“Hey ChatGPT, write me a mission statement.”

What we can learn about storytelling—and how we teach writing to kids—from AI

If you’re in education, you’re probably following the buzz about ChatGPT.

What is this newfangled nightmare? Artificial intelligence that can respond to anything based on command? What does this mean for writing assignments? How do we ensure students’ work is original? Is this the end of short answer questions, essays, and research papers? What about the college essay? Alas for the good old days when all teachers had to worry about on the technology front was cross-checking book reports against SparkNotes and collecting flip phones during tests!

As someone in the business of storytelling, I had my own moment of panic about what ChatGPT means for my profession. So I coped as anyone does when they’re afraid that impending change will render them irrelevant. I avoided learning or reading anything about ChatGPT, banned my tech-nerd husband from mentioning it in the house, and loudly and authoritatively decried its merits whenever it came up in social conversations.

Finally, a reasonable friend pointed out: “April. ChatGPT isn’t going away. So why don’t you figure out how ChatGPT can help your work?”

So I spent a week playing with ChatGPT. I asked it to write mission statements for various nonprofits. I asked it to write theories of change for school districts. I asked it to write a vision statement for a Children’s Cabinet. And, harkening back to my days as a high school English teacher, I asked it to write an essay analyzing To Kill a Mockingbird.

Well, folks, the responses were spot-on. The mission statements ChatGPT generated were resoundingly similar to those of countless real nonprofits. The theories of change were resoundingly similar to those of countless real school districts. The vision statement was resoundingly similar to those of countless real Children’s Cabinets. And the essay was resoundingly similar—and more grammatically correct—to the hundreds of real essays I’d graded back in the day. Down to being exactly five paragraphs! Intro, three body paragraphs with a topic sentence and supporting details each, and a conclusion!

All of which made me realize: the stories we generate as mission-driven organizations and the writing we teach students to generate have become formulaic to a science. Or, indulge the pun, formulaic to a data science! No surprise that ChatGPT—which draws from patterns of language in the billions of words in the ether—should generate such spot-on, resoundingly similar responses.

We in the social sector kinda do the same thing, but with less science and more intuition. We unconsciously draw upon patterns of language that we’ve heard floating around the social sector and piece them together into our own mission statements, vision statements, equity statements, theories of change, etc. And in doing so, our stories have become generic.

From denouncing ChatGPT, I’m now excited for it to push the social sector to become better storytellers. It should prompt us to ask ourselves what is not formulaic and replicable about our organizational story. It should prompt questions like:

1. How can we get more specific about our problem statement so that it’s not the problem statement a million other organizations are also solving?

2. If a million other organizations are still solving the same problem, how is our approach to solving it different?

3. Is the language we are using to storytell reflective of current or forward-looking social and political norms?

4. What is our organizational identity, and how is it reflected in our narrative voice?

for example…

I entered this prompt into ChatGPT:

Write a mission statement for an education consultancy that helps schools transform from outdated factories of learning.

ChatGPT wrote:

Our mission is to revolutionize education by helping schools transform from outdated factories of learning into innovative, student-centered environments that foster critical thinking, creativity, and lifelong learning. We believe that every child deserves access to a dynamic and engaging education, and we work with schools to design and implement innovative solutions that meet the needs of 21st-century learners. Our goal is to empower schools to break free from traditional norms and embrace new and effective approaches to education.

On-point, right? Educators have probably seen at least a couple mission statements like this one. It made me think of Transcend Education, whose mission statement I’d read recently.

Here’s the thing. This mission statement is a perfectly good foundation for an org story. But a foundation is just a starting point. The questions this theoretical education consultancy should tackle next might be:

1. What aspects of the outdated factory system are we tackling, specifically?

2. How are we tackling them?

3. Why are we the right people to tackle them?

4. Is the language in this mission statement (revolutionize, transform, empower) right for the context in which we’re operating? Does the way it sounds (lofty, jargony) reflect how we want to come across?

long story short…

There’s a lot social sector storytellers can learn from ChatGPT. If the K-12 education system is operating on an outdated factory model to churn out workers, the social sector is operating on an outdated factory model to churn out routine stories of what we do and what we’re about.

As a final disclaimer, I’ve always hated the five paragraph essay. It constrains students’ creative and analytical thought and is miserable for teachers to read. So if ChatGPT does nothing else than end this diabolical type of writing, it will have done a good thing for society!

Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash