On one of their visits to New York from Princeton, Ann Kelly and her husband Mitchell Kirkwood got an update from Sally Aston.
“How is it going, Sally? Exponential growth in sight?”, Ann asked.
“Well, no. We quickly got all the teachers we wanted for the first stage of the project, 64 of them. And we have filled Grade 12 up with seniors. Some arrived before September, but most are transfer students from other schools.”
“A problem with the lower grades?”
“Yes. It gets worse the further down you get. We are doing alright with Grade 11, despite the fact that the parents of girls are not anxious to have their darling daughters in a school increasingly known for its sexual activity.”
“We did worry about that, right from the begin”, Sally’s husband, Drake Phillips, pointed out.
“Yes”, Ann agreed, “we did. How bad is it in the lower grades, Sally?”
“I am sticking to the plan, regardless. Nobody get in unless extremely compatible with someone. Very few parents have ever let their 14 year girls use out Tech Fantasies matcher and find a near perfect match for her, fearing that she’d be unable to avoid getting into a sexual relationship at that young age. We have a few of those, but most girls are either compatible with other girls or with female teachers. Their parents usually don’t want strong relationships with male teachers, as you might imagine.”
“Numbers?”, prodded Ann.
“We wanted 8 kids per class and 8 classes per grade, giving us only 64 per grade. It would be nice to have 32 girls. We have 17. Just over half of what we’d hoped for. Of those, 9 are linked to women teachers, and all but one of those has a best friend as well. That’s pretty good, in a way, only Astra Bennett has no close friendship with a girl of her own age – with any girl in the school, actually. But she is very compatible with our best Grade 9 teacher, Alma Renwick who is about the best teacher to be connected with. Maybe the best teacher in the school, actually. She really is a polymath, could teach auto-mechanics if we provided a course in that.”
“Boys? We had originally planned to balance the sexes. Did you do that, or just fill up the grade”
“No, we decided to keep the same number of girls and boys, regardless, for social reasons, even if the boys and girls are not mutually compatible. So we have 17 boys in Grade 9 too. Just 34 kids, instead of the 64 we wanted. Kept the 8 teachers though, so most classes in that grade have just 5 students in them.”
“I like. Anyone disagree?” Nobody did. They all felt Sally had done a good job.
After the four of them had met, Sally convened a meeting of all 32 teachers – there were 8 per grade. Ann and Drake sat in on it, at a table in front of larger quarter circle in a special room kept for meetings of this size of up to 64 people. It was also used for merged classes.
The first time a collection of students had taken their seats in this room they were surprised to find themselves there, having expected an ordinary class in that time slot.
That event had occurred the day in early-October, the day the total population of the school had reached 64. About one third of them were teachers.
Sally had briefly explained the mathematics behind this meeting.
“We have taken our collection of compatibility measurements, turned them into a matrix of link strengths, then treated that as a travelling salesman problem. The resulting circle was then broken at the weakest link, forming a chain, which we have spread out in this quarter circle. Except for the people at the end, each of you has a fairly compatible person seated to your left and your right. I have a handout here explaining this and listing people in order, for those interested.”
“Is this arrangement the best possible”, Alma Renwick asked, sure that it was not.
“Well, I doubt it”, Ann Kelly responded. “The number of possible arrangements of the 64 of you is almost 7 times 10 to the power of 88. That’s very many more arrangements than the number of atoms in the universe”.
“Oh.”
“It’s an adequate approximation, though, I suppose.”
“Should be, Mrs. Renwick. We can only hope.”
The same facts had been explained to the students at various meetings. Later, when both the senior year students reached the desired number, 64, 8 classes of 8, they were all herded into the big room for a long discussion, with all 8 of their teachers sitting side by side along a table in the centre.
They all agreed that the school was an exciting place to learn and greatly appreciated its social structure. Nobody was left out in the cold, a strong relationship with another person. Most of these senior class students had two strong relationships. Most of them had sexual relationships, but not all. There was an implicit promise that everyone would end up coupled with someone.
It was around this time that the first closed loop appeared. Daniel Weinstein was compatible with someone from the chain descending from Alma Renwick and someone from the chain descending from Paul Grey, another teacher linked in a chain starting with Sally Aston. Sally herself was not a part of this loop or cycle, but Alma was. She raved about the increased amount of information flowing through her links once the loop formed. The two women talked about trying to form other links as soon as possible, but Sally insisted that she didn’t want to put too many constraints on the solution space. She still wanted most to grow the school, less to make it more dynamic with closed loops. It was doing well as it was.”
When the school had finished getting the 32 teachers planned for the initial school size, they held the faculty meeting that took up half of the big room with the quarter circle of seats in it. Ann, Drake and Sally sat together at a table in front of the teachers. Though the trio all had doctorates, they were outnumbered, as 11 of the teachers also did. The remainder were almost as well qualified and some much more experienced.
It was Dr. Paul Grey, an English teacher, who asked the key question. “But is it all working?”
“Doesn’t it seem to be working, Dr. Grey?”
“Well, a brand new school full of hand-picked students, you’d expect some of this excitement even it there wasn’t something profound behind it.”
“Its still only the first week of November, but I think it should be visible to all of you by now. But maybe not. I think it is time to shuffle the classes”, Sally said. “We’ve been putting it off, but I think it is time. Ann? Drake?”
“I agree”, Ann replied, speaking to the assembled teachers. You have provided us with a lot of data. Now we know much more about everyone’s mutual compatibility.”
Since the beginning, the school had some unusual methods. The teachers had been asked to give students quizzes every day, sometimes in class, but usually as homework. Homework was almost never just a reading assignment, but the kids were told when in the books the clues to the correct answers might be found.
Most unusual of all, kids were being sent home with two copies of these quizzes, and a parent was asked to fill one out, if possible. Part of the project was to find out the parent’s role in the child’s education.
All this data had been collected and computerized. Teachers had been asked to provide raw data, but automated answer sheet scanners had been provided.
“How long will it take to reshuffle the classes”, Alma Renwick asked.
“Oh, not long at all”, Drake Phillips answered. “Sally has kept the data flowing into the computer as fast as you provide it. Our software is pretty fast now. We can give you class compositions and seating arrangements right now.” Drake hit some keys on his laptop computer, and the new assignments were sent to the teachers cellphones, pocket computers and whatever else they had indicated was their favourite digital communications device.
“All done”, he said, as there was a chorus of beeps from around the room. “Figuring out what students to should meet in the big room and where they should sit, that will take a little longer.”
When the Social Science 12 class which had been formed out of the original behavioural geography class next met, there were different people in it. Grace Ling immediately asked why her boyfriend John Calder was no longer in the class.
“He’s still taking Social Science, Grace, as you’ll find out next time he see him in the halls. The data we had suggested we separate you because you were beginning to learn each others mistakes. You are both excellent students, but when you do make a mistake, he is likely to make the same one.”
“But Dr. Elliot, doesn’t that mean they are less compatible now”, Clarity asked, worried about her friends.
“I can see I have said too much already, Clarity. Grace, don’t read too much into what I’ve said. If you want some suggestions about what to do, use the Tech Fantasies software, I think you know how to find it on your machine.”
Indeed, this information had spread through the school almost right away. By the time Dr. Elliot spoke to these Grade 12 students, all 34 of the Grade 9 students had found the software. Secretly, Sally was pleased. Unable to pander in any way, she could not hide the fact that the powerful piece of social technology was available to anyone, easy to find and easy to use.
Karla Schmitt’s parents had concealed this fact from her, telling her only that the school had found a probable best friend for her, another student. But now 14 year old Karla could ask for what she wanted most, a boyfriend.
The Tech Fantasies matcher was only one of the programs made available through the Internet, but it was certainly the most popular. Karla’s basic data was already in the system, because her parents had helped her through the basic dialogue. It would have been better had they not done so.
The first question asked by the software was just that, “Did someone help you provide your answers to previous questions.” Yes. “Were they able to see your answers?” Yes. “Are you able to answer in private now?” Yes. “Are you willing to go over the same questions again.” Yes.
Karla went over everything again. A few more questions were asked and answered, especially ones about access to the schools data (Yes) and about relationships she might want. Adding the data the school had collected about Karla from her in class and homework questions, the software produced answers at once.
“You are still compatible with Selma Andrews, though probably not as much. She should remain as your primary connection to the school community.” Then came a list of boys identified only by a nickname or handle, useful for software-mediated chat. Some information was given about each of the 10 boys. She was told that they were apparently available for a social relationship with her, and were probably compatible with her. Since Karla had asked for a boy to attend the school, she had been told that each one of these would qualify, and would be acceptable to the school.
Hesitantly, Karla picked the third boy on the list, a musician. She’d try to connect with him first. The Tech Fantasies software was set up to do e-mail tag on Karla’s behalf, to get them both online at the same time, if necessary, but Abn35 was online at that moment. On Karla’s command, the program poked him, telling him someone wanted contact, if he was indeed still available for a social relationship of some kind with a suitable person.
He was. Karla swallowed hard and typed in a few words about herself.
“I know this sounds bad”, he wrote back, “but, uh, like, are you cute at all?”
“Maybe. What about you?”
“I dunno. Have you got video?”
“Yes. I can send you a pix, it says. You first?”
“Okay, I guess”. Karla looked at the picture carefully. She would have liked someone a bit older looking, but he was a boy, and that was a point in his favour. She sent him not just a picture, but turned on her streaming video for a few seconds, turning her head from side to side.
Karla was a sweet looking blonde, of German descent, but born in New York. He didn’t need to see more. He was hooked.
The two kids were in fact just 14 years old. A year ago she wouldn’t have paid much attention to a boy who was only her age, but boys were beginning to catch up with the girls. When he sent her a video, she decided he would do. But how to meet? It would have to be a weekend, and then some deception would be required.
On Saturday Karla got a ride to the Metropolitan Museum, where she met the boy whose name turned out to be Ansen Toll, of Scandinavian ancestry, but with brown hair.
They fell for each other on the spot, exchanging a hug and brief kiss before they left the museum separately, parting when her parents picked her up.
Now it was easy. Ansen persuaded his parents to let him apply for the new school. They only blinked when they found out about school fees, since they could afford them. Ansen was already attending another expensive private school – his parents had money.
Karla approached Sally Aston, who hid her pleasure at the thought of acquiring another Grade 9 boy. “Yes”, Sally said, she was sure Ansen Toll could be a student here, if his parents agreed.
Sally knew what was probably going to happen. New couples had been forming since word of the available social technology had spread though the lower grades, and especially since the few couples that had been established seemed so successful. So far all the the Grade 9 couples seemed too intimate for the sake of the school. She knew there would be a backlash. Parents were not going to be happy.