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The New Barbarism
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2026
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Fuck AI
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I'm actually teaching some students who honest to God are in their early teens and LITERALLY cannot string two sentences together. I never want to hear anybody tell me about how writing assignments were a waste of time again, because I can PERSONALLY vouch that if you don't practice it, you literally cannot do it at all.
Essay writing (for example exercises that you are arguing for one side vs the other) is major part how you learn critical thinking.
I suspect that the educated people who were anti vax during covid most likely paid others to write essays for them.
I think it can play a part and help many though your statement feels as though you're implying it's required for critical thinking. I could be wrong however. I bring it up because I don't feel like the essays I've had to write contributed to my understanding of critical thinking as much as empathy did.
If you didn't mean it that way, carry on! If you did, I'd be very interested to learn what makes it intrinsic to the critical thinking framework.
It's not about understanding critical thinking it is about thinking critically.
When you write an essay to compare and contrast, or pick a position about specific subject you know that you can't use your for feeling or use some random guy on Facebook you still have to back it up if you want to get a good grade. It doesn't even matter what your position is, as long as you do work. You know the teacher won't accept any bullshit. It purposefully is also given topic that you are unlikely to know about so you do that work.
This is what teaches you critical thinking skills, that you can apply in your life in the future for new things.
People who has others do this work for them or attended colleges that didn't do this got nice disservice done as it is much easier to lie to them.
Ah, okay I see where my disconnect was. Since it's the most common application of critical thinking for me, I was thinking of it in terms of introspection. It might just be that I got enough practice in school that I sometimes forget it's not the default way most folks look at things.
Thanks for elaborating!
The easiest method to string two sentences together is to simply forget to use a period, right?
If these young adults can't put two sentences together, then it seems like their writing assignments were definitely a waste of time.
Theyre not doing the assignments is the point I think
That is the point, yes.
Which is another thing. The ones who never do the reading assignments have ABYSMAL reading comprehension. And I don't just mean like, they can't find symbolism - I mean:
"Bob picked up the scissors off the counter." "What did Bob pick up?" "...I don't know."
It's legitimately scary.