Books

What Happens When AI Does the Writing?

~ corinnemasur2331 ~ Leave a comment

Recently, The Journal of the American Medical Association, one of the most prestigious journals in medicine, published an opinion piece on the use of AI in scientific writing. The author, John Steiner, discussed the perils involved. 

He talks about how tempting it is for scientists to use AI when they write, given that many of them do not enjoy or feel competent at writing. He mentions that they have been trained in science, not in the humanities, and many have received no formal training in writing….since high school.

The problem is that scientists become successful partially by virtue of the number of papers they get published. Overwhelmed as they are by their other responsibilities – teaching, research, grant writing, etc. – AI becomes particularly attractive as a way to shortcut the writing process. 

But, Steiner says, it is amid these pressures that an important matter is forgotten: scientific writing is a creative act.

And here is where we get to my point in writing this post: this is not the case only with scientific writing. Just about any kind of writing is a creative act – and this is as true in fifth grade or seventh grade as it is at the postgraduate level. If children and teens farm out their writing to AI, they too miss out on the creative act of writing. They miss the opportunity to choose words and, indeed, ideas, carefully and consciously. They miss out on the chance to figure out how to best express their own thoughts.

Steiner quotes the writer, Ted Chang, who pithily said,  “The task that generative AI has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and
of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning.”

The creative act of writing involves struggle. It isn’t easy to express ones ideas clearly, to choose the words that convey our ideas best and that sound the most pleasing. But the question is, what happens to people – scientists, or kids – if they do not engage in this sort of mental exercise? What happens to their creativity? And what happens to their feeings about themselves when they submit an article or hand in homework on which they didn’t really work very hard because they used AI to do their writing? What happens to the development of their ability to withstand the frustration inherent in doing intellectual work?

In the end, Steiner comes to this conclusion: “We should not protect young researchers from that struggle, and they should not protect themselves by relying too heavily on AI tools.” And I would say the same of kids. Let’s do all we can to discourage AI use in writing – at home and at school. Yes, AI is good for correcting grammar and spelling mistakes, for finding citations, and even for summarizing the content of articles. But beyond that? Let’s try to help kids (and scientists) to do the writing on their own.

References

Steiner, John F., JAMA. Scientific Writing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, November 17, 2025.
doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2025.6078

Chiang T. Why AI isn’t going to make art. New
Yorker. Published on August 31, 2024. Accessed
May 19, 2025. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/
the-weekend-essay/why-ai-isnt-going-to-make-art

Do Your Kids Know How to Learn?

~ corinnemasur2331 ~ Leave a comment

And what cognitive science has to offer

Daniel Willingham is a cognitive scientist, by which I mean, he is an academic researcher who extracts information from psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy, computer science, and anthropology in an effort to understand the mind and apply the findings to education.1

In his book, Outsmart Your Brain, Willingham says something revolutionary: he says that most children are asked to learn without ever being taught study skills, without ever being taught how to organize themselves for studying, without ever having been taught to prioritize what to study, and without ever having been taught what to do when they procrastinate about studying.

And we all know this is true because we were once those children.

Unless your kids go to a very unusual school, this will be true for them as well.

When I went to school, I remember being told that I just wasn’t “trying hard enough”. But Willingham says that wanting to learn has no direct impact on learning.

He says that we often remember things we didn’t intend to learn and we often do not remember things we did want to learn.

He also says that repetition doesn’t guarantee learning.

From junior high onward, Willingham says that school is made up mostly of three basic tasks: listening, reading and taking tests — and these are the three areas of learning he covers in his book.

He talks about so many important things. For example, he describes how to extract the important information from a lecture, a lab or a demonstration. And he goes into detail about how to take notes, and how to organize materials.

Interestingly, he also talks about the dangers of having a computer open in the classroom — even if the student is taking notes on it — and I think we all know what he means: it is tempting to look at other things and do other things while the laptop is open. Willingham suggests that students who are allowed to have laptops open in class put the laptop on airplane mode so they do not do other activities during class

Willingham even gives advice for instructors about how to present material so that it will be clearer and more easily learned. And he gives more such advice in another of his books, Why Students Don’t Like School.

Whether all of his ideas are backed up by research on the particular methods he is recommending is unclear to me. But his books are heavily referenced, he has clearly studied the existing literature on learning, and his own background in cognitive science is extensive.

You may want to read these books. You may even want to donate a couple of Willingham’s books to the principal of your child’s school and ask if they can incorporate some of what he has to say into in-service training for teachers. Furthermore, you may want to ask the principal of your child’s school to institute some new curriculum for the students on how to study and learn effectively, or even suggest that a course be offered in this subject – especially in seventh or ninth grades when learning becomes more complex. I say this because teaching kids how to learn is not a job parents should feel they have to take on entirely by themselves.

In fact, I think it would be hard to impart Willingham’s ideas to your own children. Kids often resist parents’ efforts to help them learn. But if done at school, as part of the curriculum, it seems to me that teaching strategies for studying and learning – including many of Willingham’s ideas – could be extremely helpful.

Teachers receive a lot of information about pedagogy. They go to college to learn how to teach, they go to conferences to learn more and they are often provided with materials during seminars at the schools where they work. But kids, as Willingham says, are rarely taught how to learn.

It is about time that we helped kids learn how to learn, that we helped teachers teach kids how to learn, and that we helped teachers teach in a way that makes it easier for kids to learn.

PS

This book isn’t just for parents and teachers – it can be helpful to anyone still engaged in the learning process – including at work. Check out, especially, the chapter on procrastination!

References

1 https://joe-kirby.com/2013/03/23/science-learning/

Willingham, Daniel T. Outsmart Your Brain

Willingham, Daniel T. Why Students Don’t Like School

Best Parenting Books 2022

~ Thoughtful Parenting ~ 1 Comment

Here’s a round up of the top five best parenting books that were released in 2022. Happy reading!

Best New Books:

1) Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids by Mona Delahooke

“Based on years of clinical experience, this book offers a new approach to parenting that considers and centers the essential role of the entire nervous system, which controls children’s feelings and behaviors, in how to raise children.”

2) Peaceful Discipline: Story Teaching, Brain Science & Better Behavior by Sarah R. Moore

“A reflection on the body-brain connection in behavior and why our concept of “consequences don’t work for children, and what to do, within a positive framework, instead.”

3) Raising Antiracist Children: A Practical Parenting Guide by Britt Hawthorne

“An essential guide to raising inclusive, antiracist children from educator and advocate, Britt Hawthorne.”

4) LGBTQ Family Building: A Guide for Prospective Parents by Abbie E. Goldberg

“This easy to read guide offers a comprehensive overview of parenting with regard to the specific complexities, joys, and nuances of being an LGBTQ+ person and parent.”

5) Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be by Dr. Becky Kennedy 

“A comprehensive resource offering new techniques for modern parenting and how to raise kids to feel confident and resilient.”

And a few oldies but goodies:

(These are a few recommendations but this series continues all the way up to adolescence!)

An Alternative Ending to “The Giving Tree”

~ Thoughtful Parenting ~ 1 Comment

Dr. Corinne Masur

The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein is a beloved favorite in some families and a book to be avoided in others. The tree gives its apples, its branches and eventually its trunk to the boy who has grown up “loving” the tree. For some people the tree provides an example of selfless love.  For others, the tree models love which knows no boundaries and ends up destroying itself in an effort to give the boy all he wants.


If you or anyone you know fall into the second category, a playwright has written an alternative ending to The Giving Tree just for you!  While possibly not as poetic as the original and perhaps needing some rewording for young children, it does provide a model of what it means to love while also setting self preserving boundaries:
https://www.topherpayne.com/giving-tree