The following is a selection from the regular advice column published in the The Mockingbird magazine. Questions for Gracie for the upcoming “Home” Issue of the magazine are currently being accepted. If you want advice for yourself (or a “friend”), send questions, with a pseudonym, to magazine@mbird.com. All emails will be kept confidential.
Dear Gracie,
I’ve been a teacher for 23 years, and in that time I’ve had to deal with any number of issues. But this year, 11 of my 127 students (that I know of) wrote final essays with A.I., and I’m about ready to throw in the towel. I have long felt inept online, but this new technology has me totally disoriented. I worry for my students’ futures. How should a person manage the overwhelm of new technology like this?
Signed,
Internet Incompetent
Dear I.I.,
First, God bless you in all of your giftedness as an educator. Please do not give up.
Second, I am terrified too.
There is a staggering (and frightening) number of things that technology can do. It can read and write for us for sure, and these days it is getting closer and closer to being us for us.
But there is so much beauty in the things technology would try to streamline: awkwardness in personal conversation, the way a stranger makes eye contact with us when we say “excuse me” to one another, and even just the sheer gift that it is to be in a body that faces birth to death in an ever-increasing march.
Can you remind them of this? Can you get them to lay on the floor with one hand on their belly and one hand on their heart? Can they speak tenderly to themselves and hold the preciousness of all of that is possible alongside the way that new crayons smelled on the first day of school?
And please take this last part with full knowledge that I am a minister and not an educator, so I likely have no idea what I am talking about: Is there a chance that you are doing more than just teaching them? In this moment when isolation and depression are at an all-time high (and A.I. is certainly not helping nor is it going anywhere), your work is more important than ever. To sit in a classroom with a community of peers, talking and moving around each other, is beyond anything they could learn. You are providing an anecdote for loneliness. And we need you to keep doing it.
Signed,
Gracie
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Dear Gracie,
This year my oldest sister has suffered setback after setback: divorce, job loss, several serious health scares, and ongoing uncertainty about her housing. To say that I feel sympathy for her would be an understatement, but I feel as powerless as she does to change her circumstances. Other than offering a helping hand, how can I wait well with her in this season? For most of our lives I’ve looked to her for guidance and direction, and this unexpected role reversal has left me feeling out of my depth.
Signed,
Her Little Sis
Dear Little Sis,
On the subject of birth order, I recently read, “Either you are an oldest daughter or you can ask for help.” Typically, she is the one who does at least some of the parenting, half of the cooking, and more cleaning than the other siblings combined. Which means, in effect, we shape these first-born girls to suffer alone. As a (too) proud member of that female institution, I want to offer you this: Tell your sister that you see her, that you really see her, and that she is not suffering alone. Tell her that there is no valor in denying when things suck. And then sit with her in that hardship.
Pray that God would give you the strength to reverse your roles for a season. I know she has seemed like she has always had it together. She probably did most things before you, and you stood in the shadow of her doing them well. But even then, she needed you. And she definitely needs you now. You are getting the chance to do something rare, something that your younger self likely never imagined: You are to care for someone who seemingly never needed it.
That is holy work. It is the most Christ-like calling to serve at the feet of people who have always worn a mask of not needing anything from anyone.
Signed,
Gracie
COMMENTS
One response to “Dear Gracie … How Do I Manage the Overwhelm of A.I.?”
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Gracie,
So good. Don’t be fooled by a mask. Makes me want to love the “strong” people more. Jesus died for the weak and strong and we’re all broken inside.