/ Chapter 12 – The School Principal /

It was in the morning about two weeks later that Athena heard the video phone announce that Frank was calling. She felt very pleased by this; it was several days since their last visit and she'd been considering calling him. Her mother was off at work.

She sat in front of the T-Net terminal and activated the call. "Hello, Frank."

"Hi," Frank said, a bit shyly.

Athena picked up immediately that Frank's mood seemed unusual, though she had no knowledge of anything that might be bothering him.

"Is anything wrong?" Athena asked.

Frank looked startled. "What? No!" he said quickly, but then sighed. "Well, maybe a little. It's hard to hide anything from you," he grinned.

Athena smiled, happy to see that it didn't seem overly serious. "What's up?"

"Well, it's just that today is August 21st. Which is my birthday. I turned 12 today," he said casually, though Athena surmised he was likely feeling lonely because of this.

"Happy birthday, Frank!" Athena said, giving him a warm smile. "If you wish, I could come over and we could do something together in honor of your birthday. I'm free now."

Frank looked very happy at this. "I was hoping you'd say that," he said. "See you soon."

Athena said her goodbyes and signed off. She was about to put on her shoes and leave, but then memories of birthdays came to her. Caroline always made her a small cake on her birthday (though Athena didn't actually consume any, so her mother ate it all) so perhaps it would please Frank if she did that for him as well. She was familiar with baking methods and it wouldn't take her long. She sent Frank a mail message on the T-Net terminal, telling him she would be delayed about a half-hour.

She knew that cakes came in different flavors, but didn't know Frank's preference, so decided to just go with her mother's favorite, chocolate. It took her about 33 seconds to get out supplies and mix the batter, which she did by hand since she could do it faster than her mother's mixing machine (in fact, her mother often had her do mixing jobs rather than the mixing machine).

While waiting for the oven to warm up (which required an annoying amount of time by Athena's standards), she mixed up some frosting of two colors. Unfortunately, this only required another 12 seconds, so she was forced to wait impatiently, watching the oven come up to temperature. She considered possible ways to generate heat to warm it faster, including tapping into her own power reserves, but ultimately decided to be patient. Five minutes later, it was (at last) heated to the proper temperature, which she understood was actually faster than standard Earth ovens. She felt gratitude toward some Tomorrowland oven engineer.

The baking time was 22 minutes for the small-sized cake, which regrettably couldn't be shortened in any reasonable way, according to her mother. She made use of the time by studying an upcoming recruiting trip to some college towns in the New Jersey, USA vicinity until finally her internal clock told her it was complete.

She tested the cake using a toothpick, the method her mother used. It was sufficiently baked so she removed it from the oven and plopped it onto a cooling rack. Normally Caroline would wait at this time, but Athena figured this was a place she could speed things up. She used a large spatula as a fan and moved her hand quickly to increase the airflow. She measured the temperature with her infrared vision and 28 seconds later deemed it cool enough to apply frosting. It took her another 19 seconds to apply a base of frosting (she considered doing it faster, but feared frosting flinging from her knife across the kitchen, creating a mess and slowing her down further) and another four seconds to add "Happy 12th Birthday Frank" to it in the other frosting color, which she did in a cursive font style. She knew cakes often had frosting applied with a haphazard texture, so she didn't bother making the frosting surface perfectly smooth, which would have required her to slow down even further and spend several more minutes.

The cake now complete, she cleaned and returned the dishes, taking another 27 seconds. Athena was satisfied that her cake's overall construction time was 29 minutes and 32.6 seconds, ahead of the schedule she had indicated to Frank.

She put on her shoes, feeling pleased anticipating Frank's reaction when he saw that she had a special cake with her, which would undoubtedly be a surprise to him. She was about to walk out when a deeper analysis of Frank's reaction predicted that it might be too much of a surprise – that she had created the cake faster than a human could normally do it. She could make up a story about how she came by the cake, that perhaps she didn't make it, but as usual she didn't want to actually lie to Frank. It was possible that Frank wouldn't know that it was too quick, but that seemed risky.

In the end, Athena decided to be safe and sent another message to Frank, telling him that she'd been delayed longer than expected and she gave it another 20 minutes, which was a bit more in the realm of a quick human.

Forty-five minutes later, she and Frank sat at his table, both having a piece of his cake. Athena decided that it was important that she share it with him, so planned on cleaning out her chest cavity later.

"Thanks so much for this," Frank said. "The cake is great! I can't believe how fast you got it together. And that lettering is perfect; I'm impressed."

"You're welcome," Athena said, pleased, though she wondered if she should have been a bit less precise with the lettering.

"It's a little weird being here on my birthday, honestly," Frank said. "Not that birthdays were big holidays in my family anyway."

"What would you normally do?" Athena asked.

"Well, before my mom died, she would make me a cake, so that was nice. And I would get a few presents. I think my parents were just – I don't know. You remember when my pa was talking about almost losing the farm?"

Athena nodded.

"Just before I was born, it was in huge trouble and it almost went bankrupt. They kept at it and managed to make it, but I think they were just beaten down. They were always so serious, like they were afraid to have fun anymore."

"I've read stories from children who lived during the Great Depression," Athena said. "And that's a common theme. Their parents lived in perpetual fear that bad times were always near."

"Yeah! And so I felt lucky to have the cake and a few gifts. It got worse after my mom died. Pa would tell me happy birthday, but he wasn't the cake-making type. He would usually give me some money to go buy whatever project stuff I wanted and we would go out to dinner. Which was nice, but it never felt like it was a huge priority to him."

"Did you have birthday parties?" Athena asked. She knew that humans often had these.

"Nah. Honestly, I never had that many close friends anyway, so I wasn't really thinking parties. I got invited sometimes, but…" Frank shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I always just felt different from everyone."

"That's not surprising. You are different in many ways," Athena said. "That's a very common sentiment here. I would imagine you'll attend University of Tomorrowland, and then I think you'll find many more people like you."

"There's a university here?" Frank asked, surprised.

"Oh yes," Athena said. "In fact, my mother attended an early version of it. She has a very unusual degree. Her official major was mechanical engineering, since that was the closest to robotics and animatronics at the time, but her important Ph.D. dissertation was on cognitive cybernetics, which didn't exist as a degree. But she said that no one understood that dissertation, so she also did one for traditional mechanical engineering. They knew the cybernetic one was important, however, so they gave her a special degree of "Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering, with an Emphasis in Cognitive Cybernetic Robotics."

"What's cognitive cybernetics?" Frank asked.

"Cybernetics is a broad subject, but in this case cognitive cybernetics is the study of dynamic systems capable of cognition, such as intelligence. Her dissertation was on creating an artificially intelligent machine that could potentially be as smart and as versatile as a human being. Some scientists say the impact of her work is to robotics like what Einstein's work was to physics."

"Wow! I knew she was definitely smart but I had no idea," Frank said.

Athena was quite proud of her mother's accomplishments, but she recognized she was playing with fire here, since she still wasn't quite ready to tell Frank her nature – and the fruit of her mother's research was herself. But all of this information was quite commonly known, so it was better Frank hear it from her, rather than somewhere else that might start him thinking about where Caroline's research had led.

Frank walked down the street toward the school, feeling apprehensive about a meeting with the principal who wanted to give him a special orientation. Normally he wouldn't be nervous about it; in fact, he was very excited to see how school was done in Tomorrowland, since he imagined that it had to be better than school back in Pittsfield.

But that was before he'd found out who he was meeting with. He still vividly recalled the conversation with Caroline, who called him a few days ago to give him the details.

"Hello, Frank," Caroline said. "How are you getting along?"

"I'm doing great!" he said. "This place is so amazing. I know I keep saying that, but I keep finding new things to be amazed about."

Caroline smiled. "Well, I'm glad you're happy and settling in. The reason I'm calling is that you have an appointment on Wednesday with the principal of Amelia Earhart School, which as you know you'll be attending on Monday. Since your circumstances are a bit, well, unusual, he wanted to give you a personal orientation."

"Okay, that sounds fine," Frank said. He was a little intimidated to meet the head of the school, but so far everyone had been very pleasant in Tomorrowland, or at least with the exception of…

"Your appointment with Dr. Nix shall be at 8am in his office," Caroline said.

Frank froze, certain he couldn't have heard correctly. "Wait, with who?"

"Dr. Nix, of course," Caroline said.

"Dr. Nix is the principal of the school?" Frank asked in disbelief.

"Yes, didn't you know?" Caroline asked, surprised.

"Noooo…" Frank said slowly. "I thought… well, I don't know what I thought he did, but running the school wasn't it."

Caroline chuckled. "I suppose I can't blame you, but don't worry. He really is an excellent administrator and has done a fantastic job with the school. I know that you and he didn't meet under ideal circumstances, but give him a chance. I've worked with Dr. Nix for a long time. One thing about him is that he cares very much about finding exceptional students. If you work hard for him, you'll find he'll be a great ally."

And so now Frank found himself walking up the front walkway of the school. The architecture of the school itself was very interesting; it was made of a large number of platforms, connected together chaotically at various angles jutting out from the main body. Some platforms had rooms on them, while others were open, outdoor areas. To Frank, it gave an impression of the haphazard arrangement of an unplanned village that grew organically over a long time – if a village could grow organically in three dimensions.

The front entrance was a set of glass double doors with a frosted etching of an airplane in perspective; it was very cool. Above the entrance was a sign that said, "Amelia Earhart School," and underneath was a quote: The mere imparting of information is not education – Carter G. Woodson. Frank thought this was a good start to things. It concisely summed up one of his many frustrations with his educational life so far.

As he approached the doors, the image was apparently made of many overlapping sheets of glass. They did a very cool effect where the two doors slid up and sideways into the top frame, the sheets crossing each other in some elaborate way. Somehow this created the illusion of the airplane getting smaller and flying away as the door opened. Frank actually wanted to go back and forth through the door and figure out how the illusion was done, but he only had five minutes to find Dr. Nix and didn't want to be late. He didn't know how Dr. Nix reacted to people tardy to appointments, but he suspected that he wasn't too patient with it.

Coming through the door he entered a large hall, with a number of hallways branching off at odd angles, as well as staircases branching up into the various levels that he saw. It was a strange building, though very cool in its way. But he felt rather intimidated how to locate Dr. Nix's office. Looking around, he spotted a screen to the left of the entrance with the word "map" above it, so he wandered over to take a look.

It was just a blank screen with a little sign that said, "Speak your destination."

"Dr. Nix's office?" Frank asked uncertainly.

The screen immediately lit up with a three dimensional map showing a transparent layout of the building, rotating around with a green dot labeled "your location," a red dot labeled "Dr. Nix's office," and a bright yellow line showing the path through the place. Dr. Nix's office was on the ground floor, and it was along a hallway back and to the right. It looked pretty easy, but then he saw some words that said, "Say 'guide me' for assistance through the building."

"Guide me," he said, figuring it would be interesting to see how that worked.

"Follow the yellow signs that read, 'Dr. Nix's Office,'" a mechanical voice said.

Frank turned, and sure enough on the wall next to the hallway, some yellow words glowed with 'This way to Dr. Nix's Office.' Frank walked toward the hallway and as he entered it, the words jumped ahead of him another 15 feet on the wall as he kept walking.

Finally they stopped with an arrow next to a door, apparently showing him his destination. He saw "Principal's Office" on the door, so that must be the place. He pressed the button to the side of the door, and it slid up into the frame.

Frank poked his head in, which had a reception area with several empty desks. "Hello?" Frank called.

Dr. Nix called out from an open door in the back. "Mr. Walker, please join me in my office."

Nix didn't sound overly friendly, but on the other hand, he didn't sound angry or bitter that Frank was there, as he'd feared. He sounded businesslike, which could've been worse. Walking back to the door, Frank took a deep breath, preparing himself. He cautiously peeked around the door, and there was Nix, sitting at a large desk. His office was more interesting than Frank expected; it held a number of glass-faced display cabinets, each with interesting old gadgets.

Frank felt too intimidated to really check his office out closely, however, as Nix sat back in his chair and laced his fingers together.

"Well, Mr. Walker," he said with a thin smile. "We meet again."

"Hello, Dr. Nix," Frank said politely, trying to seem as upstanding as possible.

Nix gestured toward a chair in front of the desk. "Have a seat." As Frank sat, Nix continued. "As we're both aware, your circumstances coming here were very unusual," Nix said, heavily emphasizing the last word. "In fact, I don't know if you're aware that you're the youngest recruit in the history of Plus Ultra."

"No, sir," Frank said. "I knew that you didn't normally let kids like me stay without a guardian, but I don't know if I'm a recruit or not."

"If you're invited here and you weren't attached to another recruit, then you're the recruit," Nix said loftily.

"I guess so," Frank said. "Okay."

"Normally children of recruits come here to the school," Nix continued. "It's extremely rare that recruits themselves still go to secondary school. But evidently some noteworthy people hold very high opinions of you."

Frank suspected he was talking about Caroline.

"So, Mr. Walker, I have some considerable curiosity to find out if you'll live up to these expectations," Nix said, with a few more of his heavy emphasis words.

Frank was feeling very intimidated about now. His father's voice started filling his head, "Maybe you're smart enough for this school. But maybe you're not."

"I'll work hard, I promise," Frank said sincerely, trying to impress Nix somehow, but great doubt was weighing on him.

"Well, we shall see!" Nix said with mock, wide-eyed enthusiasm. "Now, on to business. Allow me to give you the rundown of how this school works, which is much different than the schools you've attended in the past."

Nix gave Frank a summary of the school's system. It was extremely different than the way Frank's old school worked, and he found it fascinating. There was loosely the concept of grade years, but it was mostly an age distinction for social purposes rather than academic. Students of approximately the same age attended the same physical class, but the coursework might be different or not different, depending on the type of instruction.

Courses were taught in four-week blocks, where students would take four course subjects at a time, and the time slots were different lengths during the day, since some subjects benefited from larger periods of time. When the block was complete, courses sometimes rotated among subjects to minimize boredom and keep interest fresh. To move on to the next block of the same subject, a student had to pass the prior block with an acceptable grade, otherwise they retook the block when it next rotated around. Interestingly, the teachers rotated among blocks as well, so it was likely that if a student had to retake, they would get a different teacher, on the theory that different teachers sometimes were more effective with different students. If a student failed a block two times, they got special tutoring to help them master the subject and pass it the third or subsequent times.

Supposedly failing a block was quite common and normal, akin to doing poorly on a test, so Nix said he should not consider himself stigmatized should it happen. The goal was to master the subjects at hand, so he should not be concerned about "falling behind" the other students, but to do his best at the pace that worked for him. It was normal and expected that he would see a constantly changing mix of students in his classes. Nix also emphasized that the school was very non-memorization based, which excited Frank, though Nix didn't give him too many details on that. He supposed he would find out what that meant.

Subjects such as math were taught using individualized instruction, since there was typically such a wide variance in learning speed when it came to math. Computerized instruction and testing was used to teach concepts and track problem areas that required teacher intervention. Frank was particularly excited about this concept, because he could finally do math at his own pace and ability.

Group study subjects such as history or literature were done with groups of students at the same level and approximately same age, who would all participate in the same block for discussion purposes.

One thing he found interesting was that the primary purpose of teachers was not to get up in front of the class and lecture to everyone, but to assist students that needed help, though the teachers still led group discussions when necessary. The students were expected to teach themselves through reading and study, or interactive computer instruction. The intent was to teach kids to be self-learners first, and to seek help when needed; the idea being to encourage lifelong self-learning.

The last area Nix went over was Physical Education, which in Tomorrowland's system was actually called Coordination Education. It was designed by biophysicists to improve core coordination skills, such as throwing, catching, balance, reaction speeds, strength and other physical building blocks. It was very individualized, with computer evaluation and tracking of areas that needed improvement, and the skills were set up as games with specific working goals. Standard team sports were offered after school for interested students.

"So that is the basic idea," Nix finished. "There are more details, of course, but your instructors will fill you in on specifics unique to particular courses."

"Wow, that is really amazing," Frank said, impressed. "I mean, it's so different, but it makes so much sense. It's almost like whoever designed this wanted kids to learn and not be totally bored."

"Thank you," Nix said dryly. "That's certainly one of my goals."

"You designed it?" Frank asked.

"To a large extent," Nix said. "Others contributed ideas, of course, but having detested school when I was a boy, I was determined to make it more interesting and effective."

"Yeah," Frank said knowingly. "It seems like regular school is mostly designed for one-size-fits-all. If someone is much smarter than average, they're bored, and the kids that need extra help get left behind. I know what you mean."

Nix gave Frank an appraising look. "Perhaps you do, Mr. Walker. But tell me, do you really believe most teachers on Earth want to bore smart students and leave the students who need more assistance behind?"

This sounded like a test to Frank, so he carefully considered his answer. "No, I guess not. But why is it so often like that, then?"

"Why, indeed, Mr. Walker? What is your theory?" Nix asked pointedly.

Frank racked his brain, trying to come up with some kind of answer, which he'd never considered before. Why, exactly, was it done that way? "I mean, I guess it's always been done that way," Frank said, feeling like he was failing Nix. "But I don't know why they don't try other ways."

Nix actually nodded approvingly. "That's more relevant than you might think. Momentum in the form of 'it's always been done this way' can be a powerful force against progress. It's a risk to try new things, because if it fails, you not only fail the children that you're responsible for, you personally fail as well. It's much safer to go with 'tried and true.' And very often that attitude is discouraging to teachers, who become cynical and disengaged because of mediocrity and a general lack of commitment to teaching all children of all abilities. And it's just plain difficult to try radically different things."

"So why is it different here?" Frank asked.

"Ah," Nix said, leaning back. "Because Tomorrowland is built on the idea of experimentation and progress. There have been educators in history that have tried various methods, but change and progress in public education can be very slow. The system we have here didn't just happen. We experimented with different methods, and where they were ineffective, we tried other things and made sure the children were tutored so there were no ill effects. But one of the early innovations was the idea of the short-term course block cycle, which allowed us to try things quickly, and crucially, measure their effectiveness."

"How do you know whether it was a bad method or just a bad teacher?" Frank asked, thinking of certain teachers he'd had, but then thought maybe this wasn't too tactful. "I mean, not that teachers are bad," he added quickly.

Nix chuckled at this. "An insightful question, Mr. Walker. Of course some teachers are better than others. The question is how to identify where the problem lies. For example, we could test the students and statistically compare the results based on who had which teacher. But that's a waste of student time and far too crude. You recall that students are required to pass course blocks. For some percentage of students who fail, we do a deeper analysis to find out exactly why they had trouble. In most cases, the student just needed more time, or the student had learning disabilities and needed special assistance. In some cases, we find areas where we can improve the curriculum. But in other cases, it was teacher effectiveness. If we have enough of those cases, we attempt to help the teacher improve their skills, which is generally effective because we can cite specific cases where they weren't successful. Feedback is vital."

Frank looked thoughtful. "It seems like that would catch problems early, too. We had a kid back in school that could barely read and he seemed to just get pushed through the system."

Nix was highly offended at that. "One of our core philosophies is that 'you can't expect children not to be children.' If a child fails to learn, it's always the school's fault. It's the school's job to educate, and if a child isn't learning, then it's the school's job to find out why and to find a way to reach that child. We graduate no child from this school without having mastered the core requirements, and they can stay as long as necessary, though of course when they turn 18 they can choose to leave. Obviously there are kids with psychological problems we can't reach, but we recognize that it's our responsibility to do everything in our power to reach them."

Frank was very impressed by the commitment to educate everyone. "Could all of this be done on Earth, too?"

"To be fair, our computers have been key for many of our innovations, not least organizing the scheduling of fast-turnaround education blocks and analyzing student progress," Nix said. "But another aspect is that we created a specific area of science called Education Engineering. It's a hard science dedicated to producing education systems and processes using statistics and scientific rigor. That's different than Earth, where education is typically a soft social science."

After this whole conversation, Frank thought that he might've earned a tiny bit of respect, but it was short-lived as Nix's face fell back into his usual attitude of being generally detached and unimpressed.

"Moving on, you'll start your courses on Monday when the students return to school," Nix said. "When you arrive in the morning, go to one of the map kiosks, which will be set up to give you your schedule for the block. Don't be one of those students that arrives at the last minute and scrambles to find an unused kiosk so they aren't late to class."

Frank nodded. That made sense. He had to admit that while Nix wasn't the cuddliest man in the world, he was very interesting to talk to and did seem to want to help him.

"That wraps it up," Nix said. "After you leave here, I would like you to go to the testing lab, where Mrs. Kowalski is doing placement testing. She'll figure out where you belong. Out the door to the right, go down five doors, on your left."

"Okay," Frank said, starting to get up.

"Oh, one last thing," Nix said, looking almost bored. "Dr. Chaumers has requested you be allowed access to an engineering laboratory. Normally this sort of honor is reserved for highly exceptional students that have proven their worth. However, she has convinced me to make an exception for you based on your potential." Nix held out a Plus Ultra pin in his palm. "Do not disappoint me, Mr. Walker."

Frank reached out to take the pin, his hand almost shaking at what it represented. "Thank you, Dr. Nix. I swear I'll work hard," he said fervently. "I swear I'll prove myself here." Learning about the school had temporarily distracted Frank from his initial intimidation, but suddenly fear was flooding back into his heart.

Nix gave another of his thin smiles. "We shall find out in due course, won't we? Good day, Mr. Walker."

Author's Note: And then Nix turned toward the fourth wall, with another thin smile. "And have you given a review today?" :)

The official story site is at www. frankandathena .com for discussions of the story! - T.K.