"The Wager"

 

I am reading The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder, David Grann’s best-selling account of a 1742 voyage when a group of British warships attempted a trip around the tip of South America. 

In the process Grann gives us an insight into how some common English phrases evolved out of the experience of naval exploration and warfare.  Grann writes (on p. 35):

“To “toe the line” derives from when boys on a ship were forced to stand still for inspection with their toes on a deck steam.  To “pipe down” was a boatswain’s whistle for everyone to be quiet at night, and “piping hot” was his call for meals.  A “scuttlebutt” was a water cask around which the seamen gossiped while waiting for their rations. A ship was “three sheets to the wind” when the lines to the sails broke and the vessel pitched drunkenly out of control.  To “turn a blind eye” became a popular expression after Vice-Admiral Nelson deliberately placed his telescope against his blind eye to ignore his superior’s signal flag to retreat.”

Later (on page 51) he mentions the source of the phrase “under the weather.”  It referred to when sailors became so sick that they were moved below deck, away from the weather.

The Wager is a great read.  Grann brings together 18th century social and technological issues, international politics, the impact of social stratification, and the role of naval innovation in the politics of European expansion.  I am still early in the book.  I know it will end in tragedy, but am looking forward to learning more about the fate of The Wager and of the sailors who manned it.

It Takes a Village

 

Individual versus Social Responsibility

Republican Presidential candidate Nikki Haley suffered an embarrassment this election year when asked about the cause of the American Civil War.   It was, she replied, the result of the conflict between two views of how one should live in society.  On one hand, the South celebrated the freedom of the individual, while the North celebrated a society in which government ensured the same rights—equal rights—for all citizens.  Almost immediately, there was a backlash, since most people felt that the Civil War was about slavery and how it denied freedom and full participation in society to an entire race of people.

            One could argue, of course, that slavery—or, more precisely, the right of individual people of one race to buy and hold others as slaves—was a major implication of a social structure defined by the rights of individuals without also referencing the individual’s responsibility to their society and the right of all individuals to the same opportunities.    Ultimately, this frames the questions that all democracies must address and then continue to consider as every new generation faces fresh challenges. 

The question of how to balance the individual’s rights with the individual’s responsibility to the community is not a new concern.  In his history of America during the Presidencies of Thomas Jefferson, Henry Adams (John Quincy’s grandson) recalled a controversy over whether or not citizens should fund the development of a highway across Rhode Island.  Opponents argued for a toll road, saying that they should not be required to pay the cost of people transporting goods from one place to another (Adams, p. 46).  Adams quotes Timothy Dwight, President of Yale from 1795 to 1817, on the Rhode Island state legislature’s refusal to fund the completion of an unfinished turnpike designed to cross the state:

“The principal reason for the refusal, as alleged by one of the members, it is said, was the following: that turnpikes and the establishment of religious worship had their origin in Great Britain, the government of which was a monarchy and the inhabitants slaves; that the people of Massachusetts and Connecticut were obliged by law to support ministers and pay the fare of turnpikes, and were therefore slaves also; that if they chose to be slaves they undoubtedly had a right to their choice, but that free-born Rhode Islanders ought never to submit to be priest-ridden, nor to pay for the privilege of travelling on the highway. This demonstrative reasoning prevailed, and the road continued in the state which I have mentioned until the year 1805. It was then completed, and free-born Rhode Islanders bowed their necks to the slavery of travelling on a good road” (ibid.).

And so it has gone for the two centuries that followed.  We continue to struggle to find a happy middle ground between the desire for individual freedom, on one hand, and the need for individuals to take responsibility for their communities on the other.  Historically, one result of this way of living is that the control of community falls to a tiny minority.  In the olden days, these were the aristocrats, kings and dictators.  The challenge for today, when many citizens have lost their sense of citizenship, is to keep our culture as a community of individuals.  As some have said, “It takes a village.”  Call it democracy.   

"Mayflower" -- Understanding the Real Events of Our Early History

 I just finished reading “Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War,” Nathaniel Philbrick’s account of how the Pilgrims and other English   peoples left Europe and came to what is now known as “New England” and how they interacted with the native Americans who already called that area home.   The book devotes much attention to the relationship between the Europeans and the Native Americans, showing how they competed for resources, how they learned about each other’s culture and ways, and, ultimately, how they came into conflict through King Philip’s War--a war that divided the Native Americans into pro- and anti-English factions and, ultimately, contributed greatly to the decline of the Native American population in New England.  

    It also documents some disturbing actions, especially in light of the long tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving as a coming together of English and Native American communities.  I was amazed to learn, for instance, that the English sold captured Native American fighters into slavery.  Beyond that, the war resulted in a huge loss of Native American population in the area.  As Philbrick writes, “The fourteen bloody months between June 1675 and August 1676 had a last, disturbing impact. On the development of New England and, with it, all of America.  . . . And yet we must look with something more than cynicism at a people who maintained more than half a century of peace with their Native neighbors.  The great mystery of this story is how America emerged from the terrible darkness of King Philip’s War to become the United States” (Mayflower p. 357).
   

    Given the political extremism that is currently flooding  the United States as we prepare for a historic election, we should all take a fresh look at a our history to better understand how we got here and what we need to value as we continue to evolve as a society.  I highly recommend Mayflower as a starting point.

 Philbrick, Nathanial.  Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War.  Penguin Books, 2007.

Streaming Media and the Schools

 

Streaming Media and the Schools

For much of the past 70 years, broadcast television has been an important part of our daily lives.  After a hard day’s work, people would go home for the evening and sit down with their favorite television show.  The next morning at work, a show might be the topic of conversation with colleagues around the water cooler or coffee machine.   It helped to reinforce a sense of community.

            Public television first blossomed in this environment.  Most stations devoted their daytime schedule to “in-school” programs—instructional video programs that were designed for teachers to show in their classrooms on topics that ranged across the curriculum and grade levels.  Back in those days, I worked for WPSU (then WPSX), which offered a full-day schedule of instructional programs throughout the school year and produced instructional programs like What’s in the News, a public affairs program for middle-grade students, and Investigative Science for Elementary Education, which demonstrated physical phenomena for students to study.  The in-school service thrived for three decades, but waned when videocassettes made it possible for teachers to record programs and then show when it was most convenient for them and their students.  Soon after, DVDs allowed schools to create their own instructional video libraries.

            Another change was the rise of cable television in the 1970s.  Now, viewers had more channels to choose from, including channels that could only be viewed if one had a cable subscription.   MTV and CNN are two examples.  The increased number of channels meant that work colleagues were less likely to have had the same TV experience the night before. 

            Now, we are experiencing a new revolution in our viewing habits as TV channels replace their old broadcast schedules with streaming services.  CNN has reported that in July 2023, “linear TV” (i.e., broadcast or cablecast programs) “made up less than half of all TV viewing,” according to the TV polling company Nielsen.  Meanwhile, the report continues, “. . . streaming services, such as Netflix and YouTube, grew last month to a record high of 38.7% of all total TV watching.”   While some streamed series are still scheduled on a weekly basis, the fact that they are streamed means that, within that week, viewers may watch the program at any time.  In some cases, whole series are available, so that viewers can binge watch a 13-part series in a few days, rather than wait for 13 weeks for the story to end.

            Streaming has some interesting implications, though, for K-12 instructional uses.  In a streaming environment all students could view programs at the best time for them.  It also means that their parents have equal access to the programs and could help students learn from them.

As streaming becomes more accepted by teachers, parents, and students, we could, I hope, see a resurgence of instructional media in our schools and a new role for public television to help schools use television as an. Instructional tool. 

            While another innovation—artificial intelligence—is grabbing the headlines these days, we should not overlook the power of streaming media to enrich the educational environment.

Artificial Intelligence: The Next Phase of the Information Revolution

 

It has been only a year since ChatCPT brought artificial intelligence to the attention of the education community, opening a new phase of the Information Revolution for both K-12 and higher education.  This fall, the question administrators brought to classroom teachers at both levels wasy, “How are we going to handle it when students turn in essays written by AI?”  What is driving the increasingly intense interest in ChatCPT and Artificial Intelligence in general is how ChatCPT, as Wikipedia puts it, “enables users to refine and steer a conversation towards a desired length, format, style, level of detail, and language used.”  At both the high school and college levels, faculty become concerned that students will use ChatCPT to generate assignment papers.  eCampusNews, which has published a number of articles about AI in the classroom, carried an article by Dr. Steven Baule on September 5, 2023, with “6 tips to detect AI-generated student work.”  The six tips:

1. Look for typos. AI-generated text tends not to include typos, and such errors that make our writing human are often a sign that the submission was created by a human.

2. Lack of personal experiences or generalized examples are another potential sign of AI-generated writing. For instance, “My family went to the beach in the car” is more likely to be AI-generated than “Mom, Betty, and Rose went to the 3^rd Street beach to swim.”

3. AI-generated text is based upon looking for patterns in large samples of text. Therefore, more common words, such as the, it, and is are more likely to be represented in such documents. Similarly, common words and phrases are more likely to appear in AI-generated submissions.

4. Instructors should look for unusual or complete phrases that a student would not normally employ. A high school student speaking of a lacuna in his school records might be a sign the paper was AI-generated.

5. Inconsistent styles, tone, or tense changes may be a sign of AI-derived materials. Inaccurate citations are often common in AI-generated papers. The format is correct, but the author, title, and journal information were simply thrown together and do not represent an actual article. These and other such inaccurate information from a generative AI tool are sometimes called hallucinations.

6. Current generative AI tends to be based off training materials developed no later than 2021. So, text that references 2022 or more recent events, etc. is less likely to be AI-generated. Of course, this will continue to change as AI engines are improved.

Leon Furze noted in his blog that the rapid growth of AI in education has led to a “widespread fear” that it will be used by students for cheating.  However, he adds that “The truth is, we have little idea of the impact the technology will have on education. . . Some states are still deciding whether to ban the technology outright, while others try to grapple with the ethical and academic implications of permitting its use.”  Furze also noted that ChatGPT prohibits people under 18 years old to sign up for access.  “However,” he notes, “there are many ways teaches might use ChatGPT . . . and it is almost certain that many students will be using the technology.  This means that one of the biggest factors in education should be the discussion of the technology’s ethical and appropriate use.”

Interestingly, shortly after publishing Steven Baule’s “six tips” article, eCampus News posted “Coming Out of the AI Closet: A Scholar’s Embrace of ChatGPT-4,” a pro-AI statement by Dr. John Johnston.  Johnson argues that “ChatGPT-4 has ushered in a new era of brainstorming, structuring, and drafting academic papers. Understanding that this cannot be equated to outsourcing my work to AI is crucial. Instead, ChatGPT-4 acts as an enhancer for my innate critical thinking and creative prowess.

The previous week in eCampus News, Roger Hamilton had argued that “In the realm of higher education, this marriage of AI and learning is ushering in a new era that holds the potential to not only disseminate knowledge, but also cultivate the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.”   He added, “By acquainting learners with cutting-edge technologies like AR, VR, and the metaverse via innovative methodologies, this approach hones their ability to tackle challenges that may not even be conceivable in the present.”

This year we recognize the thirtieth anniversary of the Internet browser, a tool that has, over the past generation, revolutionized how we communicate, how we work together, how we build bridges across the old barriers of geography and time. It is not hard to imagine that AI will be of similar—if not greater—significance, as K-12 schools and universities together innovate to use this new tool to change how students use technology to find meaning in their areas of study and learn how to better communicate that meaning.   The rapid movement of AI into the mainstream is already creating disruption.  Laura Ascione reported in eCampus News on a Cengage Group survey of 1,000 degree graduates that “Half of graduates (46 percent) feel threatened by AI and question their workforce readiness (52 percent).”  The challenge facing both K-12 and higher education leaders is how to create a new approach to educational methods and content to prepare students to work in an environment that is just now taking shape but that will evolve rapidly over the coming years.  Like the Internet browser three decades ago, AI will stimulate some dramatic changes in how we educate citizens for the future.

A Lesson from Joseph Campbell: We Live In Nature, not On Nature

 

I am reading The Power of Myth, a collection of conversations that Bill Moyers had with Joseph Campbell, who once described mythology as “the song of the universe, the music of the spheres.”  The interviews were the focus of a six-part 1988 PBS television series; the interviews were also published as a book by Anchor Press in 1991.

In the first interview, Moyers asks, “Mother Earth.  Will new myths come from this image?”

Campbell’s answer sets the stage for us to think in new ways about our relationship to the world around us.  He says, “And the only myth that is going to be worth thinking about in the immediate future is one that is talking about the planet, not the city, not these people, but the planet, and everybody on it.  That’s my main thought for what the future myth is going to be. . . the society that its got to talk about is the society of the planet. And until that gets going, you don’t have anything.”

Campbell goes on to talk about Chief Seattle, quoting a version of a speech that this Northwest Native American leader supposedly gave upon learning that the federal government wanted to buy tribal lands to make way for immigrants in the 1850s.

“The President in Washington," he says, “sends word that he wishes to buy our land.  But how can you buy or sell the sky?  The land?  The idea is strange to us.  We do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?”

“We know the sap which courses through the trees,” he adds, “as we know the blood that courses through our veins.  We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters.  The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers.  The rocky crests, the juices in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man, all belong to the same family. . .  If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh.”

“This we know,” he says, “The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all.  Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it.  Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”

These are the thoughts of a person who lives in nature and not—like some invasive species—on nature.  This summer, when the entire world is suffering from global warming brought about by our short-sighted greed and uncaring treatment of the earth, it is a message that carries new meaning.  It is time for us to find our place in this world and to remember Chief Seattle’s closing words:  “We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heart-beat.  So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it.  Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it.  Preserve the land for all children and love it, as God loves us all.”

Henry Adams on Pennsylvania in 1800: "The History of the United States 1801-1809"

 

I have begun reading Henry Adams’ History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson.  It covers the cultural and political history of the U.S. from 1800 to 1809.  Originally, the book was published in nine volumes.  I am reading the Library of America edition, which includes 1252 pages. (The Library of America also publishes Adams’ History of the United States of America During the Administrations of James Madison, which is equally long).

Adams, the descendant of two Presidents, had a personal interest in American history.  His grandfather was John Quincy Adams; his great-grandfather was John Adams.  That said, the book is not just about politics.  The first six chapters, covering 125 pages, explores what the United States looked like in the year 1800—a mere 24 years after 1776.  These chapters describe the variety of life in the U.S., with profiles of Northeastern, middle-Atlantic, and Southern states, how they viewed democracy, and how they dealt with political and social trends. I was especially surprised by his analysis of Pennsylvania:

The only true democratic community then existing in the eastern States, Pennsylvania was neither picturesque nor troublesome.  The State contained no hierarchy like that of New England; no great families like those of New York; no oligarchy like the planters of Virginia and South Carolina . . .The value of Pennsylvania to the Union lay not so much in the democratic spirit of society as in the rapidity with which it turned to national objects.  Partly for this reason, the State made an insignificant figure in politics. As the nation grew, less and less was said in Pennsylvania of interests distinct from those of the Union.  Too thoroughly democratic to fear democracy and too much nationalized to dread nationality, Pennsylvania became the ideal American State, easy, tolerant, and contented.  If its soil bred little genius, it bred still less treason. With twenty different religious creeds, its practice could not be narrow, and a strong Quaker element made it human.  If the American Union succeeded the good sense, liberality, and democratic spirit of Pennsylvania had a right to claim credit for the result (pp.80-81).

Jefferson was about to assume leadership of a nation struggling to find a common vision for their new democracy and for ways to take charge of their vast frontier.  I am looking forward to Adams’ telling of that tale.