Category: Respect

The Other A.I.

Featured Image Credit: Pexels on Pixabay

The academic community – a community to which I have belonged for decades – trades in ideas, and thinking is our currency-in-trade.

Throughout my teaching career, as I’ve offered elsewhere, I’ve devoted my practice to helping people make thinking a habit:

Thinking is the value in our ideas, and since we’re accountable by means of personal responsibility to defend these, there’s our incentive for thinking to be informed by knowledge, practised with discipline, and weighed by healthy scepticism. Discussing and testing ideas is the purview of thinking, and as such, thinking’s an invaluable skill.

Along the way, as our thinking skills mature, we yet retain at our core something personalised and uniquely individual: let’s call this integrity, which literally derives from roots that combine to mean something “untouched,” i.e. something “pure.” As puzzle pieces integrate to form a whole picture, so we might imagine all the pieces that form 'ourselves'. Full integrity finds every piece contributing, no piece erroneous or superfluous although, unlike puzzle pieces, ours we are able to enhance and improve. Distinct from “integrity the buzzword,” integrity is the character and experience to cope, or else not cope, with real consequences. Integrity is how we spot adversity, and it fuels our will to leave comfort zones in order to measure how much we’ve grown.

As a coach since 1990 and a teacher since 1999, I’ve long felt my responsibility, on behalf of people, to help players and students find ways to grow and contribute in accordance with their own integrity.

Fuel for this growth includes the earnest effort we expend in the academic setting to develop and explore imaginative, inventive, even original ideas, and then to properly credit the earlier thinkers who provided our source material. Citation is a formal way to indicate where other thinkers’ ideas ended and our ideas began. But such ‘academic integrity’ goes beyond formal citation.

Academic work is an investment – rigour now for pay-off later. Investing in the development and expression of ideas now, out of what came before, not only works the thinker’s valuable skill, it also advances the growth and maturity of broader confidence and social esteem into the future. This is one reason, from my experience, for tying student success directly to engagement with others in a classroom… p.s. that’s hardly some revelation, but it remains important enough to justify reiteration.

When I teach, I need to hear from students too, particularly in person, although whatever the case, in their own words. Of course, I also appreciate the utility of a Zoom call. But in-person contact time between students and teachers is such a precious commodity that face-to-face teaching-and-learning – for me, anyway, not sure for you – is simply irreplaceable and will never be going away… not unless we so utterly lose our broader social integrity that we just stop being human.

That said, we do manage to prove, now and again, that the pieces comprising our integrity seem to contain at least a few impurities. For instance, you may be surprised to learn how, even before the Digital Age, we found ourselves facing opportunities and enticements not only to draw upon others’ ideas, words, images, and videos but also to risk presenting these irresponsibly as our own.

These days, as we have access to scads of text and media literally in the palm of our hands, legitimate schools are left to counter our worser nature by emphasising quaint abstractions like honesty, fairness, and respect. Such schools expect students and teachers to behave as honest and responsible members of an academic community by complying with policies, regulations, and prohibitions that uphold that academic integrity thing.

One common prohibition is plagiarism, which means submitting the oral or written ideas, words, images, or videos of another person as one’s own without giving that other person proper credit or acknowledgement. Plagiarism is intellectual theft though, more simply put, plagiarism is cheating, by which I mean falsifying anything that is subject to formal evaluation or peer review. And again in my experience, I’ve found plagiarism is far more common than most students ever realise. But whether it is or isn’t tantamount to stealing or cheating, plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty that we absolutely must not tolerate, much less accept. Why?

Plagiarism is a serious academic obstacle that poses significant, permanent consequences, whether detected or not. Ideas that are not one’s own must be given credit at all times – perhaps this is the fundamental precept of academics – because, without respecting this credit, any pursuit or growth or refinement of existing knowledge is fruitless, and any working of the skill of thinking utterly ceases for having no available fuel… well, apart from ‘How can I steal and get away with it?’ or maybe ‘How can I justify being lazy?’ or how about ‘How can I excel at being an ‘Enter’ button presser?’ Presenting the same or substantially the same work more than once, in the longer-term, gains us nothing beyond the muddled growth of thinking about ‘how to cheat and prosper at the same time’.

How about the uncredited use of Generative Artificial Intelligence tools, as in ‘Gen A.I.’ – the other A.I.… is this also plagiarism? Honestly, how can it not be? In order to draw upon what’s available, Gen A.I. scours and indexes all available ideas, words, images, and videos, and these not just from some other person but from most everybody out there who’s accessibly published on-line.

Not a search engine in sight… no people either
Image Credit (edited): hyeok10_12 on Pexels

This being the case, then what of any work completed with Gen A.I. – correctly cited or not… what isn’t plagiarism? Good question, one that evidently poses an inconvenient truth yet to be addressed by the euphoric mania, beyond watery defenses like “pattern matching,” “fair use,” and “non-human agency”… bullshit excuses as evasive and lazy as the humans whose use of Gen A.I. warrants all concern for academic integrity in the first place.

“Always ask when you are unsure…”

Thus far, to students who ask me, I’ve found myself able to suggest that Gen A.I. – like Wikipedia before it – makes for a poor academic resource, which is to say, “An easy place to start is rarely a good place to finish.”

Upon saying this to students, I’ve occasionally faced a reminder that the analogue world of my past experience is something to smirk at. Don’t get me wrong, we did have electricity and computers back then, but I’ll grant it was also a time when TVs received broadcast signals, telephones had a dial tone, the Commodore Amiga was cutting-edge technology, and everyone wore Lacoste. More to the point, though… back then, when the encyclopædia on your shelf was all you had, it was also your motive to visit the library, or a magazine stand, or your friendly neighbourhood teacher, who’d also done those same things.

As for those students who smirk at me today, I gather that somebody they’ve never met must have laid my past to rest on their behalf, and therefore nothing – repeat, nothing – from that past had better even try holding threat upon their attention, especially not when it can’t be accessed via smart phone.

By the same turn, I hold what seems to me a reasonable expectation on behalf of these Students of the Digital Age, namely that they appreciate their responsibility to…

  1. understand how ‘academic integrity’ applies to each activity across a program of study
  2. clarify not merely what constitutes ‘academic misconduct’ but also why its consequences threaten our whole endeavour
    • p.s. while you’re at it, also take note whether your school has any kind of “Student Declaration of Responsibility” to which you may have assented upon registration – and then, whether you find one or not, respect it anyway

I should say, I never smirk when I expect all this because, at its core, academics is about broader growth and human progress. It’s about human lives and our livelihoods underway. It’s about how well we expect to be doing once we pass things on… things like ideas and how to think them through.

And hey, if you don’t feel like this endeavour requires work compelled by sincerity and integrity, then maybe it’s time to re-think your involvement. Or maybe just get out of the business altogether because it’s every scholar’s responsibility on everyone else’s behalf to respect the principles of academic integrity, foremost by applying those principles in your own practice.

Image Credit (edited): Bruno Silva on Pexels

Conceptualising the In-Between: I. Language

Over the years, I have made many inspired allusions here on The Rhetorical WHY to a concept called the in-between (IB), often by describing the overlap imagery of the IB space as “the place where ‘one’ ends and ‘another’ begins.” For me, IB is the crux of education, the capstone, because it describes the simultaneous multiple perspective of our interaction.

The in-between concept is key to the separate works of storied philosophical educators, Ted Aoki and Gert Biesta. Aoki explores IB from the Heideggarian clearing (Lichtung), a space reserved between us for disclosure and understanding, and Biesta from the pragmatism of Dewey. Each emphasises shared experiences and communication between teachers and students, and both locate inter-relational curricular dynamics in the figurative “in-between” space that arises as Person ‘A’ and Person ‘B’ (+ ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’…) relate to – and, typically, take up interest in – each other.

As I conceptualise IB in my doctoral work, the relatedness we find in between is holistic, as much an emotional or empathetic consideration of one person for another as it is some intellectual coming-together. This holism comprises as much or as little of whatever is shared by the people involved. However, IB is even more still than this ‘place’ of joint interaction; it is an energetic interface where we find the back-and-forth dynamism of ‘process’ in process – a kind of underway-ness that our cultural eyes seem trained to not see. For being figurative, IB is yet very real.

A brief foray into philosophy can help illustrate how or why Aoki, or Biesta, or you or me or anyone might decide to take up interest in the IB concept, beginning with a study by Charles Taylor of Heidegger:

“The human agent is here an emanation of cosmic spirit.… [T]he idea of expression itself can nudge us toward a third way of locating the clearing. It gives us a notion of the clearing which is essentially Dasein-related… [b]ut it doesn’t place the clearing simply inside us as a representation; it puts it instead in a new space constituted by expression. And in some versions it can acknowledge that the constituting of this space is not simply our doing.”

(Taylor, 2005, p. 445, added emphasis)

Taylor’s broader focus here is language. He describes what he believes Heidegger felt was the nature or aim of a cosmic spirit – although whether that’s either or both nature or aim is harder to discern. In any case, he describes a composite recognition of reality, negotiated between beings (Seiendes), that is not “placed ‘within’ minds, but… out between the interlocutors” (p. 445, added emphasis). As one person expresses, another perceives, and between them occurs an understanding – that is, from continuous perceived expressions arises continual or on-going understanding.

Imagine, for instance, while dressing for Halloween, how you might react not only to your own reflection in a mirror but also to your friend’s reflection as they stand next to you: at once, you are able to take in both of your reactions. Expressions thus perceived are Heidegger’s clearing / light (Lichtung), and “its locus is the speech community” (p. 446), within which I also include non-verbal communication, such as facial expression or body language. We might imagine all our joint interactions, in person or separated, as some living demonstration of this imagery. For each at once, by both in turn, something comes simultaneously to light for each as well as for both. That simultaneity is important yet, as I would argue, more frequently missed, if not ignored.

What Taylor calls an emanating cosmic spirit seems to be some kind of tacit consensus or settlement between two (or more) peoples’ expressions that, when combined, connote some additional ‘something’, something diachronic,[1] like when scientists weigh evidence with theory in order to draw conclusions. All these continuous perceived expressions amalgamate,[2] as we might describe the gradual renovation of a building or the refitting of a ship, right down to the labour contributed by each worker: upon a pre-existing frame we each contribute to building – or rebuilding – something different, something new, something else.

The more people involved, the more potentially complex becomes the consensus that arises from all these amalgamating contributions. Such tacit consensus occurs time-upon-time between us: here and now between you and me as (currently) displaced interlocutors as well as between each of us with [ whomever ] across space and time. Within all our combinations, we are indeed “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality… .” As such, the more people involved – and preferably the more sincere our exchanges – the better. And, to paraphrase Heidegger (with added emphasis), let our consensus set a more stable foundation of shared clarity or enlightenment; let us reach a shared understanding. Otherwise, in rather more chaotic spirit, we may concede to misunderstand and bicker endlessly over fake news and alternative facts.

Rather than a will to power or a will to control, the emanating cosmic spirit aims for something more patient: a shared understanding, an on-going will to live and let live. I call it a will, which suggests vitality, but maybe it is a motive or a desire, some reason-for-being – that starts to seem more teleological, whether inherent or imbued. And I do not mean some platitude, “the will to live and let live,” like a bumper sticker. I mean literally goodwill, and here now is that hazy distinction between nature and aim: a mutually respectful sharing of existence[3] that is…

  • humble in expression
  • appreciative in community
  • inclusive of all whom we accept as well as tolerate, like as well as dislike

… and by which all our interaction and negotiating sets to thriving. As goodwill, this spirit’s thriving welcomes more than any one’s selection of some but is inclusive of all – the preferred, the desirable, the undesirable, the unfamiliar, the outcast, and all the rest as well. And where not everybody’s will is prepared to be so generous, perhaps instead seeking some need to force or to control, well hey… here’s at least one educational objective for anyone humble enough to embrace it.

And how humble are we? As compared to how certain we are about the expressions we offer to others, how generous are we willing to be? And how aware are we of our simultaneity, those expressions that others continuously receive from us while we continuously receive from them? And, in between all these, how anchored are we to the stable foundation upon which we claim the consensus of shared understanding between us, here and now as well as across space and time?

As it happens, all this concurs with Gadamer’s (2004) impression of Dasein as analogous to the Holy Spirit of the Biblical Trinity. This is not to suggest that Dasein is Biblical per se but that Dasein somehow transcends us; as a topic, then, spiritualism seems able to accommodate it. So, to continue (though not yet finish) the Biblical point, a triune impression of Dasein also squares Taylor’s assessment of Nietzsche, Leibniz, Sartre, and others whose work, he says, eventually “leads to our conceiving reality itself as emanating from will” (Taylor, 2005, p. 444). I am no expert on these particular philosophers, but theirs seems generally a branch of thinking that is, from a Biblical understanding, bound for idolatry “in the service of a triumphant will to will” (Taylor, 2005, p. 448). Theirs would supplant with human will the will of God, which created all by His utterances to “Let things be so-and-so.” In such a philosophy…

“… we come to see language as our instrument, and [Heidegger’s] clearing as something which happens in us [i.e. inherently selfish within us, not in the clearing negotiated between interlocutors].… At the end of this road is the reduction of everything to standing reserve in the service of a triumphant will to will. In the attempt to impose our light, we cover the sources of the clearing [i.e. other people and their expressions] in darkness. We close ourselves off to them [and]… the total mobilization of everything as standing reserve threatens the human essence.”

(Taylor, 2005, p. 448)

Existing between us, Taylor’s “human essence” corresponds to the goodwill mentioned above and refers to Heidegger’s “cosmic spirit” that opens this post.

In short, some wilful effort by one person to create and declare “so-and-so” frustrates the shared cosmic spirit of all the rest, by which we might otherwise negotiate a common consensus of… the way things are? … the way we perceive them to be? … the way we contribute to each other’s perceptions and understandings? Regardless, for any one person to declare “reality” is for that person to play God, which undermines all the rest,[4] even while another person might be attempting the very same thing: a battle of wills.

Conversely, if we think of reality as already created and underway, as something of which we are a part, not from which we are apart, then the warning is as dire as the promise is a marvel: communication, and language specifically – verbal, non-verbal, whichever kind – is no mere instrument to our being but the essence of our being, you and me and everyone, at once together: being here and now.

Click here for Part II. Logos

[1] For something diachronic, imagine a film montage: the director edits particular shots into a sequence, e.g. first, the shot of a car approaching a railway crossing; second, the shot of a steaming locomotive barrelling down the track. The two shots might actually have been filmed days, or even years, apart. But presented in sequence to an audience watching the film, they suggest the danger of a collision, especially since film audiences are accustomed to such devastating drama.

[2] In my dissertation, I imagine the accretion of rocks and gases that formed the planets around the Sun as a metaphor for the gradual historical assemblage of teachers who comprise the continuity of the on-going profession. From accretion to assemblage to amalgamation, I develop the imagery toward something of deepening significance or value.

[3] Note here the mutuality of people whose overlapping lives construct the complexity of a “real world” for which education is purported to prepare us, only now I highlight the feature of this mutuality that transcends time: we all live together, just not all at once.

[4] … the assumption here being that all people and their decisions and dignity are equal in stature, value, and worth. History, of course, would have us believe otherwise, which I think is Taylor’s point as well as the reason Gadamer might invoke a Biblical perspective, i.e. our inherited sinful nature – more on that in the next post.

From drowningintheshallow – “Traditions, not Traditional”

Traditions, not Traditional

Sometimes, when we look into a mirror, we’re making sure everything is presentable, just right.

That seems like a bit of a trap to me – for one thing, you could only know ‘just right’ if you had some standard for measure, which seems like a recipe for perfectionism. You might also simply fall into seeing what you want to see. But what may be worst of all is the risk we take for granting our own self-assurance to the judgment of others.

On another day, that may have just described school, but setting that aside, I think it’s still fair to say that a mirror, like any household item, has its pros and cons.

Another way to characterise that look into the mirror is a search for flaws. In a similar way, this also seems to me like a risk since now we’re adopting a frame-of-mind for spotting what is wrong and applying that to our own self-esteem. It’s like practising how to be critical, with you as the practice dummy.

If you combine these two looks – the one, for self-assurance, and the other, a search for flaws – it almost seems no surprise those times we encounter hypocrisy… then again, isn’t there just something about people, that we seem to excel at paradox? I’m sure the psychologists have plenty more to say on this although I’m also sure those are details no one would credibly seek in a blog post. So setting that aside as well, I think it’s still fair to say the search for flaws seems pretty easy to adopt precisely because nobody’s perfect. Everyone’s a critic.

All that seems pretty ‘con’ when it comes to mirrors, so maybe let’s finish with a ‘pro’: we might conceivably look into a mirror for healthy self-appraisal, a more balanced search that weighs itself somewhere in between flaw and assurance, in order to learn and grow. That kind of look inherently grants itself placement among others, which seems honest to me, and humble too.

For me, this featured post from drowningintheshallow looks into the mirror for just this sort of self-appraisal, and by emphasising the ‘thinking’ bit of critical thinking, it credibly raises the level of discourse.

One last thing, although I wonder how many academics and teacher educators seek on-line blogs for credible detail… to this list of words oversimplified by popular usage, such as ‘traditional’ and ‘critical thinking’, I would add ‘self-reflection’.

Like I said, we seem to excel at saying what we want to say.