HUMAN INTELLIGENCE For Tal Mack, It Was Always The Write Stuff

HUMAN INTELLIGENCE For Tal Mack, It Was Always The Write Stuff

By Hunt Lyman

I recently attended a celebration of the life of Talbot Mack, a longtime and beloved teacher at The Hill School.

I worked with Tal for many years; as a mentor early in my career he taught me as much about teaching as anyone. In remarks prepared by his impressively articulate family, Tal was remembered for his kindness, his generosity, his stubbornness, his athleticism, and his sense of humor. He also was remembered for his extraordinary approach to teaching writing.

While it’s safe to say that most adults have fuzzy or blank memories of many of their middle school teachers, it’s equally safe to say that no one ever forgot Tal. He challenged sixth graders to write to the standards of the New Yorker magazine, insisting that they search their experience for important small moments and then articulate those memories in ways that conveyed the meaning of those spots of time.

Tal firmly believed all children were capable of honest, thoughtful self-exploration and precise, correct articulation, so he held them to standards that would be intimidating to most adults. He challenged children, but his interactions were so characterized by genuine affection and respect that he motivated them to try to meet his expectations which, surprisingly, they often did.

In my first year of teaching, I remember seeking Tal’s counsel about teaching writing and saying, “Tal, most of the time I don’t really feel like I am trying to teach writing. I feel like I am trying to teach thinking.” This seemed revelatory to me, but it was yesterday’s news to Tal. Of course, he told me, that’s exactly what I should be doing.

As I sat in Tal’s celebration, surrounded by hundreds of his friends and former students, I thought about the future of writing instruction.

I wondered how an artificial intelligence chatbot could possibly connect with young writers and make them care about expressing themselves. Given the arrival of ChatGPT and the departure of Tal, will anyone learn to write again?

In my experience, writing is often painful. I still fear the accusation of the blank page, the doubts about how I’ve organized my material, the frustrating suspicion that there’s a better way to phrase that thought, a more precise word to convey my meaning.

My best college teacher told me that writing is never really finished, just abandoned, and the prolific William Zinsser liked to say that he hated writing but loved having written. Writing for me is characterized by friction: a frustrating need to move forward while knowing that what I have put down still needs work.

Tal, in contrast, embraced the friction, because he knew that doubt’s companion is opportunity. Those uncomfortable and difficult moments are invitations not only to learn what we think, but also to learn how to think. We view writing as a product, but it’s also a process, one that shifts the way we look at the world. The value of writing is that productive struggle ultimately changes us, makes us grow. It’s not usually easy or instant, but little of real value is.

In the play “Inherit the Wind,” which Tal taught and loved, the character Henry Drummond says, “Progress has never been a bargain. You’ve got to pay for it… You may conquer the air, but the birds will lose their wonder, and the clouds will smell like gasoline.”

AI makes everyone an instant writer, and perhaps when we need to generate disposable copy, which comprises much writing in the world, it will be a boon. But let’s not confuse it with a poem or composition or essay that helps us understand ourselves, the world we live in, or the people we live with.

Let’s also remember there are good reasons the adults at Tal’s celebration, many of whom -- to get it just right -- were composing multiple drafts of their memories for the family, are deeply grateful for the lessons they learned from Tal Mack.