When Autumn Falls

I'll Be Ready When Autumn Falls
(with apologies to Ogden Nash)

I do not fear the chilly call of autumn.

Sweaters, rakes, and scarves? I’ve bought ‘em.

The leaves may plummet, orange and gold,

I'll meet them bundled against the cold.

Though frankly, if I'm being candid,

My readiness is mostly branded:

Cause if summer ends with a stormy sky,

I’ll be inside with hot cider and pumpkin pie.

AI for Students

 

Universities are concerned about AI cheating.
But the problem isn’t AI.

AI just held up a mirror. 

We’ve built a culture obsessed with outputs while neglecting the critical thinking needed to produce them. More content. More credentials. More polished little rectangles for LinkedIn. Meanwhile people are walking around undereducated.

So, I suggest universities return to oral exams.

If a student can’t sit in a room and explain what they think (clearly, spontaneously, and without consulting a prediction machine trained on the internet’s compost heap) then what exactly are we measuring? Formatting skills? Citation choreography?

Oral exams test whether knowledge has actually entered the person. Can you explain something clearly? Can you defend an idea without collapsing into a haze of jargon? Can you think while another human being is looking directly at you? You can hear understanding in real time.

As a writer, I believe that writing matters. Good writing sharpens thought and should be aggressively taught. But modern academia has built systems to generate, grade, summarize, and value documents nobody actually wants to read … bureaucratic fog with footnotes.

Then AI arrived and said, “You mean this counts as intelligence? Hold my beer.”

Educational institutions should start asking: “Has this person become wiser?” instead of: “Can this person generate acceptable artifacts at scale?” Oral examinations should be part of answering the former. They require presence, and you can’t outsource presence. You either know what you’re talking about or you don’t.

The real purpose of education was never supposed to be producing polished effluvia on command. It was supposed to build a human being, someone more thoughtful, articulate, perceptive, difficult to fool.

That’s much harder to fake live.

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Using AI in education is like using a forklift at the gym.
The weights do not actually need to be moved from place to place.
That is not the work. The work is what happens in you.
- Sam Halpert

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Other posts on education (from the eyes of a writer):

Are we teaching our kids to memorize or to understand?

We Need Education Reform

Labor Day Rant

 

Labor Day has morphed from a celebration of workers into an opportunity to convince me that I need a new mattress with retailers proclaiming Labor Day as the Super Bowl of horizontal living. "Celebrate America's workers by purchasing a queen-size memory foam sleep system!" I wasn't aware my appreciation for the labor movement hinged on whether or not my spine was cradled nightly by individually wrapped coils.

And why are appliances involved? Refrigerators. Washers. Dryers. Somewhere along the line, someone looked at a holiday about workers' rights and said, "You know what this really needs? A stainless steel dishwasher with fingerprint-resistant technology."

Then there's the weather. Labor Day exists in that awkward moment where nature can't commit to a season. It's 94 degrees at noon, 61 by sunset, and every weather app is shrugging its digital shoulders. Do I wear shorts? A hoodie? Both? Am I attending a barbecue or preparing for an alpine expedition?

But somewhere beneath all the sales flyers, clearance racks, and "last chance for summer" countdowns is the actual reason the holiday exists: recognizing the people who build things, fix things, teach things, grow things, deliver things, clean things, and somehow keep society functioning despite Wi-Fi that mysteriously stops working the moment someone says, "This'll only take a second."

That's worth remembering. But marketers saw a meaningful holiday and collectively responded, "Interesting. What if we made couches 25% off?"

I'm not against a day off. I support naps. I support grilled food. I even support buying stuff. I just find it fascinating how every holiday eventually passes through the same machine: Take something with history. Add balloons, giant SALE banners, and an email subject line in all caps. Stir until the original meaning becomes a footnote beneath free shipping.

Happy Labor Day.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to honor the dignity of work by avoiding it for exactly one day ... while deleting seventeen promotional emails reminding me that time is running out on the biggest sale of the season.

Attitude Adjustment

 I hate waiting in line.

Yesterday I was stuck in line CVS, waiting on a prescription, when "Midnight Train to Georgia" drifted out of the ceiling speakers. Gladys Knight was singing with range and emotion, the Pips were answering with those perfect little harmonies, and the orchestra wrapped around the whole thing like a favorite well-worn coat. Somewhere between annoyance and the chorus, I forgot to be annoyed.

We spend a lot of time chasing the next thing because that's what the algorithm orders for dinner. Then a fifty-year-old song strolls through the pharmacy and reminds you that great art doesn't interrupt life … it sneaks up behind it and improves it.

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Is this  great song or what?

In CVS I was just enjoying the music. Now that I relisten to this classic and focus on the lyrics and the way Knight sings with warmth, longing, and quiet strength, it feels deeply human. Choosing love over ambition feels intimate and universal. The song leaves you with a bittersweet sense of devotion, sacrifice, and comfort reminding us that home isn't always a place, but it can also be a person.