The loud blaring of an alarm jerks Richard awake from a dreamless sleep. He looks around himself with half opens eyes before realizing where he was. He was on a train heading towards the H City community learning facility, the high school that he has been working at for the past 4 years. He stands up as he looks out the window, staring in the direction of the facility.
The building was just as drab as ever. Box like in shape, gated surroundings with a double door entrance and small windows scattered around. The outside looked closer to that of a prison than anything else. Given the rather barebone use of the facility however its made relative sense. The building itself inside was not like a normal school of the past. After passing through the checkpoint to enter, all teachers were to get clocked in by the AI that watches over their facility. They get a reading of their points which determines their effect on the students.
To a teacher, the points system was everything.
It determined their performance, teaching effectiveness, and most importantly their pay cut. If performance was bad and their points were low, this reflected upon their pay for that week. However, the unknown catch is when a teacher's point system gets low it also affects the learning facility's ranking. Every school, both Ai and learning facility has a rank that will determine the overall effectiveness of that school. The Ai schools obviously have a rather unfair advantage but the learning facilities over the years have held strong.
The train finally comes to a stop before a small drop-off station. Richard exits with a few others, some were teachers he's sure of given their rather dark facial expressions. He lets out a small sigh as he enters the facility. Actual classes don't begin until an hour, this period is what the government deemed "Lesson Planning". Teachers were meant to use this hour to make sure that their lessons were prepared for all subjects and ready for the students.
Oh yes, that also was another thing about being a teacher that was less than ideal.
As a teacher, one must be able to teach all subjects: math, science, English, and history. Electives such as music, art etc weren't deemed extra curricular which mean simply its unimportant in the pursuit of progress.
If a student wanted to learn something like that, they were on their own.
But returning back to the main. subjects.In the mind of the government whatever features/benefits the AI schools provide, the physical ones much provide similarly.
There were no exceptions.
The fortunate thing about this however is the AI doesn't have a strict cycle of what is taught that day and as long as it passes the inspection scan. The issue with this however in Richard's opinion is that it didn't matter what was being taught as long as it was something "new" and the students engaged it in.
So for example, if one day in a math class, you teach only multiplication then the next day, you can teach division, subtracting, etc.
An easily exploitable system that Richard has seen taken advantage of by his peers time and time. They never try to make their lessons overly challenging for the students. While technically it's to their benefit and makes it easier to pass along the year, it doesn't really benefit the student in the least. And obviously, the students don't complain about it.
An easy lesson for them makes them less hostile.
This is why Richard is such an oddity among his peers. He is someone who tries to challenge his students. He wants them to enjoy learning, even as foolheartedly it may make him appear in this day and age.
He likes to foster whatever interest his students have to try and get them to excel beyond just the bare minimum. He has had moderate success in the past however this year has proven to be unlike any other.
He got paired up with what his peers would call "troubled cases". A few students have nothing but contempt for him. Ever since the school year started about two months ago, they've been doing whatever they could to decrease his points.
You see during class, the Ai monitors every student's progress. If one falls behind or doesn't understand something after being instructed, the AI takes that into consideration. This month alone he has already lost 20 points, which isn't a great amount but enough to affect the ranking of the school as a whole.
And it didn't take a genius to guess who was the cause.
Richard does his best to finish his lesson plan for the day even as he could feel the hot gazes of his peers on him. They also weren't quite quiet enough with their whispers either.
"I don't understand why he just doesn't just get with the program already? Why should we all suffer cause of his stupid holier than thou attitude about teaching?!" Hissed a young woman to her peers who were trying to hush her as her voice rose a bit as she spoke.
"Honestly... these younger teachers are just getting more and more arrogant..." Another whisper came out from an older teacher.
Richard just keeps his mouth shut and finishes his plan just before the starting bell.
He knew it was a stupid dream, one that honestly no one in the right mind would take on in this day and age. Sometimes he really thinks he's just crazy or maybe even a masochist or something.
It would make the most sense why he puts himself through this.
His class was slowly filling as he entered, a fake and a bit wooden smile graced his lips as he take in their faces. Some are happy to see him, but then he sees in the back the problem bunch. Three boys each of varied size and skin tones. Their leader is Kyle Thorton, the son of an actually well-known but small-time businessman. To this day, Richard still is surprised to see him in his class but given the situation surrounding his father, it's not all that surprising.
Being suspected of grand virtual embezzlement from your own company is a big one.
The other parts of the trio were less well known, Daniel Combs and Quin Newton. However, the three of them together have been nothing but a terror for Richard. The constant harassment and constantly interrupting class, and just overall attitude.
However, there was nothing Richard could do about it. In this world the teacher's word was nothing.
Richard just hoped and prayed that he would be able to pass through this day with minimal damage. And for the most part of the day, it did appear to be working. The troubled three did there usually interrupt but it wasn't anything overall bad.
It lured Richard into a false sense of security. But when the subject turned to English, he soon realized that his peaceful bubbles were about to burst when a loud protest sounded in the back of the room.
"Ahh, I don't get it!!"
Richard's head snaps up and looks to the back of the room. There was a smirk face on Kyle Thorton sitting at his station. The station is a machine booth where all students log in their answers for the lesson. Richard walks over a bit stiffly, really hoping that Kyle doesn't make a big fuss.
"Hello Kyle, what don't you get?" Richard asks politely.
Kyle however leans back with a huff.
"All of it! I mean really your teaching is so bad!" He puts emphasis on his words.
A stable beep rings out which sends a cold shiver down Richards's spine. The AI was picking up on the complaint and already documenting it.
"W-well let me try and explain it a different way?" He said quickly.
He then goes over again what he has assigned which was a simple try of a Haiku. He knew a few of the students were interested in the last lesson when he brought it up in passing. Many olden day things have been lost to history, and for Richard, those are the things he always wanted to teach. Personally, for him, history was always his best subject, and learning about the past was always something interesting to him.
To see how different things were in the past was always a bit of a culture shock to him.
"Ah... I don't get it!" Kyle yells out with another groan.
The class around was deadly silent as Richard knew everyone was watching what was happening. The beeping hasn't stopped either, every complaint makes a beep from the ceiling where the AI is stationed in each classroom.
"Ah, well if you tell me what's confusing you maybe I can help better?" Richard tries again.
"Hmmm.... it's your teaching I think? It's just really too hard to understand.." Kyle says in an almost dismissive tone.
"Kyle... that not really telling me-"
"Or maybe is just your bad at explaining this? Maybe we should stick to something simple next time?"
Richard fights every bit of himself to stay calm. At the end of the day, Kyle was still a child and no matter how frustrating it was, he couldn't do anything about it. He could feel the eyes of some of the other students around him, the ones who actually wanted to learn about this subject. And he just swallowed his pride and smiled.
"....Sure, tomorrow will be a new topic."
The positively smug look on Kyle's face made a dark feeling pull at Richard's heart. In all his years of teaching so far, he's encountered a lot of different kinds of students but Kyle was a first.
Maybe it was due to his arrogant upbringing, the pride he always seems to wield around like a weapon. Or it could be that really is all teachers are now.
Richard loves the idea of teaching and helping others understand certain things that otherwise just don't click with them.
The first time he had a student get a-ha moment as he likes to call them, he couldn't stop smiling for the whole day. He truly believes that having a person teach is better than an AI. Instead of having the answer just injected into it, figuring it out on your own is something of a mini-miracle. But as the day crawled to an end, that little miracle felt like crumbling ash.
He honestly believes that one day his urge and dream of teaching will be an unfortunate end for him.