The First Major Step: New Education

PerfectWorld story (The NOW)

INTRODUCTION

I've said before that the hardest part in creating a World Family is taking the first step. You can imagine what might happen if a fully formed Perfect World opens up next door to the Current World we live in now: The benevolent and kind people from the Perfect World greet all with warm smiles and arms spread in welcome... then watch in dismay as the selfish and greedy Current World people strip it bare in record time. We're just not in the right mindset to pass over free goodies if we don't need them, because of the inherent instability we feel over our mindlessly cruel economic system.

All right, so what is the first step? I say we start with the young. We achieve the mindset we're looking for in people by creating an environment which fosters that mindset. We've let our public schools fall into an atrocious mess, which only damages our kids. Eventually those kids grow up and become faulted adults, who raise kids in their own image. Enough time passes and we have our very own Idiocracy to look forward to.

I for one don't want to see that happening, so I envision a fantastic change for our school system. Most important is to evaluate each child to discover their hidden potential. I believe (and this is the only Perfect World "belief" I have... the other information I espouse is, I'm proud to say, fact) that each person is born with a series of natural talents. Each person's talents are different from the next person's, and together all human talents, when nurtured and allowed to manifest, provide society with everything it needs to thrive.

Rather than hear my boring lecture (which I will conclude at the end), let's follow the life of 16 year old Ricky once he enters the new PodSchool in his fetid urban neighborhood. It offered a way out, and up, for the kids who were being shuffled through school like factory workers in training, which is exactly what their fates might have been:

BOOK ONE

Chapter One- Kwik Chaynge

8/28/2005- Los Angles

Deer iPen Pal,

Well, its finelly here! The day my parints have been plannin for is coming up nekst Monday. Im not sure Im gonna like it. I mean, Iv been going to scool for 10 graydz allreddy-- how am I gonna get uzd to a Pod Sistem?

I dont even know how my parents were convinsed to take me out of public shool! They dont have a lot of munee, and work a lot! Some days I dont even see my dad, cuz hes gone before I wake up in the morning at his f1rst job and dosnt get home from his 3ird job until long after I go to asleep.

My mom thinks itl help me laern things I cante in public scool. I hope so, cuz I wanna be a ryter but my teasher thinks I m to dumm. He sayz I shud stik to baksetball.

I hear therz smaler clases in the new scool. Thats good cuz 65 kids in a room is to much. Pluss, we eech get a computer at the new scool. Mabe it wan't be to bad.

Yor Frend

Ricky

9/3/2005 Los Angles

Deer ipen pal,

Wow! Today was my first day at pod class! It was a new scool for me. Mom droped me off in front. You kno how thers alwayz a milyon kid in front of skool? Well ther wernt! Insted ther waz abowt a 100 teechrs instedd! Wen i got ther 1 pretty ladee met me and new my nam! She sed 'Cum with me Ricky- yore room is reddy'!

It was cool! It dint look lik a school. It lookd like a behive! Wen i went insyd it waz a very big emty bilding. There waz a huuge pinappl shape in the middl, 3 storeez hi! There wer dors all arownd it and starewayz goin to the upper dors.

The ladee led me to a dor and opend it. It was like a clozet! just a chare and a compyutr screen. She sed to sit and closd the dore. i was alone! I nevr saw anothr kid all day!

Wen i sat the screen lit up and the ladee was ther! She sed im Nicolet and im yore personel teechr. Then she sed i shud wach the screen. So i did.

It was so kool! First i wached lots of pikturs. Sum wer boring and sum wer kool. She told me to tuch the pikturs i likd so i did. My fayvrit waz the sekse naykd jimnest!

Then she startd testing me. Well, not the reel she. The she in the screen! She showd me a math kwestshun and i sed the anser. Wen i got it rite she showd me more seksee pikturs!

I got all the riting kwestshuns rong. She sed dont woree weeel fix it.

R thay doowing the sam thing in yore sitty Theo?

Yore frend

Ricky P

October 10th, 2005

Los Angeles

Hi Theo!

How is Melbourne? LA is fine. I've been at school for a month now, and it is really different from anything I have done before. For one thing, there are no distractions-- I am in my little pod until I finish my lessons for the day, which varies from one day to the next. The way I am instructed is very different also. Since I am alone, the work proceeds quickly-- no distractions from friends or idiots.

For most of the month, the computer and I have been working on bringing my writing up to speed. I was looking over some of our old letters and frankly I was shocked. I can't believe I was that ignorant about the rules of writing. I mean, couldn't I have at least used the spell-check feature?

It's true that this seems like a huge difference in a month. Well, this teaching method is really different! The computer tailors every lesson to my needs and presents the information in a creative way. My teacher, Nicolette, pops up onscreen every so often and gives encouragement.

In my last school there was a lot of noise and distraction. It was very crowded and I never felt like I could get any attention when I had a problem, so I just joined a clique and pretty much ignored the teacher in front-- who could hear him, anyway? This place is the exact opposite.

In the beginning the computer would reward me whenever I did well by catering to my base sexual needs-- it would show me pictures and videos of naked women! I didn't know school could teach that way, but apparently the new method involves getting personal with each student-- finding out what motivates them and making sure they get that inspiration.

It didn't last, though... after I started to realize that I really could learn, the actual success was inspiration enough. I was getting tired of playing with myself, anyway-- I was getting bedsores!

After I had absorbed enough of the rules of writing to become effective, we moved on to other areas. It took just five days to teach an entire semester of Geometry to me-- apparently I take to math like a duck to water.

The testing is one of the coolest parts. Since we have continual feedback, official tests are not necessary, so I don't need to waste my time with cramming. In the course of any given day, all of my previous learning is reinforced in a series of short real-life quizzes so I don't get rusty. Based on my responses, the computer figures out where my innate talents lie, and structures a series of lessons to best take advantage of them. Did you know I have the makings of a surgeon? I didn't know that before-- the teachers at my former school were preparing me to become a basketball player! Also, I seem to enjoy theoretical physics, singing and cooking!

I bet you're wondering how I learn to cook in a little pod. That's another great thing about this school... there are lots of specialty pods for that sort of thing. Nicolette came by one morning and guided me to a pod in a different hive-- yes, there are more than one on campus-- which was fully equipped as a kitchen, and I spent an entire day learning about the art of cooking. I learned how flavors change with cooking techniques; how unlikely flavors can complement each other with the addition of a third, unrelated flavor; how texture affects flavor and many other techniques for producing healthy, delicious and unique meals. My parents were blown away when I prepared a complete gourmet dinner for them!

Well, that's it for now, buddy. I'm making Baked Alaska and I need to use both hands.

Ciao!

Rick Payne

28 November 2005

Los Angeles CA USA

Earth

Solar System

Milky Way

Universe 001

Greetings, Theo!

Just getting out of the Astronopod, where I learned about dark matter. They surmise that without it we couldn't exist, but to touch it would be to face certain annihilation! The universe is a fascinating place!

A science emulant in my school (that's what we call the teachers here at podschool-- emulants-- because they mirror teachers, without actually being them!) has discovered that all planetary bodies emit an ULF throb which can be used to categorize them by type! Once we figured that out we were able to pick up ULF throbs all over the galaxy! And what's really fantastic is that we have found MILLIONS of worlds in the Milky Way which fit Earth's characteristics! That means potential intelligent alien life, or at the very least, planets for colonization! I heard from Nicolette that the representative from NASA almost had a stroke when they learned that a high school science emulant, er, TEACHER had figured it out!

Unfortunately, the closest one is 147 light years away and would take our fastest ships 1600 years to get there. Not really a weekend excursion, eh? I think there's a faster way to get there, but I need to bone up on the science before I can invent one.

But I created a great experiment last week! I surmised that we can have land travel at speeds far greater and safer than that of air travel, so I built a small representation at the podschool's remote testpod in the Mojave desert. I used 2000 feet of 6" plumbing pipe and built a maglev tube with four electromagnetic rails inside. Then I built a small car to float between the rails, and strapped testing equipment to it. Both ends of the tube were open, and when I set up the computer to send a pulse at 50 times the speed of sound (about 3,750 mph) and placed the car in there, it came out of the other side in six one-thousandths of a second! But I only knew that information thanks to the external testing equipment-- the onboard equipment and the car was a smoldering mass of burnt and melted glass, metal and plastic!

That sounds like a failure, but it wasn't-- I was expecting that. There's an upper limit to how fast anything can travel through air, which we know when we see meteorites burning up when entering the Earth's atmosphere. But Apollo spacecraft going to the moon travelled through the vacuum of space at 16,500 miles per hour (about 220 times the speed of sound) with no ill effects.

I tried the experiment again, only this time I sealed both ends and sucked all the air out of the tube. I had placed a significant amount of cotton wadding to slow the car after it had completed the maglev track, but I had underestimated the amount of energy the car would have at that speed, and it squashed flat like a soda can when it hit the back wall. Fortunately the onboard equipment had broadcast its data before squishing. The temperature around the car had never changed! Success! We had more to figure out, though, because there was more than enough G-force generated to kill a person, plus people and vacuum don't mix, but now we know those speeds are attainable!

Theo, it just occurred to me that only three months ago the most math I was doing was figuring out my share from lunch with my friends at McDonalds, and now I'm designing and testing cutting-edge transportation! I have to say I recommend this school... if I hadn't come here I would probably be destined to work in Mickey D's, taking low-tech transportation to get there!

Your friend,

Rick Payne

January First, Two Thousand Six

90035-43518296

Happy New Year, Theo!

And a happy one it is for me indeed. Things are moving fast, quite literally, and I haven't a long time to write. In my last letter I mentioned an experiment in land travel, which is now being called VaccuStreak, or VeeStreak. Well, the PodSchool administrator got very excited when she saw what I had been working on. Apparently there is an ulterior motive for the existence of this fantastic school and others like it across the country-- they are part of a collective called the Perfect World Theorists who want to move the human race into the next stage of development by removing the fear which is holding us back. To do that they will need large amounts of money and were hoping one of their students would create something with worldwide appeal, like I have.

Theo, I'm gonna be very rich! And I'm making the PodSchool people very rich also, so they can create other schools, and special services for adults who are unhappy and not working at their potential! We're putting the final touches on the plans for our first city-to-city VeeStreak! It will be a multi-car train that can shoot 300 people between two cities at 15,000 miles an hour!

The ground breaking ceremony is in a week, and I want you to be here. I've already cleared it with your school. Enclosed please find a round trip ticket on Quantas. I'll be at the gate when you arrive. Can't wait to see you!

Your Friend,

Rick Payne

...

Well, SOMEBODY likes his new school!

Rick can't be happier that he was afforded this opportunity, and I'm sure that anyone given the same chance will feel similarly. It makes me feel as though we're on the right track.

With Perfect World schools, new methods of teaching will determine their physical design. Since collectively, children will need to be taught a vast myriad of subjects, another method of teaching must be brought into play. Obviously we can't have a school with 600,000 teachers, so the next step is to have a computerized learning system that teaches specific subjects to a classroom of one.

While it is possible to teach many subjects simultaneously in one room by using individual computer work stations, it is far less distracting for each student to have his own room. Home schooling offers that, but lacks the comprehensive resources of a learning center.

New pod schools would have one 'pod', or room, for each student (albeit a small one), to maximize concentration and minimize interaction with distracting friends or frightening bullies. Of course classes which benefit from multiple input (dance, art, athletics, discussion and the like) would continue to be held in more traditional venues.

Lessons would be presented in a variety of ways, an example of which would be the children's education program Sesame Street, which uses stories and characters to reinforce learning. Added to that would be interactivity, where the characters speak directly to the student by name, asking questions and encouraging a response. Student input would then be saved as data and used to plan future lessons and reinforcement quizzes. The program should be designed to learn as the student does, to provide challenge and incentive, with the goal being to comfortably maximize each student's potential.

School has always been the first line of defense against ignorance, and the Perfect World has no place for the unenlightenable. We're going to push ourselves, kicking and fighting, to the next level of human emotional development, mostly because the idea of living in an Idiocracy, frankly, scares the crap out of me.

Copyright 2009 Bruce Ian Friedman