Due to the growing spurts of AI, almost everything can be expedited these days. Take writing student remarks for example. It used to be the bane of a teacher’s life.

It isn’t actually the case that writing those remarks is difficult. After all, the longer teachers remain in the profession, the deeper their intuition gets developed. They can look at a student and place him/her in mental categories where they have placed their ex-students. They will be able to draw comparisons across years and tease out similarities and differences. “Oh, X reminds me of Y, that kid I taught two years ago. They are both vocal during discussions, just that X asks more weird questions…” and so their inner monologue continues.

No, it’s the fact that we must phrase unsavory remarks in professional and diplomatic ways. If a child is rude and disrespectful, we cannot state the honest truth, for fear of ruffling his parents’ feathers. We must put it in such a way that the remarks come across as palatable. Perhaps something like he is learning to show consideration to his teachers. But alas, the truth gets diluted, and I suspect it’s the cognitive disconnect that makes writing remarks such a dreaded task. I can be authentic in my remarks, but it’s like taking apart a kaleidoscope and deciding which colours to reveal to my audience. Tiring!

With AI tools like Magic School AI, I can just type my observations as a prompt.

and have it generate remarks like this:

In this particular instance, I didn’t actually use most of the remarks. But it was fun to see what AI would do with the inputs I gave it. As in since I have been writing student remarks for so long, my neural pathways have been long entrenched, so it’s nice for me to read different combinations of collocations. I consider this self-directed professional development.

I do think it’s kinda sad that future generations of teachers won’t feel motivated to develop their databank of student remark phrases. They will just outsource the writing to Gen AI tools, choosing to focus their time on high-priority, high-impact tasks. But isn’t getting to know our charges intimately precisely the reason why we signed up to be teachers in the first place? The world is getting warped - all in the need for speed.