From these beginnings our cobblers learned the principles of tanning leather from our books with advice from our chemist. They then produced some fine example of basic shoes when we later slaughtered some of our animals, for food and to keep the herds within what we could support, some time later.
The chemist was able to produce much of what we requested. Of special interest, in the early days, was a small sample of a glue that proved to be very useful to both the carpenter and the cobblers. This glue was made using fish bones from our first sample of this delicacy grown in our fish tanks. He was also given the problem of making plastics or plastic substitute out of cellulose. A limited production of this material was actually achieved quite quickly. The production of waterproof paint, of any colour, was another task though this would not be required for some time. In addition much of his time was given to the development of high quality semi conductor material and the necessary doping material required for the manufacture of transistors. This was not fully achieved in the near term and we had to experiment with the limited material we had taken into the shelter.
Because of the importance of his knowledge the chemist was asked to lecture in the school; a task at which he excelled producing, in time, several excellent assistants. These assistants later assisted in the production of a very limited number of simple integrated circuits and, as of now, being nearly ten years since the impact they are looking at the possibility of developing simple computers. Once we can reproduce the basic designs and masks required they intend to manufacture these on a few integrated circuits many years before this level of technology had been expected.
The developing of more complex masks allowing more complex integrated circuits will, hopefully, be developed soon. In this field we have developed quite rapidly thanks to in house information and some new recruits. Some of the electronic components, such as high density fast memories, will, perhaps, take a little longer but we will get there.
The setting up of the school was a very complex business as, due to the limited number of students the school had to be directed to the limited objectives required by the shelter society. We would not require, nor wish for, the old standard curriculum that had been politically developed during the pre-impact period. Those curriculums appeared to have been designed to reduce the technical education, or any development, of most students. We thought that perhaps this was intended to creating a more passive workforce controllable by the so called elite.
We, in developing our new society, would not consider the old politically directed education. This was partly due to the fact that we had insufficient students to allow us to consider the unproductive classics as beneficial to our small society. It was, however, mainly because it was our intention to produce students capable of asking relative, even awkward, questions regarding our future real world problems so necessary to our essential technological development. We encouraged music as we considered it expanded the mind, relaxed its listeners and was a real benefit to both society and the student. We did not ban the classics but it became an interest subject for those wishing to participate during their rest period.
What we needed from our school were qualified and capable engineers, doctors, teachers and scientists who would be essential to redeveloping our society. We needed organizers, administrators, and workers with sufficient knowledge of their work to take an interest in what they were doing and to be capable of presenting an input as to how to improve the products and/or worker productivity.
We supported a basic education in such subjects as history, geography, art and to a limited extent modern languages but more advanced studies of these subjects would remain for some time as extra curricula activities developed round the interests of students and teachers. The teaching of these extra curricula subjects were well attended and would, hopefully, provide a source of expertise when we contacted more distant survivors via our later radio efforts. Here we hoped to benefit from the ability of many foreigners to speak basic English and/or Spanish.
The upper school would teach only those subjects that were considered beneficial to the limited defined requirements of our near future shelter society and then to our later expansion into the outside world. Mathematics, Spanish, English, carpentry, metal work, chemistry, mechanics, electronics, electrical power, medicine, farming, animal husbandry, engineering etc. would be taught as they were requirements of our society and we had insufficient numbers to follow less immediately productive subjects. These were those subjects that did not enhance our survival prospects within the medium term.
Obviously such a wide spread of high level technical subjects would be too extensive for any individual student. The students were therefore allowed, after a basic broad spectrum early education, to pick the branch of technical study that they wished to take up. This choice would not necessarily be final but we hoped, and so it proved, that there would not be too many inter technical transfers.
Though truants, in our closed environment, were rare the very few that missed attendance were spoken to in a friendly manner and this normally sufficed to prevent any repetition. Where this did not work we would ask them why they did not wish to attend and took action to remove, where possible, their perceived problem. After this we never had any further problem from that student though it should be noted that our problem students were usually those least able to meet our technical requirements. All these persons, however, would later become useful citizens working within their capabilities. They became cleaners, maintenance technicians, etc. These people were highly regarded as they performed an essential function within our then society.
Sometimes we found that support outside the school helped those students who had lost the thread of a subject. With these benefits before them the attitudes of our students, both junior and adults, towards our education system, was positive and it appeared that the teachers had got it just about right. To a large extent they maintained their entire student population’s interest which will definitely benefit our future.
When a student was found to be particularly adept at a subject, not within the limits of our designed curriculum, we allowed those students to continue to be educated in those subjects that they might eventually become teachers. This was to allow those subjects to be continued when we had sufficient personnel to allow us to support students in what was, at that time, seen as an unproductive subject.
Those showing an aptitude in a particular branch of technology, unless that branch was oversubscribed, would, if they confirmed their wish to participate in that region of technology, be allocated early to that discipline. This allocation was, in a few exceptional examples, as soon as they had learned the basics of mathematics, Spanish and English (most technical journals in the library were in English as were many technical text books). These advanced students became apprenticed and the system worked well as the student being both dedicated and interested in his allocated profession inevitably performed well.
As can be seen we were certainly not believers in the old “technical moron” attitude, often propounded by the old art colleges. Some of us having had the misfortune to meet far more artistic morons, especially politicians with history, political science or social science education (oxymorons if every there were any). We saw any return of such personalities with concern.
It was a fact, as previously stated, that we would not voluntarily accept a volunteer leader as we considered that the organization of a group required well educated representative’s not egotistical pseudo leaders. Leaders of a study group, factory, or the military were required to direct the systems but would be chosen by the members of the group i.e. democratically elected. When integrating groups representatives were required to put the case for their group these people would be voted on, by the group, to be the servant of that group in that they would present their case as desired by the group. Leaders would have to be leaders not “I’m in charge” oligarchs
Several students at the school were adults, like me, who had been unable to put their
particular branch of education directly into an occupation within the requirements of the then current shelter establishment. In some cases teachers, at the school, were also students of a different specialized subject and this worked out well though was sometimes organizationally difficult.
We encouraged reading of non technical literature as we would not have the benefit of recorded books in the medium term. Again our wonderful library provided many treasures allowing the mind to soar out of our hole and into the mind of an author. Little of what we had in the library would have won a literary prize but succeeded in keeping us enthralled during our incarceration. Reading fiction, though unproductive, allowed the imagination to wonder and did sometimes open the mind to new possibilities which might not otherwise have occurred to the reader.
Chapter 9. A Continuum.
After our first months within the restrictions of the shelter our lives began to evolve round a steady rhythm that for me was both comfortable and comforting. Everyone from the eldest to the youngest had been allocated a work schedule which included the expansion of the mind via education.
The allocated tasks had been carefully arranged to be within the perceived capabilities of the individuals. There was a hierarchy but one that was developed by those within each group. When a group believed that an individual’s capability and personality made him an acceptable leader he was so allocated to that thankless honour by his group. He had authority only while he was accepted by his group. This would have been worrying in our old world but in those days yes men, who were often not the best for a position, were often chosen for tasks above their capabilities as they caused less problems for those who could allocate them to such a status.
It was, for us, a priority that an allocation to a task was agreed by the person or persons to whom that task was allocated. The allocation was always without pressure or compulsion of any form. The persons to whom an allocation was made always tried to make their allocated tasks as interesting and varied as possible. This was accepted and the system was organized in this manner as to give everyone as much variation and choice in the manner of the execution of their allocated enterprises as was feasible within the limits of achieving our objectives.
This evolutionary freedom over tasks increased our success as groups discussed with one another gaining insights into the overall problems they were, as an integral of tasks, trying to achieve. From this interplay of ideas, in effect brainstorming, things developed at a pace far greater than we could have expected in the old world. Our personnel looked for no return other than respect for what they had achieved. Once a group had achieved an objective they would look for the next achievable goal along the continuation of their original objective. Failing this they would consider a different objective, within that group’s expertise, that the inmates accepted as a beneficial use of our limited personnel. Splitting a group occasionally occurred when a new development, normally based on a previously completed task, was considered sufficiently important for the reallocation of technical resources.
The school was now running well and I believed, from what I saw, that the students were, in many ways, far more fulfilled than before the impact. They developed a better appreciation of our current world with the more practical education they were receiving. They learned practical mathematics, from Greta Hodgkiss and others, much earlier and to a far higher level and standard than in the old schools. Where possible this education was by the practical demonstration of principles rather than an abstract presentation on a black board. Examples of the modern digital board were available for use but they would require energy and this could not, unless for a special presentations, be allowed.
Classes were streamed so that the more able students could move through the system more rapidly. They were not, therefore, held back to monotony that encourages inattention due to that great enemy of education; boredom. Such streaming caused problems with class organization as fitting different student ages into classes and then organizing those classes to fit student’s ability and time availability was a problem. However, with a little thought and good will, assisted by the relatively small number of students to teachers, such problems were resolved. The age difference in each small class could be considerable but this seemed to benefit the students.
This age difference was due to the fact that several adults were studying to improve their knowledge of a necessary subject to improve their usefulness. The age variation induced a friendly competitiveness into the best students. The competitive spirit tended to be beneficial in that it pressurized the students to achieve and their interest encouraged the teachers.
Any student with lesser capability in any subject was never remarked upon nor was the delayed student in any way degraded. The teachers would do their best to assist both a backward, in the early days these were rare, or brilliant student even, as often happened, working long hours outside their allocated work period. They voluntarily put themselves out to help their students achieve their full potential as this seemed to become their personal objective. Close proximity of teachers and students also proved beneficial in the form of bonding.
With respect to meeting project requirements the brilliant students were pushed to their personally accepted limits. This proved beneficial to our development of a new world as the students developed a far greater understanding as to what was required at a much earlier phase of their education. The pushing of students too hard was never reported by any student. There were personality clashes, especially amongst the more able students, but this tended to push them to achieve more. It is true that this drive to succeed could have caused problems but, in almost all cases, the teachers saw the signs early enough to prevent any real crisis.
We had sufficient teachers, assistants, volunteers and project representatives working within the school’s environment that we could organize some classes such that they could give students almost individual attention. We required a well educated and directed workforce to achieve our medium term objectives and this we certainly obtained. We offered every student the possibility of achieving his or her potential as they were then better able to assist the shelter work groups achieve their objectives within whatever level of task they were allocated. This was largely responsible for our teams achieving such incredible results in so short a time.
The class organization was left to the teachers rather than the previous ever changing, external pseudo experts made up of politicians and civil servants; they could be seen to do something. Those people had appeared to wish to improve their image at the expense of the students and teachers they were over lording. We, in the situation we were in, considered that the teachers were the education experts and they wanted their students to flourish. By allowing our teachers to develop their own curriculum, within our basic requirements, and targets this gave them a greater incentive to achieve success against those targets.
Because of the teacher’s dedication and belief in a system they had developed and were continually upgrading, based on their own observed results, they tended to be very successful. One additional advantage for our education system, in our present situation, was the limited number of external distractions available to our students. Partly due to this lack of distractions the achievement of educational success seemed to become an attraction, in itself, for many of our students.
Discipline was tough but fair hence the teachers did not have the recent past distraction of behavioural problems that had been endemic in large numbers of our pre-impact schools. Our teachers were allowed to discipline their students even to the level of mild physical force in extreme cases. Because of the system implemented in our school this was very rarely required. The teachers, knowing they had such an option, felt more confident when dealing with the very few difficult situations that will occur within any group of high spirited young people.
When any form of physical discipline was applied to a student it had to be reported to the school staff to ensure that the force was considered to have been reasonably a
pplied. No teacher was ever removed from the teaching staff, during our incarceration, but it remained an option if the teaching group had considered that excessive punishments were being applied by any individual teacher to any student or students.
The students themselves did not have the facilities required for playing football or watching their own arrangement of television programs as even their leisure had to be organized, by general acceptance, within the limits of the available facilities. We did our best to include games that required physical activity as we strongly believed that this would help maintain both the health and mental attitude of the individual.
We had available a small badminton court, a table-tennis table (actually two but normally only one was available at any time) and two dart boards on the habitation floor. Only two of these different games could be played simultaneously due to lack of space. On the habitation extension floor we included two bar billiard tables with sufficient room to play, three quality table football (footballin) games and some exercise machines. We also had a few toy versions of the footballin tables which were made available in the children’s area of the habitation floor. We had ensured, prior to our incarceration, that the items required to play these games were not in short supply. We had noted that we would have had particular difficulty producing table tennis balls and some other items for a considerable period hence these were specifically targeted for purchase in any number obtainable.
Our asteroid survival: A fictitional history of the ten year survival of a large ELE asteroid impact by a small, pre advised, group Page 23
