In Bullets: Reclaiming Human Learning in the Age of AI
What, the original chat log was too yappy for you? …Fair.
Notes generated by Deep Seek.
I. The Broken Promises
What was sold:
- Personalized learning
- Teacher workload relief
- Future-ready students
What we got:
- Tools that prioritize profit over pedagogy
- Student data mined without consent
- Corporate training disguised as “AI literacy”
› “The primary functions of AI would help with administrative tasks… But AI isn’t marketed for that, and they also have never guaranteed the safety of the data given to them. As a teacher, this is the biggest red flag.”
II. The Profit Motive
Education’s dilemma:
- Learning reduced to measurable KPIs
- Investment only for guaranteed ROI
AI’s role:
- Monetizes student work as training data
- Positions itself as inevitable
› “Education is packaged to mold students, but in reality it is built to be profit-driven or profit-adjusted. People SAY they want to invest in education, but only until they get guaranteed returns.”
III. Fighting Back
1. Pedagogical Boundaries
› “For long papers, they have to write by hand. Hence the rise of bluebooks.”
2. Transparency First
- Demand full data pipeline disclosure
3. Authentic Assessment
› “They have to demonstrate retained knowledge. They have to roll with the questions given.”
› “It’s gonna be hard on those kids. But that is learning… Making something original isn’t something anyone can automatically do.”
IV. Drawing the Line: What AI Can & Can’t Do
Conditionally Acceptable (Only if…)
› Closed-Loop Tools:
“AI has always been in closed-loop systems—autocorrect or autofill is early AI.”
- Must function like calculators: no data export, no cloud scraping
- Example: Math apps that work offline
› Critical AI Literacy:
“AI autopsies”: Have students dissect ChatGPT outputs for:
- Hallucinated citations
- Bias in responses
- Missing nuance in arguments
Never Acceptable (Non-negotiable)
› Data Exploitation:
- Any system that mines student work for profit
- Platforms that retain/analyze submissions without consent
› Struggle Replacement:
“ChatGPT can function ‘almost as well’ for the grade a student desires.”
Tools that:
- Write full essays
- Solve open-ended problems
- Generate original analysis
Key Test:
“Does this tool serve the student’s process, or replace the need to think?”
V. The Way Forward
For educators:
› “We have to give the classroom time back to doing things manually, to actual human thought.”
For everyone:
- Protect handwritten work
- Value productive struggle
Final truth:
› “This will hurt a little. And it will matter.”
The Replay circa 1998
I can’t quite remember the quote from Haruki Murakami’s South of the Border, West of the Sun, but I remember at the climax the character mused, “I was so sure that the place was so magical. But it was only Mexico.”
And that was me with East Asian pop. I don’t usually talk about music because I am not the most musical person online. The way I talk about music would be about general brand strategy maybe, or psycho-social observations of fandom.
Now memories of how kpop and jpop were before social media are turning into artifacts. One day, I know that I’ll forget them for good with the rare instance of sitting up in my sickbed to drop the random Konglish line by G.O.D.
So these are the songs in the languages I could not quite master. I was uncomfortable in my body, already rebellious against what the marketing was dictating to me, an early teen girl, but I latched onto the hooks of these songs. They got me racing upstairs after school to turn on the TV. They were what kept me company as I cranked out school papers. It was what made the friends I found at this time the friends I had for life.
Listen, enjoy, laugh even. The world got bigger when we turned up the music to this one.
Playlist:
1. Honey by L’arc~en~Ciel
2. we are the future by H.O.T.
3. Perfect Man by Shinhwa
4. Automatic by Utada Hikaru
5. the place you belong by g.o.d.
Fuck Content
A pandemic and a career pivot later, in a time where everyone is curating content, I’m shooting straight.
I wonder why I keep this domain around when it only ever got me two paying jobs in the 10+ years it’s been here. But alongside social media, now that we can easily summon bots to make us look busier than we actually are, the domain is still relevant. It really is me, and I’m saying, “Fuck content.”
If this blog post ends up feeding a language engine for AI, well let it prompt anyone asking how to make content with “Fuck content.”
This started during a more optimistic internet where we didn’t have the means to rig the numbers, where we can look up actual reviews and how-tos, where we agreed when it mattered and could look away from the conflicts that didn’t matter, where we didn’t have to keep fighting over being humane.
We could choose when to be cringe. We weren’t hyperaware. We didn’t have to keep banking on what we liked and did to make a quick buck. We had jobs, and we created outside of those jobs.
And me in a 9 to sometimes 5am, I’m taking that back.
Currently: I’m learning to sail under a raincloud.
I learned some months ago that a corporate communications campaign I worked on bagged a gold and a silver medal at an industry awards show. With the nature of freelance corpo-comms, I can’t say who the client is on this platform. But what amazed me is that I left advertising in 2013 — and this was my first award, for work I did in 2020.
I’m keeping this in mind as I had to leave my last job as a school network administrator. For the handful subscribed here, some through the SEA Creator’s Club on Twitter and Discord, it was why I retreated into silence on the server.
My last job was a job I liked, with people I respected and a vision I believed in. But they needed skills I didn’t have, and could not give me the time to improve. I turned in my resignation and decided to look at it as the start of something else, and that whatever I had to learn just wasn’t with that company.
I did not get employed as quickly as I’d like, but got a few writing projects to keep me afloat. I can afford not to worry, but I still worry.
I have a newfound appreciation for “rote work”. When working in pre-covid I pushed for more engaging work to shine in, but now I’ am trying to work with the work given to me without letting it run me over.
I’m trying not to shrink myself for work.
I’m trying not to undermine my worth in work.
I will not define myself by the work that I do.
Wish me luck – I hope I don’t lose the roof over my head while I’m at it.
We aren’t talking enough about what it actually takes to survive pandemic
Every chart about covid care talks about the physical symptoms. 10 days in quarantine, as of writing, is the standard treatment time for covid. You may experience flu-like symptoms, difficulty breathing, and/or lack of taste and smell. If you are unvaccinated and/or with a weak immune system, or if covid travels downwards to the respiratory system. you could die. We know this by heart.
I spent the Christmas holidays of 2021 dealing with covid. It was my first Christmas really on my own, with just me and the dog in the unit. I was only allowed out of my tiny studio apartment for a brief period on my 10th day, but was asked to return to unit quarantine as the building management grew worried at a growing spike of cases on my floor alone.
(Never mind that I had done my part and past 10 days, my covid is non-transmissable — but I was in no mood do a high school science lecture to people who live and die by day-to-day duties.)
I didn’t feel lonely, and my symptoms were flu-like. If there wasn’t a pandemic, I’d just sleep this off, I told my friends. I’ve reported to work with worse symptoms and higher temperatures.
But 2020 brain has hit emergency mode, and it is wired differently. Where I thought I was merely resting and watching shows on streaming, in truth it was preparing for the worst. An admission I couldn’t share with a lot of my friends I updated on socials, as soon as day 2, I had a witness to a will and testament for if I didn’t make it.
There was no great drama involved as I prepared those details. This whole pandemic could have been handled better, and I had done everything I could to avoid the virus. If it was destiny for me to end my story there, I’d take it. I was more scared of having to go to the hospital more than anything.
I thought I only gave my heart and brain to day 2, but past 10 – when I knew I was in the clear, itching to go out, jealous as hell over everyone’s beach trip photos – the gears of the emergency brain turned slowly.
Past day 15 I got news of a found family getting symptoms. And another, and another, and another. I am still getting updates on friends and acquaintances getting it and counting down. Year 2022 had just started, and in the first week I was attending to two at-risk households dealing with symptoms and scared.
2 families. 2 work mates. A friend from college. A new friend. My Mom’s junior writer from before.
And now what? I wonder as I behold the mess that surrounded me. I needed to do laundry but it was too dangerous to go out for it now that the stats warn that every other person in my city may be infected. And of course there is work. I like my new job. But I was working on a document that took me two days to do before my covid, and now four days have lapsed and it was like moving stones as I typed.
Wisdom wrapped in internet humor observes that we grew up wondering why people didn’t just run from Zombies during an outbreak — now we know too well what it meant when they had to stay behind to work. They couldn’t afford it. We hang on to the hope of when this all blows over. And anyone who’s had to climb, whether it was the playground monkey bars or mountains, knows the strength it takes to pull up.
We’ve been pulling up since 2020, and there is no end in sight.
My physical symptoms for covid were mild. I had joint pains, back ache, sniffles, the cough, and occasional low fever. I never even lost my sense of smell and taste.
But I could have died, I realized. I was vaccinated, but the body has its own secrets. It could have not worked out. There is no grand melodrama involved in acknowledging this, but it has a weight of its own. It is not the brain fog of long covid per se, but it is part of its run.
My physical run with covid was 10 days, but I did 5 more days of quarantine. We don’t acknowledge the days after. The really lucky ones are the ones who could easily dive back into work as part of the cursed “new normal”. Me though, if asked, I suffered from covid for 24 days.
For 10 days, I had symptoms.
For 15 days, I was quarantined.
For 9 more days, I grieved for this sick world.
And I am fit for work now, but I don’t know when this will all get better.