The Emoticon Generation

by Guy Hasson

  “You are here to represent the old school, literally,” the 40-year-old Sam Stone, a political-speech-writer-turned-journalist laughed at his own joke. “The one that’s being washed away by this new trend.”

  “I wouldn’t call it ‘old school’—”

  “Under Secretary Lautner, let me introduce your opponent. In this corner, we have Dr. Sheen, one of the more prestigious neurosurgeons in the world. We have had occasion to talk to you before in news items that touched on your profession. But as I understand it, after the wonderful discoveries by Dr. Burrows regarding the imagination and the freedom hormone, you have quit your job?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have... Do I understand this correctly? You have taken your children out of school?”

  “Yes. I have 3 children, aged 9, 11, and 15, and I have taken them all out of school. I’m teaching them at home. I’m teaching them to be themselves. I am a product of what, until a few days ago, was considered to be the best education possible, and I am telling you today that the education I received is utter nonsense. We are teaching our children to be robots.”

  “Now, wait just a second,” Under-Secretary Lautner raised a finger and put it powerfully on the desk. “We are not limiting the children, we are opening them to—”

  “Mr. Under-Secretary! When we put our children’s imaginations in cages, we might as well be putting the children in cages!”

  “Now, wait, wait, wait! Let’s have order in this discussion. Under Secretary Lautner, what is your response?”

  “My response is that having fun and jumping in fountains and taking holidays is all nice and well. But at the end of the day, people have to return to their jobs, or the economy collapses. When the economy collapses, you’ll have people on the streets, but for very different reasons.”

  “Now wait just a—”

  “Please let me finish. We have to put our children back in school so that they may have an opportunity to become productive members of this society.”

  Dr Sheen sneered, “Productive!”

  Roger gave his chair half a spin, turning his back to the screen, then leaned back fully, looking at the sky through the window.

  The television continued behind him, “Yes! Productive! We need doctors and lawyers, we need postmen and, yes, even bureaucrats. We need people to make sure we have light in our homes every day. We need people to know how to build computers, how to make water reach our homes, how cars work, how televisions work, how radios work. We need all these people. This new fad of society will lead to anarchy. Which may be attractive to the child in us, but nothing good can come of it.”

  The doctor leaned back and put his legs on the news desk. “You, sir, are old, that’s what you are.”

  “Old?! You’re ten years older than me!”

  “And yet you are older,” he shrugged. “In every possible way. An old, stuffed shirt. A grown-up,” Doctor Sheen said in disgust.

  “Decorum, Dr. Sheen,” Sam Stone interjected.

  “You can drop the ‘Doctor’ title, because right now it’s a sign of shame, not respect. Now, I’m not attacking you. I want to help you, Mr. Under Secretary. I want you... to be free. I want you to just imagine a little bit every day, Mr. Under Secretary. Just imagine. The freedom hormone will be released into your brain a little bit every day.”

  “I know how the process works—”

  “You know it, but you haven’t felt it! If you would have felt it, you would never be sitting here, representing the old model.”

  “Sir, we have people who imagine on a daily basis. In fact, they do it for a living. They’re called artists, authors, painters, dancers, actors. And from what I understand, most of them do not live the lives of happy children, but of tortured adolescents.”

  Doctor Sheen shook his head. “Yes, most artists have been historically tortured, because society kept trying to force into cages the one asset that breathed life into them.”

  “I doubt that very much.”

  “Mr. Under Secretary, if you would have actually gone through the process, as I have, you’d realize you’ve been living your life for the wrong reasons, that you’ve been fighting the wrong fights, that you’ve been angry when pleasure was only a step away. If you would have felt it and not known it, you would have been dancing in the streets, just like the rest of us.”

  “That way lies anarchy, Doctor Sheen.”

  Doctor Sheen leaned forward, and whispered forcefully. “No. Not anarchy. Something better. Everything’s changing. A revolution is coming. This isn’t someone’s idea or philosophy. It isn’t an ideological movement. There are no interests here, no manipulation from above. The reaction of the people is authentic. And we’re all reacting in the same way, because this reaction, this feeling, this knowledge of empowering freedom comes from the way we are hardwired. It is built into our framework, into our DNA. This is natural. This is what we were meant to do, meant to be. This is the next step in human history, sir!

  “The tide is turning. Whether you shake your fists at it or not, the tide is turning, sir. And a revolution is coming. And all people like you will either learn to imagine... or be left to look at the human race rise to new heights while leaving you far far below, shaking your fists in disapproval.

  “This is a new step in human history. Something like this has never happened before.”

  “That, Doctor, is not true. This has happened before.”

  Roger sat up in his chair, as did Doctor Sheen. “Oh? When?”

  Roger turned around and looked at the screen.

  “I have no doubt the streets looked quite the same almost two thousand years ago, when Rome burned.”

  Roger pursed his lips together even as Doctor Sheen laughed loudly. “Nice demagoguery there, Mr. Under Secretary. In the same way I could say that bureaucratic thinking such as yours led to such regimes as Stalin’s Russia. But I won’t say that, because that would be insulting to at least one of our intelligences.” Doctor Sheen stood up suddenly. “I’ve had it with the boundaries in this little place. I have the jungle of my mind to roam through with my family. It’s been only a slight pleasure.” As he walked out, he leaned near to the Under Secretary’s ear and whispered a few words. The mikes caught it, “A revolution is coming. En garde!”

  Doctor Sheen straightened and left.

  “Well,” Sam Stone seemed to have been caught off guard. “We’ve seen the revolution continue right here. I believe our audience will agree that this fight is all old versus new, the homo sapiens of the future versus the dinosaurs of the past. Wouldn’t you say so, Under Secretary Lautner?”

  Under Secretary Lautner pursed his lips, “No.”

  Roger’s cell phone buzzed.

  “Spoken like a true dinosaur. I love this new trend of saying what I think. Viewers? We’ll be back after this short break. Don’t go away.”

  The phone recognized the number as Russell’s school. He muted the computer.

  “Yes?” he answered.

  “Mr. Grant? Am I speaking to Russell Grant’s father?”

  “Yes, you are. What happened?”

  “Nothing to be alarmed about, Mr. Grant. This is Principal Jackson, from Russell’s school.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ve just wanted to inform you – and I’m making this call personally to all of the parents – that, well, as you may know, in view of everything that’s been going on, we’ve asked for instructions from the Department of Education about how to educate the kids.”

  “Yes.”

  “And we’ve received the following instructions: school is to proceed as per the previous guidelines, nothing has changed. Which personally I saw as good news. Unfortunately, as a direct result, more than two thirds of our teachers have quit.”

  “What!”

  “Surprising, but true. In seeking substitute teachers, it turns out that there is now a lack of those, as well. Following the Department’s reissuing of its guidelines, teachers and substitute teachers have been qui
tting right and left.”

  “The teachers just quit?!”

  “They did. They are refusing to teach the students in a way they believe would harm them. Now, all our students are still here, and they’re being taken care of. We are here to take care of them, not just to teach them. At present we can only do the former and not the latter. We’re simply keeping them in their classes until the day is done. After lunch we’ll be trying to fill their day with gym activities outside. Which is about all we can do. Tomorrow we’ll do the same, and the day after that, until we come up with a solution. However, as the situation stands, we would certainly understand if any parent wished to take his or her child out of school for whatever reason. We will not stop you. Russell won’t learn anything in school today.”

  “Wow. I see.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Grant, I am now going to make this phone call to the parents of other children as well.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand. Thank you for telling me.”

  “Have a good day, Mr. Grant.”

  Mr. Grant hung up. Russell stared at the computer screen. People in their thirties were standing on a rooftop and shouting at the sky.

  After twenty seconds of thought, Roger reached for the phone and dialed Joan’s number.

  ~

  A week later, after dinner, after Russell had gone to sleep, after Joan had cleared the table and Roger had washed the dishes, Rose had trouble sleeping. Joan and Roger allowed her to stay awake and watch TV for another hour. She promptly fell asleep on the sofa half an hour later.

  The news was playing softly in the background: news reports of tornado warnings in the south. Roger and Joan decided that moving Rose now would wake her. It was preferable to wait another half hour until her deep sleep. This meant they had time to have the talk they’ve been putting off for the last few days.

  Joan spoke first, “We’re going to have to start thinking about home schooling Russell.” Russell’s school had been nothing more than a kid-depository for the last week. “And next year, Rose.”

  Rose stirred, but did not wake.

  Roger rubbed his eye “Home school? What, we’re going to teach them?”

  Joan shook her head.

  Roger said, “We both can’t remember anything worth a damn from grade school.” Joan nodded. Roger continued, “And do we have time?”

  The two sat in silence. Roger’s eyes wandered to the TV. Commercials just came on.

  “How about a private tutor?” Joan said.

  Roger leaned back. “Really?”

  “The other parents, that’s what they’re talking about. If school can’t supply teachers, then we need to get some ourselves.”

  Roger made a face. “Money.”

  One commercial gave way to another commercial.

  Joan looked at it for a few seconds, then looked back at Roger.

  “Russell needs to go to school,” she said. “And we’ll find a good tutor, one that won’t give him headaches or block his mind.”

  “Is teaching any good? Is learning any good? What if what Dr. Burrows is saying is that teaching is bad?”

  The second commercial ended, and a third one appeared in its place.

  Joan said, “We’ll find the money. Scrimp, save... You know.”

  “Yeah.”

  Roger sighed. “Even if teaching’s bad... Worst case, he grows up to be us.”

  Joan laughed slightly and nodded. She took Roger’s hand in hers. “Best case?”

  “Hmmm....”

  Roger caressed her fingers.

  “Best case,” Joan said. “He grows up to be something better.”

  Roger looked in her eyes, “What’s that?”

  Joan shook her head, then their eyes locked. A few seconds later, Roger broke the moment and looked sideways. The news had already come on.

  A bearded man in his late forties was being interviewed. The name ‘DR. STONE, EDUCATION ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT’ appeared at the bottom of the screen. Roger increased the volume just enough to hear.

  “We are at an historical tipping point,” he was saying. “In fact, we are past the tipping point. Things will never return to the way they were. The entire Western human society is being swept away by a real and unprecedented revolution. The question is: We know where we’re coming from, but where are we going to tip to? Where is history going? Can we take charge of the change that’s coming?”

  “And you put your answer in your book, Dr. Stone?” asked the black anchor with perfectly straight hair.

  “I do more than that. One place we can go is anarchy. Let’s face it, it’s fun for a day, but it’s bad in the long run. But there is another option, you see. It is still possible to educate people – and children – without putting anyone’s brain in a cage. We can teach our kids without having them become like us.”

  Joan looked at Roger. He motioned at the screen.

  “And you show us how in your upcoming book, do you?”

  “I do more than that. I will show right now how we can educate our kids.”

  The straight-haired anchor looked to the right and left, suddenly seeming afraid and caught off guard.

  Dr. Stone continued, oblivious, “The fact we’ve forgotten is that learning can be fun and that knowing something new and interesting can open the imagination, not close it.”

  “Right,” said Roger. Joan made a face.

  Dr. Stone continued, “A bad education system led to close-minded adults, which then taught their children how to be close-minded adults, and so on and so forth. Our entire education is standing on chicken’s legs, as the saying goes. To create something new, we need to overhaul it in its entirety, and we can do that by simply removing the behaviors we had that blocked the release of the freedom hormone.”

  “And you show us how to do that in your book, do you, Dr. Stone? Perhaps our viewers at home should read it and see what you’re talking about?”

  “Perhaps. Or I could explain it in a minute or so, and everyone will know now. The education system I propose in my book – and the President has already asked me to attend a series of emergency meetings with the Secretary of Education – my education system has four clear protocols and I’ll just touch upon the basics.

  “We all remember Dr. Burrows’ list of things that block us, the first YouTube video that ever reached 2 billion hits. What were they? Count them with me:” One finger: “‘A feeling of time constraints, deadlines.’”

  Roger nodded.

  Dr. Stone raised his second finger: “‘Living up to someone else’s standards of what is right and what is wrong.’”

  Roger nodded again, his eyes glued to the screen.

  Dr. Stone raised his third finger, “‘Attempting to appease others’.”

  “Hmmm...” groaned Roger.

  Dr. Stone raised his fourth finger, “And finally forcibly performing a task at a certain time.”

  Roger pursed his lips. Joan leaned forward.

  “I have created a simple system that completely incorporates Dr. Burrows’ principles. As you can tell by the fact I have a book coming out I’ve been working on this for quite a few years. Only recently, with Dr. Burrows’ discoveries, have I been able to get the ear of the president of the United States.

  “Here is what I propose.”

  Joan took a deep breath. Roger scratched his chin.

  “Step one: The student chooses what to learn and creates his or her own goals. When learning history, for example, the student can pick a subject out of a stock of subject prepared by the Department of Education – he can pick one of three subjects to learn. Then the student sets a realistic goal which he must achieve within a year. The teachers are there to help him choose his goal, but not to push one on the student. A year is a long time, which partially eliminates time constraints.

  “And we’re going to further make sure that there won’t be any time constraints. I mean, we know our kids: they’re going to delay everything to the last month or week or even to the last day, and then t
hey’re going to have imagination-imprisoning pressure. We’re going to avoid that by setting weekly goalposts. The goalposts are not set in stone ahead of time – a goalpost can be anything, as long as it shows proven progress from last week. The goalposts are also chosen in advance – and changed during the year – by the student himself with the aid and guidance of the teachers.

  “This way, the student strives to do better, not to learn a certain fact on a certain day.

  “Step two: The students judge and grade themselves.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” the straight-haired anchor jumped in. “If you let kids grade themselves, everyone’s going to get A’s.”

  “Of course,” Joan said.

  “Not if we use the protocol I propose,” said Dr. Stone. “The students must grade themselves honestly. The teachers must put their stamp of approval on that grade. They will not grade the students at all, but they will judge whether the student has honestly graded himself. If a student gave himself a grade he himself does not think he deserves, the teachers will know through conversations and discussions and knowledge of the student’s behavior, and they will not accept the grade the student has given. A student must be honest with himself about how well he did in achieving the goals he himself had set in subjects he liked and chose. Students will work according to their own standards, not their teachers’, thus eliminating two more imagination-blocking behaviors.

  “I believe that children will in fact learn more, not less, with this new system. In fact, I believe they will also learn faster. Honesty will force them to strive harder. Our kids will retain their freedom, their individuality, and they will grow up to be grownups whose brains are not caged. At the same time, they will be educated and know that education and learning frees our imagination.

  “This is my system, which abides 100 percent by Dr. Burrows’ rules of what not to do to our children. If everything goes well, the Department of Education will have adapted by the next school. In the meantime, I recommend all teachers and parents use these simple methods to teach their children today, because tomorrow is too late. Take this leap with us into the future. Help us take care of your kids while educating them.

  “I have more details at my website. Look me up, and download a document that shows how you can educate your children without imprisoning their minds.