Utopian
English Journal: Do I Like School?
I can’t believe I get to join the adventure class! I have spent so much time in the VR studios learning about the plants and survival techniques they used to use back in the day, and now I get to actually go out and do it! My brother is incredibly jealous, his group just used the VR studios to learn how they used to drill for oil and stuff, and they didn’t even get to visit a site. Plus, this class is the best because we get to go with the friend of our choice, not just someone at the same level as us. Overall I think this school is pretty lenient with us. I mean short of the yearly assessment, we learn at our own rate!
I love being in the red group for math, it;s finally challenging, and I know my blue English group is a bit lower than the math but that’s fine with me. I get to work with some kids who are way older than me in my technology class since it is green, so that means I’m advanced, which is pretty neat!
Plus we have school all year, which I love now because we get so many more breaks, some more traditional schools follow the old method with only one long summer break, but with the rain and everything, it is pretty unusable. We at least get a break every like month! Plus if we want to leave we get to actually just work on our laptops on vacation, the traditional schools won’t even let you leave! It seems pretty unfair to stop us from seeing the world when we can learn so much from it and we can take our tablets with us!
Dystopian
English Journal: Reflecting on School Back In The Day.
Growing up, my mother, a former teacher, would share stories about the fun and different kinds of learning they did! She tells me all about how there were different teachers and even rooms based on the subject you were learning. I can’t imagine that! Well.. part of me can, we walk past what would have been school back in the day, they’ve been converted now into multi-community living spaces. Sometimes, if there’s no one around we can even play on some of the old “playgrounds” as my mum would call them. I wonder sometimes, how scary it must have been to be surrounded by strangers, learning in front of them and being so close.
Mom says that school was different from what it is now, that we would actually know the people we are working it but that seems weird. I can’t say, I am fortunate to go to a really strong online school, mum says that lots of kids only get to go to school every few days because their parents can’t afford the internet bill. I’m not sure what they will do when they get older, the news talks a lot about how only the smartest people are going to get a job, and everyone else will be on a provided income. Dad says that by the time I finish learning it won’t matter anyway, because most jobs will be running with programs or robots.
I like the robots though, my “teacher” is a program, I think it’s kinda nice, I get to do my work whenever plus I get to learn about stuff I really care about, not like random stuff that we were told to. Dad says he used to have to learn about art and history, but that’s silly because he is a math guy, he works in a robotics engineering firm, how would any of that matter? Mum says that stuff is important still though, they fight about it sometimes, saying that our world has lost its creativity, its colour. I don’t think she’s right, the companies and the internet have a lot of creative things, like contests and shows about winning, I like them. One day I wish to be on them.
For now, mum still draws with me at home, but only after I finish my school work. Sometimes I watch the kids who live in the schools play games outside, but I prefer to play online with the other students or by myself. I try not to play too much with the same people, I don’t want them to know what I can or can’t do. Sometimes, people who play really well or really badly stop coming to the games or the class, I’m not sure where there are rumours that they’ve either been removed from the school to join the part-time kids or get bumped into the other groups, I’m still not sure.
Anyway, I’m happy we get to be online, mum shares a lot more stories, about how it used to be, and the work needed to go nowhere, sounds exhausting.
