As the end of the academic year approached there were more scheduled social events, which perhaps helped to mask the largely irrational feeling of nervousness so many seniors felt. This would be the official end of their time at Social Tech High. Even if they attended summer school this year and perhaps came back for it again in the future, their time at the school was basically over.
Actually graduating and receiving their diplomas was not the least little bit of surprise, but actually did feel like a surprise. The stoic Sybil Ames sat in the crowd and wept quietly to herself as Alice received her diploma.
Summer school was still the thing to do, nobody would miss it unless they had to. It did not seem at all beneath these new graduates to fraternize with the younger kids. After all, the graduates of previous years still did. Summer school provided a chance to meet with former graduates and discuss university life. Always a fascinating topic for those soon to be there.
Summer school also provided a chance for the younger people, due to enter the school in the future, to talk about that with current students. These were mostly the younger brothers and sisters of students already in the school. Few knew whether they would be accepted or not. Many knew it was unlikely, but wanted to take advantage of the summer school anyway. As always admission to the school would depend both on academic standing and the ability to tie a prospective student into the existing web of compatible teachers and student. The students knew all about this, so they tried to keep their family members from having undue expectations.
Kelly Phillips did not know for sure if she would be accepted into the school either, but suspected that she would. Her mother was the school principal, after all. Or was degree of favouritism allowed?
Sally Aston had as yet no real problems with her pubescent daughter, who turned eleven not long after finishing Grade Five in June. The year to begin in September would be Grade Six. Already looking ahead, Sally was terrified at what the end of that year would bring.
In some ways this year’s summer school was a very ordinary one, with the usual participants. Kelly was there, annoyed that she still needed an older girl to keep an eye on her. Within the school premises she didn’t, really, but Sally insisted on it. Both Kelly and that older girl look after five year old Kate, due to enter kindergarten in the fall.
Alice is there, as usual, a graduate now, but putting off her inevitable departure from New York. She was also enjoying the most stimulating environment in a city famous for them. This year she again finds Beth, who has returned from MIT for the summer. She and her husband, Harold Grey, are are staying with Beth’s mother. Though not particularly compatible, Alice and Beth are more than compatible enough to participate in classes together. In one, Alice demonstrated the advantages of the ST development environment, convincing Beth that she should put together one for her PreCode language.
This summer, for her eleventh birthday, Kelly Phillips received one of the powerful handheld computers which some people still called cellphones. Once a terrible nuisance, technology had tamed them.
Sally carefully explained what Kelly already knew. “For many years now all of these phones are required by law to respond to short range ringer-off signals, Kelly. All our classrooms emit such signals, so your phone won’t ring and interrupt the class. We also ping the phones, seeking overrides. So if you walk into one of our classes with the override switch set, a red light will come on at the front of the room.”
“I know, Mommy. Everybody knows. I have been going to summer school for years, remember.”
“Just a reminder. The right thing to do is just keep the switch off. Then if you are outside of class, you’ll get calls normally. You won’t have to remember to turn the phone off when you walk into class, that will happen automatically. That’s what everybody does, I think. Do they?”
“I think so. Otherwise the light at the front of the class is supposed to go on, and the kid has to go to the trouble of turning it off.”
“Or explain. Sometimes there really is an emergency situation pending, and the override has to left set. Have you ever seen that happen?”
“No, not yet. But when I go to school here all the time, I bet I will. Uh, you think I will get to go here all the time? Please?”
“Kelly. I am not supposed to play favourites. You know that. We do make exceptions, for people we consider important to the school. Well, if she behaves herself, my daughter might be considered important to the school. We’ll see.” Actually Kelly behaved herself all the time, never causing trouble. Not yet. The threat was an empty one anyway. Sally wanted Kelly in the school and would make sure got in.
When summer ended, Beth went back to MIT, to start her final year as a grad student. During the year she would finish the research already well underway and her dissertation, just begun. If all went well she would finish grad school the following June and get the interdisciplinary PhD she was seeking.
At this time Alice said goodbye to an emotional Sybil Ames, going by car to MIT with her boyfriend, Jason Talbot. There have been many Social Tech High graduates at that university before, and would be again this year. NYU and Columbia were still the most popular destinations for students from Social Tech, because they wanted to remain in the same city where they could enjoy their connections to the school. Those able to get into Columbia and wanting the prestige which that university gave them usually went there. But Columbia was not known as a technical university and could not compete with MIT. So MIT was the most popular other destination, for those interested in computing science, engineering and other technical subjects.
Beth’s younger friend, formerly a long-distance link, when Beth was in Berkeley went to MIT, had followed her there, as have a whole chain of others, since. By some manipulation, aided by Sally Aston, a thoughtful Alice has arranged it so that a whole chain of Social Tech people at MIT connected her to Beth. The information which could flow between them over that chain seemed important, to Alice, especially because their connection within the social software organizing group.
Chains of Social Tech graduates had been forming at many universities, most especially Columbia and NYU, but also CUNY and even Fordham. Students studying within the city could easily maintain face-to-face connections with others from their former classes and with younger people still at the school. Most visible at summer school, those connections lasted into the fall each year. Some never broke. People who had become connected at a high level with others by the school made every effort to stay close together, usually staying within the city.
Of the 700 or so graduates the school pumped out each year, at least 600 remained in the city throughout their college years and maintained some sort of connection. After that, international students would no longer be able to stay in the country on student visas, but many would qualify as immigrants by that time. The rest of the world remained the largest source of new students to the school, but many new students did come from the city itself, due to special circumstances. Kelly Phillips would be one of those special cases.
When summer school ended and Kelly went off to begin her Grade Six year, she became a senior at her elementary school, which went up only to that grade. The social advantages of being in the top grade of a school were considerable. On the other hand, events such as school dances were disappointing. Grade Six girls seemed almost a different species from the immature boys in that grade. Kelly thought of them as children. Now extremely aware of sex, she could imagine some kind of physical relationship with a boy, but it would have to be an older boy, not one of those creature.
This year there was a visible gap in the school left by the departure of Alice Ames, but Sally had many other brilliant students to watch. Ann Kelly had relayed to her a suggestion from Alice about structuring the school. Sally had tried to implement it, and was now monitoring its effects. There was still an ongoing effort to make good use of the available flexibility made possible by the large number of applicants. Sally had been using software to work towards increased transitivity and increased cross-linking between chains. Alice had suggested another approach. Where possible, chains could be constructed extending from the top to the bottom of the school.
In the most extensive of those chains, Grade Seven students would be linked through ones in grades eight, nine, ten and eleven to Grade Twelve students. Ann had worked out that these upward and downward chains would in fact also increase the overall transitivity of the school and supply some of the much needed cross-linking. So nothing would be lost by adding the search for such chains of students to the other criteria.
The departure of the graduating class and consequent arrival of the new class of Grade Sevens had made it possible to do more of this kind of linking. It could not be done for all incoming students, but a significant number found themselves connected to an older student when school started. Such links were mere suggestions, of course, and could be rejected, but rarely were.
Some of these links went further down and outside of the school proper. In mid-August, not before her Grade Six year would actually start, Kelly Phillips was given a list of descriptions by her mother.
“What is this, Mommy?”
“It is a list of possible Grade Seven students for the high school who are compatible with you and could be your friend, if you want. I’d like you to pick one and then we’ll try to connect you.”
“Oh. That is exciting. Let me see. No boys. Too bad. Well, I like the girl who is musical the most. Let’s say I pick her. Now what?”
“Well, you know how it works. We have her description. The software knows about you. If you say so, it will tell her that a Grade Six student at an elementary is very compatible with her and would like to be her friend. If she is willing, then we take it to the next level, letting you exchange a little more information and get closer. Then online text chat, then video chat, then you meet. If this girl doesn’t work out, you try another. Eventually we find you a friend wanting to go to the school. Then I make sure she is admitted, linking her in, somehow.”
“Mommy! This means I’ll be linked in too, doesn’t it. That means I can go to the school too, doesn’t it?”
“Only if you keep your grades up. Remember that.”
It did not take long to make the connection. Soon enough Kelly had a new friend, a local girl, Suzy Nicholson. A musician. Suzy played the violin at an almost professional level. Kelly had musical talents as well, which her mother had helped develop with lessons from good teachers, but the girl was far from an expert. Though not anywhere near as skilled as Suzy, Kelly could manage to accompany her on the piano, at least for simple pieces.
Suzy Nicholson could be one of the best students at the school because of her musical talent alone, but was also a smart kid who did well in other areas. She was linked to an eighth grade student, and was part of a chain which extended right up to Grade Twelve. The first two links in that chain were musical ones.
Next year, when it was time for a new intake of Grade Seven students, it would be natural for Kelly to be among them, because her grades were good and she was already linked to a student in the high school. The thought of having Kelly in the school still aroused mixed emotions in Sally, but she was glad that it would work out in a natural way.
Sally was able to arrange this easily because she was the school principal, but she supported the efforts of teachers in the same situation. Having bright local students in the school always seemed to help. If they could be linked in ahead of time, that would be good. As children of teachers, their link to the school as a whole would be good, so they could contribute more.
The school had about 500 teachers for its 4,000 students. From 30 to about 70 teachers a year wanted some kind of special treatment for their child. Sally always tried to accommodate them. Of the 700 or so new students entering Grade Seven in the fall, perhaps 40 or 50 would be there because of a teacher’s request. Perhaps another 70 would be there to properly connect up those and other students treated as important. Altogether 12 to 14 percent of the new intake was as a response to a desire to bring in the families of teachers. This was viewed as a worthwhile effort. The school must support its own.
As well as having Suzy as her one close tie to the school, Kelly knew many students and kids due to become students from her volunteer work at the school. She still went with her father, to work on the apparently endless upgrades to the school building. Kelly enjoyed the physical activity and the way it brought her closer to the man who had raised her. Meeting other kids who were involved in the same activities was always fun, too.
Taking advantage of the weekends, the first two floors of the building were being slowly upgraded by reconverting them to more efficiently use the space. Some support for this work involved the use of the school’s woodworking facilities in the basement, which Kelly now learned to use, with Drake’s close supervision.
Sally encouraged students to come in on weekends and help with all of this. Ad hoc classes were sometimes scheduled to keep students abreast of new developments, and Sally got teachers to mention the volunteer work and its advantages. This did attract more volunteers. Almost too many. Sally feared they would run out of work. She thought it useful, worthwhile, a way of building character, hoping every student would do a bit of it. But there was only so much to be done.
After worrying about this for a while, Sally realized that whereas the school and residences could absorb only so much work, there was also work to be done on the homes of individuals associated with the school in one way or another. The school had teachers who lived locally, support staff who also did, houses of those providing room and board for students. All of this was ultimately funded by donors to Tech Fantasies and the school.
There would be lots of local volunteer work simply for people associated with the school, and then there was work to be done outside in the community. Sally envisioned projects which students could undertake, such as community restoration projects. As projects, some of the work done to clean up a neighbourhood would be regular school work, not just something for volunteers. School involvement in the community should always increase. One way of making that happen would be for student projects to include work outside the school, helping to improve local areas.
Sally had continued and even expanded the amount of time during the week when the school was somewhat less organized than usual, though not as disorganized as summer school. During that time kids from various grades sat in on unusual classes, or undertook projects of their own. All Friday afternoons were like that, for example.
Now Sally encouraged groups of students to use that time working out in the community, loosely supervised. These sessions often got students very interested in the work they were doing, which overflowed into the weekend. Teachers reminded students that all over the city were people of roughly their own age who could help in these projects. It would be satisfying to find the most compatible ones and work with them.
The Social Tech students knew exactly how to do that, so anyone wanting to get involved in community cleanup and restoration could easily find an excellent friend to share the work. This brought together students who wanted to do this kind of work. They then worked where needed, helping to improve neighbourhoods all over the city. What had begun as volunteer work on the school was now spreading.
More and more students went somewhere in the city each weekend for some useful physical work. It was productive, made a great change from the week’s intellectual work, and helped improve the school’s reputation. Social Tech High was no longer just a school everyone wanted their kids to attend, it was a school which helped improve the whole city.