Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Teaching Kids to Think For Themselves in the Age of AI

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Teaching Kids to Think For Themselves in the Age of AI · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: Gooday, Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Being able to
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Speaker 1: think for yourself, Being able to think critically, being able
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Speaker 1: to be aware of your biases, the flaws in your perceptions,
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Speaker 1: the way that you're seeing things is something that is
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Speaker 1: increasingly absent, unfortunately, according to research, and for us as adults,
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Speaker 1: as parents, as business owners, as employees, whatever it is
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Speaker 1: that we're doing, being able to think for ourselves makes
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Speaker 1: life better. All too often we just act as repeaters.
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Speaker 1: We just say what we've heard somebody else say because
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Speaker 1: it sounded intelligent, and therefore we think if we say
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Speaker 1: what they're saying, then we must be intelligent because they
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Speaker 1: seemed intelligent when they said it. And is that really
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Speaker 1: working for us in the age of social media? In fact,
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Speaker 1: in the age of AI, I would argue that it's
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Speaker 1: a bit of a concern today. As special guest on
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Speaker 1: the Happy Families Podcast, Michael Parker. Michael is an author.
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Speaker 1: He's written a couple of books, including one It's on
1:00
Speaker 1: My Bookshelves, and he's the head master of Newington College
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Speaker 1: in Sydney. I'm going to talk to him in just
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Speaker 1: a second about his brand new book called Thinking for Yourself.
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Speaker 1: I have no doubt this will be provocative, helpful for
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Speaker 1: us as adults, but also helpful us in our conversations
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Speaker 1: with our children as they are increasingly told not how
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Speaker 1: to think, but what to think. Stay with us, that's
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Speaker 1: coming up next. Hi, Welcome to The Happy Family his
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Speaker 1: podcast Real Parenting Solutions, every day on Australia's most downloaded
1:30
Speaker 1: parenting podcast. My name is doctor Justin Coulson and today
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Speaker 1: I'm joined by Michael Parker. Michael is the head master
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Speaker 1: at Newington College in Sydney. He has a master's degree
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Speaker 1: in teaching philosophy to children and is the author of
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Speaker 1: seven well now eight books. Before being at Newington, he
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Speaker 1: was also the head master of Oxley College in the
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Speaker 1: Southern Highlands of New South Wales. And it's a real
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Speaker 1: delight to have you with me today, Michael, thanks for
1:53
Speaker 1: being here.
1:53
Speaker 2: It's a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me. So.
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Speaker 1: I want to start off with this idea of thinking
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Speaker 1: for yourself. Where did the idea come from? How did
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Speaker 1: you decide that a book about it needed to be written?
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Speaker 1: Is this because of what you're seeing in schools? Is
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Speaker 1: it because of the conversations that you're having with I
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Speaker 1: think Newington has been in the news recently because a
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Speaker 1: lot of adults are convinced that Newington shouldn't go through
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Speaker 1: a transition that it's about to go through. Where did
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Speaker 1: this come from?
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Speaker 3: In one sense, it came about sort of seven or
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Speaker 3: eight years ago. Where we were looking at it was
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Speaker 3: a combination of social media. It was looking at the
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Speaker 3: way in which people were getting more and more extreme,
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Speaker 3: a lot of people in the world getting more and
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Speaker 3: more extreme in their views, and it just seemed harder
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Speaker 3: to be for Bill without the talk to each other,
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Speaker 3: harder to feel without the rationalized, harder to be able
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Speaker 3: to think the other side. So we just let's put
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Speaker 3: together all the stuff that makes up good thinking. It's
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Speaker 3: almost like a bit of a recipe book, and you've
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Speaker 3: got all those ingredients there. You can learn about them,
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Speaker 3: you understand that needs like a couple of minutes to
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Speaker 3: take in each and you mix them all around.
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Speaker 2: I don't know.
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Speaker 3: If every person the flavor of the taste is going
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Speaker 3: to be the same, but at least every he goes
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Speaker 3: this is.
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Speaker 2: What good thinking looks like.
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Speaker 3: It will help you make a decision, I will help
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Speaker 3: you able to talk to my kids, will be able
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Speaker 3: to help have those conversations with my kids and yeah,
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Speaker 3: and make.
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Speaker 2: Good decisions as well. So that's that's where it came from.
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Speaker 1: Michael. We live at a culture that really rewards individuals,
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Speaker 1: in other words, being able to think for yourself. There
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Speaker 1: are there are other cultures that are extremely collectivist and
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Speaker 1: reward conformity. Both have their advantages, both have their disadvantages.
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Speaker 1: What I'm curious about is this, what is our education
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Speaker 1: system rewarding right now, conformity or critical thinking.
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Speaker 3: I think a lot of education says it rewards individuality
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Speaker 3: and rewards the individual response.
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Speaker 2: And the thing that comes out of discussion.
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Speaker 3: I do think in the general system there's still a
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Speaker 3: lot of we we know what we want to read
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Speaker 3: at the end, and we know what we want you
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Speaker 3: to produce, and we know what a good essay looks
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Speaker 3: like and so on.
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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, So I think.
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Speaker 3: That the aspirations to be very, very individualist is more
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Speaker 3: than what ends up happening at the other end.
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Speaker 1: Thinking about what you're just saying now, Michael, I'm reminded
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Speaker 1: of something that I often say when I'm running my presentations,
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Speaker 1: and that is that one of the most valuable skills
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Speaker 1: we can give to our children is the ability to
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Speaker 1: stand in front of an audience and prosecute an argument,
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Speaker 1: to be able to stand up and argue their point
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Speaker 1: of view, and to do it effectively. I'm not arguing
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Speaker 1: that debate should be compulsory in school, although I think
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Speaker 1: that it probably would be kind of handy if more
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Speaker 1: kids knew how to do that. But that capacity to
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Speaker 1: do so, like thinking said Henry Ford, is one of
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Speaker 1: the hardest things there is to do, which is probably
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Speaker 1: why so few people do it. That's paraphrased. But if
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Speaker 1: you're going to argue that we've got to be able
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Speaker 1: to think for ourselves, which is what the book is about,
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Speaker 1: to me, that means that we've got to be able
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Speaker 1: to You can't think well if you can't write well
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Speaker 1: and can't speak well, because writing and speaking demand a
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Speaker 1: degree of specificity and articulation. That means you're thinking has
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Speaker 1: to be clear. Yes, when it comes to creating clear thinking,
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Speaker 1: What are our biggest impediments? Because I would argue that
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Speaker 1: not only children today, but people at a fairly general
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Speaker 1: level aren't engaging what i'd consider to be deep thinking
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Speaker 1: and profound thinking and switch turning on life changing thinking.
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Speaker 1: What are the obstacles to really deep, thoughtful, considered thinking.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, the first is attention span, and probably the second
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Speaker 3: is attention span as well.
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Speaker 1: Sorry, I just got distracted what you're saying. The first
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Speaker 1: that was a joke because you were span. So we've
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Speaker 1: got attention span is the as a critical factor, a
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Speaker 1: critical stumbling block. It's funny to say that. I know
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Speaker 1: that there are others that you're going to mention as
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Speaker 1: challenges to deep thinking and thinking for yourself and critical thinking.
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Speaker 1: But I don't know if you saw or not. But
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Speaker 1: recently John Burn Murdoch from The Financial Times published a
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Speaker 1: fascinating analysis of a study out of America. It's called
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Speaker 1: the Understanding America Study, and what he found is that
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Speaker 1: in the youngest generations at the moment, that is our
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Speaker 1: sixteen to thirty nine year old so we're talking about
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Speaker 1: our gen z's, it will certainly be jen alpha thingk
6:19
Speaker 1: although they were't included in the study, but our gen
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Speaker 1: z's and our millennials has seen a dropping conscientiousness over
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Speaker 1: the last ten years, that is by magnitudes greater than
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Speaker 1: anything else, an increase in emotional instability otherwise known as neuroticism.
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Speaker 1: They've seen a drop in agreeableness, a drop an extraversion,
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Speaker 1: and they've seen distraction and carelessness rising exponentially. Perseverance has
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Speaker 1: fallen through the floor. So when I think about what
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Speaker 1: you've just described as the critical first barrier to deep thinking,
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Speaker 1: to thinking for yourself, what I'm really hearing is that
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Speaker 1: attention span, that capacity to just focus on one thing
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Speaker 1: you look at all the data seems to be pointing
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Speaker 1: in the same direction. That is that that first key
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Speaker 1: thing is is just it's not there anymore.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, We've started the kids of it and my wife
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Speaker 3: and co author, Fiona It works with kids at university
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Speaker 3: for two hours how to go and says her biggest
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Speaker 3: job is to get them to attend and to stay
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Speaker 3: focused and to stay with it four hours, because that
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Speaker 3: is the biggest, the biggest skill there is. And of
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Speaker 3: course all of society is sending the opposite messages. We
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Speaker 3: cut things up smaller and smaller YouTube videos and TV
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Speaker 3: than you know, five second things for doom scrolling. I
7:43
Speaker 3: actually sat behind somebody in a train yesterday and did
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Speaker 3: a bit of a like. I just did account of
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Speaker 3: how long she spent on each screen, and it was
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Speaker 3: an average of one and a half seconds.
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Speaker 2: Wow. And this was like dozens of screen games.
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Speaker 3: Right, And so if your leisure time is out of
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Speaker 3: mized like that, funnily enough, if as teachers and parents
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Speaker 3: we accept it and we don't stretch that attention and
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Speaker 3: go ah, we've all got to chop it up and
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Speaker 3: just smaller and smaller bits, and you know guys that
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Speaker 3: blend it and whatever, then again they're they're not getting
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Speaker 3: it from us. And as a result, you can't you
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Speaker 3: can't do the harder thinking because hard I think, as
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Speaker 3: you're saying, thinking, thinking can be hard. Yeah, and so
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Speaker 3: you've got to be able to sit there and do
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Speaker 3: it for for a good a good period of time.
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Speaker 3: There's no great quote. I think it's Bernard Russell. He
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Speaker 3: said many most people would rather die than think. In
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Speaker 3: fact they do.
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Speaker 2: Wow.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. I was speaking to a school teacher just the
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Speaker 1: other day who said that a student had commented that
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Speaker 1: sometimes class is so boring that he just wants to
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Speaker 1: swipe up to the next screen.
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Speaker 2: The next teachers.
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Speaker 1: Just swipe up, next teacher, next teacher. Not not working
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Speaker 1: for me? Well he gets cool by amazing. What other
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Speaker 1: barriers to real thinking thinking for yourself exist other than
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Speaker 1: attention span, the ability to focus.
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Speaker 3: I think there's an invidious sense of influences and people
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Speaker 3: whose views they are getting monetizing making things show and
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Speaker 3: monetizing making things extreme and telling a really good, easy
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Speaker 3: story that people can just flow into, whether whether that's
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Speaker 3: about their gender, whether it's about their race, whatever, whatever
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Speaker 3: it is, and people can can just go, yeah, I can.
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Speaker 3: I can sink into this more extreme story and get
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Speaker 3: a little bit angry and it's yeah, and you get
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Speaker 3: you get a sense of I call it membership or
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Speaker 3: ownership or a sense of belonging by just being part
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Speaker 3: of that group and not not thinking about it, not
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Speaker 3: playing girl's advocate, not pushing against it, not doing that
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Speaker 3: that that hard work.
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Speaker 1: Identity politics. That's really what it is. Somebody is saying,
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Speaker 1: I'm part of this group, so therefore the group's done
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Speaker 1: the thinking for me. I'll just go along with what
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Speaker 1: the group is saying.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's that's that's right.
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Speaker 3: My my, my political party says it, or the the
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Speaker 3: influencers that I'm listening to says it.
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Speaker 2: So so I'm I'm going along with it. And you
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Speaker 2: can get that.
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Speaker 3: You know, there's this you know, I talk about two
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Speaker 3: different types. There, there's the there's the one who radicalizes
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Speaker 3: you and I'm thinking about the Andrew Takes.
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Speaker 2: Of the world and so on. And then there's the
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Speaker 2: influencers who who just.
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Speaker 3: Talk about really bland stuff really quickly. Uh and and
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Speaker 3: that takes you away from from deep and substantial thinking
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Speaker 3: as well.
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Speaker 1: I'm talking to Michael Parker. Michael is the head of
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Speaker 1: Newington College and has written a brand new book called
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Speaker 1: Thinking for Yourself, very focused on critical thinking. Michael, when
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Speaker 1: we think about other obstacles, one one thing that really
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Speaker 1: jumps out at me is just the biases. The way
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Speaker 1: that that great quote from Ann in we don't see
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Speaker 1: the world as it is, we see the world as
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Speaker 1: we are, tell me about the biases or the one
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Speaker 1: bias to rule them all. If there was one bias
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Speaker 1: that really impacted our thinking and our ability to think critically,
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Speaker 1: what would what would be The one that stands out
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Speaker 1: to you is most impactful, the one that's the greatest obstacle, The.
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Speaker 3: Most impactful one is probably confirmation bias.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was hoping you'd say that that confirms
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Speaker 1: everything that I believed. So, so you were right, I
11:39
Speaker 1: was right along, that's right.
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Speaker 3: So and you've so good, I've got to be careful
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Speaker 3: with it. If there's an idea that comes from a
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Speaker 3: political party that I'm more aligned with, I go, yeah, Yeah,
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Speaker 3: that's a that's a that's a great idea. And if
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Speaker 3: I hear the same idea from the political party I
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Speaker 3: agree with less, I go, ah, I don't know about
12:01
Speaker 3: that one.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, what's their agenda?
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Speaker 2: What are they getting?
12:03
Speaker 1: Yeah?
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Speaker 2: Why are they saying that.
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Speaker 3: Once you've got a position, as I think a lot
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Speaker 3: of people know you, you accumulate more data and more
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Speaker 3: things to confirm that story. And you're one of your
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Speaker 3: biases is you just shed information and you shed perspectives
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Speaker 3: that don't agree with it.
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Speaker 2: And it's so easy.
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Speaker 3: And as we as well as people more and more
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Speaker 3: get into their news echo chambers and their views echo
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Speaker 3: chambers and just talk to people who who agree with them, that.
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Speaker 2: That confirmation bias happens more and more.
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Speaker 3: And I try to make it a real point of
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Speaker 3: reading and listening to things that I disagree with and
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Speaker 3: looking for what a point of commonality is or what
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Speaker 3: I can learn from it because I'm disagreeing with it.
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Speaker 2: But it's hard.
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Speaker 3: It really is not the most interesting bias though I
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Speaker 3: can tell you about the most interesting one, Lafe.
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Speaker 1: Well let's say that one now, because they don't want
12:58
Speaker 1: to step into a lightning round. And I mean lightning
13:00
Speaker 1: rounds aren't known for provoking the deepest of thinking, but
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Speaker 1: they can certainly lead to provocative answers. What do you
13:07
Speaker 1: think is the most interesting bias? And then we do
13:09
Speaker 1: the lightning round.
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Speaker 3: Probably it's peak end by us, where the last part
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Speaker 3: of your experience takes on much more relevance or importance
13:21
Speaker 3: in your head than the first partner. But it's the
13:23
Speaker 3: way they found this out that was the most bizarre
13:25
Speaker 3: they did. Yeah, it was decades ago. The researchers did
13:30
Speaker 3: colonoscopy experiments. They got they got two groups.
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Speaker 1: Do you know I do. It's a terrible, terrible I mean,
13:37
Speaker 1: they don't do colonoscary's this way anymore, thank goodness. But
13:40
Speaker 1: it's a real pain in the butt, this story. But
13:42
Speaker 1: tell it anyway.
13:43
Speaker 3: The story is back in the days when it was
13:46
Speaker 3: much more painful. They got the control group and they
13:48
Speaker 3: just did the colin oscary win for about eight minutes.
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Speaker 3: And then they got another and it was quite painful,
13:53
Speaker 3: and they got people to chart their pain from one
13:55
Speaker 3: to ten and it was really quite painful in the
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Speaker 3: last couple of minutes up to eight. They got another
14:00
Speaker 3: group and they did the whole colonoscope that took about
14:04
Speaker 3: ten minutes and quite painful at the end. And then
14:06
Speaker 3: they just kept jiggling around for about another ten minutes
14:10
Speaker 3: so that the person kept enduring more pain for much
14:13
Speaker 3: longer that the pain wasn't as extreme. And then and
14:17
Speaker 3: those colin os s took twenty five minutes. And then
14:19
Speaker 3: they asked both groups who felt more pain, and it
14:24
Speaker 3: was that first group who finished with more extreme pain
14:28
Speaker 3: that said they had more pain. The second group clearly
14:32
Speaker 3: had more pain because they had all the pain of
14:34
Speaker 3: the first ten minutes and an other fifteen minutes thrown
14:35
Speaker 3: on top of it, but because the pain wasn't as
14:38
Speaker 3: bad at the end, they registered that their whole experience
14:41
Speaker 3: was less painful. So this just this says what happens
14:45
Speaker 3: at the end is really important, and you can take
14:48
Speaker 3: like a family. So if you're going on a family holiday,
14:50
Speaker 3: you make sure the last couple of days is where
14:52
Speaker 3: you've got the best accommodation, the best site, the best experiences,
14:55
Speaker 3: because that's the.
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Speaker 2: Only bit that anyone's going to remember. So that's some
14:58
Speaker 2: practical advice.
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Speaker 1: Love it. Okay, let's ste a lightning round. This is
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Speaker 1: ten seconds or less, really really quick short answers, provocative
15:05
Speaker 1: if you'd like to be. I mean, some of these
15:07
Speaker 1: questions are designed to be that way. I'm going to
15:09
Speaker 1: hit you with just a handful of them, and I'd
15:11
Speaker 1: love to get your thoughts on these issues around thinking
15:14
Speaker 1: nice and quickly. They're they're related to kids and education.
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Speaker 3: Okay, it usually takes me about ten seconds just to
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Speaker 3: think anything, So anyway, I'll see how we go.
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Speaker 1: Let's see how we go. What's the one moment in
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Speaker 1: school where we accidentally teach kids not to think for themselves?
15:29
Speaker 3: I want to say uniform hair, lateness or all those
15:32
Speaker 3: procedural things.
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Speaker 1: Huh. What's the hardest age to teach independent thinking?
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Speaker 2: You're nine?
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Speaker 1: Can you tell me why in one or two quick sentences.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, because they're their most tribal there least impact of
15:45
Speaker 3: their family, but not yet looking at the whole world.
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Speaker 2: They've just gone into what their friends think. And that's
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Speaker 2: that's something that makes you pray all sorts of stuff.
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Speaker 1: Love it absolutely Developmentally, I'm right there with you at
15:58
Speaker 1: name one sacred in education that needs to be rethought,
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Speaker 1: but nobody's really thinking enough about it.
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Speaker 2: Subject.
16:07
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I want to go deeper with you on
16:09
Speaker 1: that one. It's a lightning round. I can't do that.
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Speaker 1: I've got I've got to break the rules to do it,
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Speaker 1: and I'm not willing to. I won't rethink the rules.
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Speaker 1: I've got to come and I'm.
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Speaker 2: Not even doing ten sentence. I'm even doing ten seconds.
16:18
Speaker 2: I'm doing it in one second.
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Speaker 1: You're doing so well your book in one sentence, stop
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Speaker 1: X and start? Why what would the X and Y be?
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Speaker 1: Even though the book is called Thinking for Yourself? Stop
16:28
Speaker 1: X and start? Why?
16:30
Speaker 3: Stop listening to the loudest and most extreme voices, Start
16:34
Speaker 3: thinking for yourself?
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Speaker 1: Beautiful name of thinking? Skill that matters more than knowing
16:39
Speaker 1: the capital of New Zealand?
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Speaker 2: That could be anything? Okay, thinking skill?
16:46
Speaker 1: But is it that matters more than knowing some arbitrary
16:49
Speaker 1: fact like the capital of New Zealand?
16:51
Speaker 2: Playing Devil's Advocate?
16:53
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, nice, excellent? Okay? Two more? Two more? Which
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Speaker 1: subject teachers thinking better at school and which one desperately
17:02
Speaker 1: needs to rethink.
17:03
Speaker 2: Philosophy is easily the best one?
17:06
Speaker 1: Uh huh? And at hardly any schools are offering philosophy.
17:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. It's a big shame. I don't want
17:12
Speaker 2: to chuck any department in it.
17:15
Speaker 1: Come on, go out on a limb.
17:17
Speaker 2: What needs to rethink maths?
17:19
Speaker 1: You walk into a classroom, this is the last one
17:21
Speaker 1: you walk into a classroom.
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Speaker 2: It's really bad. I really like our math's department or
17:24
Speaker 2: our mastages.
17:25
Speaker 1: Well, you walk into a classroom, what's the one thing
17:27
Speaker 1: that you look for that tells you that kids are
17:29
Speaker 1: actually thinking?
17:31
Speaker 2: They're listening to each other?
17:33
Speaker 1: Interesting? Interesting. The book is called Thinking for Yourself. The
17:37
Speaker 1: book is by Michael Parker and his wife Fianna Morrison. Michael,
17:41
Speaker 1: let's wrap this up with one last What I hope
17:44
Speaker 1: is a thoughtful question AI in schools, technology generally, but
17:50
Speaker 1: especially the explosion of AI in schools disaster for thinking
17:56
Speaker 1: or opportunity for thinking.
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Speaker 3: In an ideal world, I think AI offers enormous potential speed, efficiencies,
18:06
Speaker 3: but given the venalities and laziness of people, it is
18:12
Speaker 3: I think going to end up being overwhelmingly in education
18:18
Speaker 3: a problematic or even negative phenomenon. Because all of the
18:25
Speaker 3: things that you do in things like if I can
18:28
Speaker 3: use an essay as an example.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the things that AI offers to do. It doesn't
18:31
Speaker 2: that I'll write your whole essay for you, although it
18:33
Speaker 2: does that too, But.
18:33
Speaker 3: You can get really legitimate things that say, let me
18:36
Speaker 3: help you get some ideas for this, let me help
18:38
Speaker 3: brainstorm with you. And then it's a let me get
18:41
Speaker 3: let me like they put together a first draft.
18:43
Speaker 2: Let me they get together. I'm writing, yeps you and
18:45
Speaker 2: so you do that.
18:46
Speaker 3: Let me order your thoughts for you. So it does that,
18:49
Speaker 3: let me help edit all your thoughts, so it does
18:52
Speaker 3: get the final polished draft, let you know, and then
18:55
Speaker 3: the grammar and whatever, and so bit by bit it
19:00
Speaker 3: has done the whole thing, and it's got you know,
19:03
Speaker 3: it's got all these sort of you know, nice names
19:05
Speaker 3: like co pilot and stuff, which makes you feel like
19:07
Speaker 3: you're still in control, but really it has done the
19:10
Speaker 3: whole thing, and we're sort of tacitly said, yep, that's
19:14
Speaker 3: that's okay, or it's not so problematic for it to
19:17
Speaker 3: do that. And I think that you do that, you
19:21
Speaker 3: know often enough, and you're not learning that. The kids
19:24
Speaker 3: aren't learning the skills at least as adults.
19:28
Speaker 2: We got to do it.
19:29
Speaker 3: And so you know, if we get it, if we
19:31
Speaker 3: get it to you know, write a paragraph for us.
19:33
Speaker 2: At least we've written thousands of paragraphs.
19:36
Speaker 3: They the kids are learning it, and they'll they'll they'll
19:40
Speaker 3: they'll never learn it. All.
19:41
Speaker 2: All they'll get is though you know, AI will do
19:43
Speaker 2: the task for them.
19:44
Speaker 3: And I keep thinking, it's like Tetris blocks, Like all
19:48
Speaker 3: the bits of thinking, they're like closed Tetris blocks, so
19:50
Speaker 3: you know how to move them around, but you don't
19:52
Speaker 3: know what's in any of the boxes. You don't know
19:54
Speaker 3: what the thinking is or how to do that thinking.
19:57
Speaker 3: So I am very can concerned about the impact of
20:02
Speaker 3: AI on education. I accept and agree that it's individualization
20:11
Speaker 3: and it's potential to be a coach and so on.
20:14
Speaker 3: Can get all sorts of kids in different less advantaged
20:19
Speaker 3: educational environments. It can give them a huge turbo boost
20:22
Speaker 3: because they've got all that attention for the first time.
20:24
Speaker 2: But I've got a lot of concern So what do
20:27
Speaker 2: you think?
20:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for asking, Michael. There are two things that
20:31
Speaker 1: stand out to me. The first is this, what is
20:33
Speaker 1: the purpose of education? If education is about getting the
20:35
Speaker 1: outcome having the essay written, then AI is fantastic. But
20:41
Speaker 1: I don't see that as the purpose of education. I
20:43
Speaker 1: see the purpose of education is helping children to learn
20:45
Speaker 1: how to think, learn how to structure, learn how to
20:48
Speaker 1: collect resources, learn how to collate ideas, learn how to brainstorm,
20:52
Speaker 1: learn how to do that, because that will make the
20:54
Speaker 1: more effective more. I mean, your book is called Thinking
20:57
Speaker 1: for Yourself. That will help them to think for themselves.
20:58
Speaker 1: AI does not for ceutate thinking for yourself. And the
21:02
Speaker 1: second thought that I have is in line with what
21:04
Speaker 1: the I guess the big tech industrial complex has done
21:08
Speaker 1: for the last twenty years in Australia, and that is
21:11
Speaker 1: that they've bordozed their way in. They've said, we've got
21:13
Speaker 1: this great new technology and everybody needs it. If you
21:15
Speaker 1: don't get on board, you're going to get left behind.
21:17
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
21:18
Speaker 1: But at no point have they ever stood up and said,
21:20
Speaker 1: and we have the evidence to show how this is
21:21
Speaker 1: going to be beneficial. Yeah yeah, And right now I
21:25
Speaker 1: just don't see any evidence that there's benefit to it
21:27
Speaker 1: other than getting out comes faster. But that's not the
21:30
Speaker 1: purpose of education. Education is not about getting out I
21:32
Speaker 1: mean it is eventually, but it's about thinking for yourself
21:35
Speaker 1: to get the outcomes out.
21:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
21:37
Speaker 3: I mean when the teacher sets the essay what are
21:42
Speaker 3: the causes of World War Two? Yeah, it's not like
21:44
Speaker 3: they're sitting around waiting for you to let them know
21:47
Speaker 3: what the causes of World War two are.
21:48
Speaker 1: They that they want you to figure it out.
21:51
Speaker 2: They want you to they want to see how you're
21:53
Speaker 2: going with it.
21:54
Speaker 3: And you're figuring out and if you get if you
21:56
Speaker 3: get AI or whatever to do it, you haven't done
21:59
Speaker 3: what the task was meant to do, which was get
22:01
Speaker 3: you to chew it out yourself.
22:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that it would be so
22:06
Speaker 1: much fun to sit around the dining table and have
22:08
Speaker 1: a four hour, eight course diggas station while we have
22:11
Speaker 1: an eight course discussion at the same time. Michael. I
22:14
Speaker 1: love I love our conversations. I love the way that
22:15
Speaker 1: you think. I love the things that you share. The
22:17
Speaker 1: book is good.
22:18
Speaker 2: It's really good being able to talk and talk with you.
22:20
Speaker 2: And yeah, you've got you've got a really good, good
22:22
Speaker 2: frame on it all too.
22:23
Speaker 1: So I appreciate that the book is called Thinking for Yourself.
22:28
Speaker 1: The author Michael Parker with his wife Fianna Morrison. You
22:31
Speaker 1: can get it online and everywhere that you buye books. Michael,
22:34
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me on the podcast.
22:35
Speaker 2: It's pleasure, Thank you very much.
22:37
Speaker 1: The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Rowland for
22:39
Speaker 1: Bridge Media. Mim Hammond's provides additional research, admin and other support,
22:43
Speaker 1: and if you'd like more info to make your family happier,
22:45
Speaker 1: check out Michael's book Thinking for Yourself. Will link to
22:48
Speaker 1: them in the show notes and other resources at happy
22:50
Speaker 1: families dot com dot a