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There is truth to this perspective but it's also missing one of the fundamental purposes of writing essays in an educational setting. Writing essays isn't just
by Teever 2y ago
There is truth to this perspective but it's also missing one of the fundamental purposes of writing essays in an educational setting. Writing essays isn't just about evaluation, it's also about teaching you how to think.
The process of reading textual material, thinking about it, and then producing more textual material about the stuff you just read (and maybe connecting it to other stuff that you've read in the past) is a critical way of developing thinking skills and refining your ability to communicate to an audience.
The value of that shouldn't be overlooked just like the value of basic numeracy shouldn't be overlooked because we all carry calculators.
You're right that it would be better if post secondary institutions would test people's ability to think in more ways than just what they can regurgitate onto a piece of paper, if only because that can be easily cheated but that doesn't mean that there isn't personal benefit in the experience of writing an essay.
I may not be the best writer but I am a better writer because I wrote essays in university, and I may not be great at math but I can reason and estimate about a variety of things because I have taken many math courses. These things have ultimately made me a better thinker and I am grateful to have had that imparted to me.
- SketchySeaBeast 2y agoAll excellent point, but I'd like to add that it also forces you to do your own research the correct way, by surveying the current state of academic research and then finding and incorporating scholarly sources into your own arguments. Every academic essay I ever wrote after high school started with a trip to the library and JSTOR. I had to guide my own education instead of learning from the teacher and then repeating what had been taught.
- eszed 2y agoYou're completely correct. Learning how to write taught me how to think, and researching and writing essays taught me what I believe about nearly everything on which I have strong opinions. However, +90% of students will not now do any of that work. I got out of teaching (coincidentally) before LLMs appeared, and even then +80% of students did not experience that benefit of the essay process even with a grade (and plagiarism consequences) to motivate them. Now that decent-ish prose is a few keystrokes or Siri-led "chats" away, that's what they're going to do. That's what they're going to do. I know of - I think it's up to four, now - former colleagues taking early retirement, or changing careers, rather than continue teaching Humanities in a world of LLMs.