgetting
How 'critical thinking' and outsourcing of memory are withering culture, and how to turn the tide ‘The disintegration of the Persistence of Memory’ by Salvador Dali …this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The … [Read more...] about The Great Forgetting
Reclaiming Your Stolen Focus
A Lenten fast with a tech twist A large portrait of “The Little Potato Peeler” by Albert Anker was hung prominently in my childhood kitchen. As a young woman, my mother had purchased a heavily framed reproduction of the painting at an estate sale at the side of a road in a Swiss village (often wondering whether it might actually be the original, which of course it was … [Read more...] about Reclaiming Your Stolen Focus
Tilling the Ground for ChatGPT
When asked why students today should still learn Shakespeare, the AI language processing tool ChatGPT snips back promptly: "Shakespeare's works are still relevant today because they explore universal themes such as love, jealousy, ambition, and power that are timeless and applicable to contemporary society. Learning Shakespeare helps to develop critical thinking and language … [Read more...] about Tilling the Ground for ChatGPT