Today we have the result of very little research but a mind wandering throughout synagogue services on the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana.
In terms of the Jewish liturgy through the year, one thing that we don't do very much is repeat prayers. There are very few times when we are told "say this x number of times". Usually, when we pray, we say and we move on. There are exceptions through the year. Based on my zero research and doing this entirely from memory, our repetitions through the year are limited to two verses said when the Torah is taken out of the ark on a holiday which happens on a weekday, and a few statements made during the sanctification of the new moon. That's it. While there are prayers that we say more than once a day, each time we say it is a discrete instance, separate from the others.
Then we hit the high holidays and suddenly we are swamped with prayers that we repeat. Before we blow the shofar, we say a chapter of Psalms 7 times. When we do kaparot, we recite it 3 times. Yom Kippur is bookended by the repetitions (three times for Kol Nidrei and then the culminating repetition of the Sh'ma and other phrases 3 and 7 times at the end). Suddenly, we say things over and over.
What is it about the high holidays that makes repetition so essential?
My experiences have become history. What I see when I close my eyes is now fodder for history textbooks. Students in high school hear my stories as if they happened in another country, in another lifetime.
As time passes, our memories bcome distilled down to the essence, the few and striking facts that stand out and which we enshrine in our long-term memory, rife with sensory details to make the scene complete. But it doesn't seem like that's fair.
Twenty-four years -- longer than a lifetime, almost a quarter century. How much are we allowed to keep hurting? When are we supposed to move on or forget, because in some ways, I can't do either. Look at video from the Hindenburg disaster; it looks like it was recorded at another time. Even video from Pearl Harber -- it still looks separated by years. But look at the video from 9/11. It could have been recorded yesterday. Cars look pretty much the same. Buildings? The same. The quality of the recording? It looks current. It is easier for the past to become part of the past if we can distance ourselves fom it and consider it archaic. This is why, when we recall religiously significant dates and events, we are driven to picture ourselves as being part of the event so it does not become an empty ritual recalling a distant and irrelevant past.
Do we want to keep living with 9/11 as current events? Isn't it, though? Aren't we still living in the shadow of 2001? But at the same time, High School students see the day in the same way that they look at any other ancient history. We have moved on so now the question is, how tdo we want to hold on to it and do we want to keep it fresh so that we feel the pain acutely, or should we let it become the dull throb that we get used to over time?
I look at the sad moments of my life (dating back to the religious ones) and I see that tere will always be this tension between embracing the now and living as part of a heritage and storied history.
I don't know if I want to remember, but I have been brought up to know the importance of not forgetting.
Idea for a story --
grandfather, from the old country, constantly talks about going back "home" one more time to revisit his childhood etc and makes his kids promise to take him before he dies. Then he goes blind and the doctor says he doesn't have much time. His kids look at the bank account -- no way we can afford a trip to "home" but what if we just go to the "little X" neighborhood in [insert random American City here].
Then hilarity ensues as they try to keep the old man in one neighbor hood and when he wants to travel to the countryside to his childhood farm, they have to pay extra to rent a junky car because it makes the rental place look shlubby. Then they take the worst roads and hire actors to play roles in the country side, and also back in the city. Finally the "trip" has ended. Bonding has taken place and a the generations are reconciled. Redemption occurs and a heart is completed. Mysteries solved and there has been positive character growth all around. We discover at the end that the grandfather knew from the get go that it was a scam. The old country is not and hour and a half away bay plane, especially one which didn't require passports. But he wanted them all to feel useful and reconnect with their heritage. Maybe after learning about it and recreating it, they may want to go visit. The kids say that they knew he knew but that he, realizing how silly this all was, respected the effort and would not collapse the charade. Their goal hadn't been to trick him, but to get him to confront his childhood (trauma? mystery? Don't know, maybe to win a bet or meet with a person or a lawyer to resolve some legal, financial obligation -- wait, how about "they had earlier promised their late mother that they would get him to face up to...) by visiting so everyone gets what he wants.
It plays as a family friendly (possibly holiday) film. Mostly comedy but with a few emotionally stinging scenes so the adults will understand the depths and authenticity and the kids will see the broad and clear binaries of "happy and sad" flipped around in an innovative and educational way.
During our pre-first day meetings, the faculty were given a session on the use of AI. Some new(er) sites and technologies were discussed and we were tasked with trying them out. So I did. There was one resource that could make quizzes. I live on quizzes -- they are more frequent than full scale essays and easier to grade than single-page responses. I usually use 2 kinds of quizzes, vocabulary and reading. So I went to the website and put into the "resource" the entire (public domain) text of a particular book which I enjoy reading, and I asked the AI to make me a reading quiz (short answer). It came up with a bunch of very interesting questions. I asked it for an idea map which it constructed using only the text of the book. Rather than see this as a boon, I am worried. As the short-cut apps improve, there will be less reason to have to read the text. I work hard at explaining to my students that the summaries available miss stuff, but this trainable AI will miss less and less. I looked at the quiz and was comforted to know 2 things:
1. The questions I ask appear to be spot on as the AI came up with the same ideas
2. There are details more insignificant and less necessary than the ones I ask about.
I also found that the AI system could make very simply inferences but did not have the breadth of knowledge to explore deeper concepts. There was room for me to introduce external concepts into the classroom, ones that AI could not import, but that might also be temporary, as I could train the system on my notes, or on external (approved) resources which will bolster my specific point of view about the text. I also noted that the AI could not distinguish between "new vocabulary" referring to the reading level of the English words and the fact that the text included invented words. But on the whole, this could easily generate passable reading quizzes and book summaries.
Then I asked a different system to make a multiple choice quiz for a specific unit of a specific vocabulary book that we use. I did not provide the text. The system found the text and the unit and crafted a multiple choice quiz. It wasn't the style I use and it didn't have the trick answers I like to lay down as mines to trick those who do not read or study thoroughly. Could I refine it to cover multiple units? Maybe, I guess. Could I tweak my prompt to tell it the style I want? Probably.
All in all, this could be a real time saver for me. Except that I would then not be refreshing MYSELF by rereading the text or poring over the vocab book -- test item creation is its own form of study and I, as the teacher, miss out on that opportunity when I outsource the quiz making to the skynet.
Do I go to my classes and tell my students about these resources? Heck yeah. But wouldn't I, then, be providing for them a way to get around having to study (in the case of the literature quiz, at least) because the internet can provide a more guided set of summaries than a static "Spark Notes" can. Maybe this should be the new mode of teaching a book. Tell students to use a resource to generate a brain map, or practice quizzes or chapter summaries before reading that chapter and then let them try again after reading it. I'm not sure yet, but we are driven by the results we want to see and I have to come to terms with what skills and habits will be essential in the future and then shape my approach to address those needs.
AI can replace pre-teaching. AI can replace quiz making (and, in some multiple choice cases, grading). AI can replace note taking and essay generating. What can't AI do that I can, and that I bring to the classroom? Maybe, bringing humanity and the love of learning to the classroom. Or maybe it's that I can balance a hockey stick on my nose.
Well, AI? Can you balance a hockey stick on your nose? Yeah...you run away. Dan, FTW.
I have a limited number of brain cells. I'm not saying I can count them, but my finite skull cannot hold the planet sized brain that might allow for knowing everything. So the fact is, I don't know stuff and I have had to forget stuff. But what confuses me is how my brain has decided what to keep and what to forget.
I was driving in this morning and I recalled a conversation from some point in high school. My friend, Alon, was telling a story about his brother (whose name might be Jared but this, I don't remember). I recall the punch line and precisely what he reported his brother said. I shan't repeat it because it is a bit off color and might embarrass the brother (whom I have never met) but I remember it. I can't remember a huge slew of stuff I need on a daily basis -- names, dates, phone numbers and directions. I have brain cells that are used up remembering stupid sports trivia, cultural references, stuff I learned in college, and childhood traumas, so they are tied up and unable to be allocated to recall where I put my glasses. Spoiler alert, you put them in the laundry. Don't wonder why. Things got weird, deal with it.
I believe in a memory much like a line item veto. I should be able to choose whether or not I remember a fact (I can then choose to qwrite down the things that I don't intend to waste brain space on). That way, I can voluntarily forget that I once had a peanut butter sanwich at the house of a girl whose name is Michelle, and whom I went to pre-K with. I have no more details about this event and it has never served me as anything useful. But I have it -- a full blown memory which is a complete misapplication of resources. I don't know Michelle's last name, or why i was eating a sandwich at her house. I was, I'm guessing, 3 years old. Or maybe 4 or 5. Whatever. I was little. Stop grilling me about it.
What else do I remember? The combination to my locker in high school (34-24-14). I assume I won't need that. A conversation I had with a school friend named Stu about how to hold your hands when running around in gym. 10 or so years old. Unneeded. How about the name of the first podiatrist I saw when I was a teenager. Or the pediatrician's office I used to go to and the huge container of multi-colored Tootsie Rolls. I remember the SRA's and the colors and how I always came in second to Leora. Argh, why can't I wipe that one and reuse the brain cells to help me understand bitcoin?
Just a note on AI that came to mind this morning:
AI is an echo chamber. The voice we put into it drives the response. Ask why "Why is X better than Y" and you will get a raft of paragraphs and sources.
Then ask "why is Y better than X" and you might very well get an equal and opposite set of proofs.
Now this is all well and good when one is trying to muster sources to support a conclusion he has already adopted. But using this method when constructing a prompt proves dangerous when one doesn't realize that this is what is going on. When a person uses a prompt like this without considering that it is an echo chamber, one will mistake the AI generated response with an authoritative voice supporting a position.
The individual runs the risk of confusing an echoic response with an objective collecting of facts. But the wording of the prompt excludes the viability of the other side -- it reinforces the belief that the answer produced is all there is. The person does not need to consider any other point of view because the LLM has spit out the words which support the view looked for in the prompt.
If we aren't aware of how we ask a question, we will not be aware of potential limitations on the answer.
I get the sense that this could be changed into a good speech on repentance and asking for forgiveness but I'm in a secular mode right now.
