‘WHEN I was a young boy
Back in Orangefield
Used to look out my
classroom and dream
Then go home and listen to
Ray sing
“I Believe To My Soul”,
after school.’
Van
Morrison, 1986
Grandpa went to school back
in 1986. He told me he used to do the same thing as Van Morrison. I’ve been asked to compare
school now with what it was like back then. Here are my findings. It can be
summed up in two neat sentences. No
wonder grandpa, and Van Morrison, used to look out their window and dream.
School must have been that dull.
My interviews and research
both tell me that school students early this century, and, incredibly, for the
whole century before that, used to have lots of different teachers verbally
giving instructions the whole time, and students were supposed to take it all
in and listen and act upon their teachers’ instructions, every lesson. At
least, it seems, this was the case for senior school. In junior school it was
limited to two or three teachers, but the same thing effectively- that is,
human instructions all the time, the whole class at the same level more or
less, bells ringing like church and telling people when to come and go, handing
in sheets of paper and getting them back with written comments in red pen!
Now grandpa, mercifully,
things are no longer like that! Surely it occurred to people back then that
education cost so much unnecessary money. Teachers were paid reasonable wages,
and there were thousands of them here in Victoria. Yes, we save a lot of money
these days, no longer being so inefficient and paying these superfluous wages.
The money saved goes on ever expanding digital tools to make this generation
the brightest Australia has ever produced.
So here
goes grandpa- I bet your day was never like this. My alarm’s whirring sound
informs me it is half past ten. I pack my software, noodles and fruit bars in
my knapsack and I am out the door by eleven o’clock. The underground train
stops at ‘Education Station’ and the whole crew of midday starters (there are
about 30,000 of us in the northern region) pedal with one of the awaiting bikes
to our respective building. The glass elevator takes me to level 63 in a matter
of seconds. We all walk through the silver doors and find the nearest terminal.
I have just made it. The screen on the glass panel clicks over to midday, June
17, 2052.
Next to the panel is an
array of different coloured tutorial sticks. Being Saturday, the last school
day of the week, today’s tutorial sticks are yellow. ‘Language 5’ glows in its
plastic holder. This is the one I remove and I plug it into my computer and
place my headphones on. I settle in the comfortable chair and devour today’s
lesson which is all about Indonesian transitive verbs-‘ Saya suka menonton
televisi.’ Reaching the target set for me by one o’clock,
I browse the news for ten minutes before I resume. The tabloid site is by far
the most fun. ‘Another plane load of asylum seekers intercepted at Nokia
Airport.’
A second stick is fitted
and this time the hour long tutorial is a multiple choice test on Shakespeare’s
King Lear, the text I have chosen this semester to study. I love
multiple choice tests. A correct answer provides you with soothing electrical
currents that glide over your whole body. A wrong answer results in an
uncomfortable tingling and burning sensation that runs all over your arms and
your thighs. This is what’s great about these tests. Rarely do you get the
answer wrong, as you are so keen to experience the warm, soothing sensation.
Question 46 is: ‘Lear’s daughter, Cordelia, is banished by Lear because a) she
is jealous of the other sisters, b) she has always been the ungrateful and
unruly daughter, c) she is tricked into being unco-operative by Regan who
manipulates her, or d) she is unwilling to go along with the false charade her
sisters seem to be engaged in.’ I press ‘d’ on my screen, and sit back in the
chair awaiting the sensuous soothing that is coming my way.
Modern day learning is such
a powerful thing. We learn at our own pace. We embrace the fun tutorials that
we are presented with. We don’t have other people around us to distract us, who
are often either ahead of us in terms of learning, or are behind, potentially
slowing us down. We don’t have clumsy and faltering adults standing in front of
us spoon feeding our lazy minds. There are no adults to be seen, anywhere. We
are all adult, anyway, in our own individual circumstances. I have no doubt we
are the generation of thinkers. We are the brightest students this country’s
ever created.
My afternoon continues,
with tutorials about ancient Greece, twenty first century science, and Klimt
and the Vienna Secession. It isn’t always multiple choice of course. A learned
professor informs me about the wonders of ancient mythology. I am presented
with lovely, extreme digital close-ups of Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze. I listen,
and take notes, and ask the professor questions when it seems fit. He answers
promptly, and engagingly, from somewhere in the cyber world. Of course he isn’t
live. These days all questions are predictive. He is able to correspond with
thousands of students across the planet at the same time. It becomes a fun game
to try and stump him.
After I have exhausted my
fifth yellow tutorial stick, I decide enough is enough for one day. Another day
in which I have learnt an incredible amount. It is six o’clock in the evening
and my trip home awaits. Before I leave the building, however, and descend the
63 levels, there is one more pleasure that awaits. The same thing all six days
of the week in the name of education. There is a real time teacher on a large
screen near the lifts who wishes you goodnight. He or she always has a smile
and they invariably have such an amusing face. Although brief, it is a lovely
bit of interaction, and deep down you know that the teacher knows that you have
worked hard today, and that you know so much more now than you did before you
went to school this morning. I really like that time of day, as it is slowly
getting dark outside. The exit tonight has a lovely purple and silver light
splashed over the lift area.
