The Windownesian

The Sapient Sabre

Description

The Windownesian series features the adventures of the university student Jonathan Wills with his friends Meander, Athena, Zedekiah, as well as his roommates Alex the AI and Bobby the Alien. Each chapter centres around one topic, recording our characters experiencing it, and discussing it.
Cyborg combines both AI and humans. In 2027, Dr Albert Epoch created the Living AI, which interlaces a computer brain with an existing human body. In the commencing chapter of The Windownesian, Jonathan meets his first roommate, discovers what’s so special about him, and helps him to be human.
Do you have weird roommates? We all do. But do yours place strong-smelling vegetables everywhere, turn on the radio 24/7, and worst of all, insist to keep the windows shut? Have you ever wondered, what if their foreign behaviours are due to them belonging to another world? That is the roommate Jonathan going to meet in Chapter 2.
It is extraterrestrial. It gives whatever it receives. Give it a hug, it grows arms to hug you back. Shoot it, it returns bullets. It’s the Chug-a-lug, the centre of Chapter 3 which descends onto Victoria Harbour. And behold, it has something to do with our alien roommate.

Sujets

• Dystopian
• Debate
• Christianity
• Artificial Intelligence
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Date de parution: 04 juin 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781543774368
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE WINDOWNESIAN
 
Chapter 4 “As the Tree Rooted”
Chapter 5 “Freedom is Bulletproof”
Chapter 6 “50% of Our Population”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BY THE SAPIENT SABRE
 

 
Copyright © 2023 by The Sapient Sabre.
 
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-5437-7435-1

Softcover
978-1-5437-7434-4

eBook
978-1-5437-7436-8
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore
Contents
Chapter 4   As the Tree Rooted
Chapter 5   Freedom is Bulletproof
Chapter 6   50% of Our Population
 
Three things I personally don’t like about The Windownesian -Writer’s Commentary
The Windownesian Chapter 4 As the Tree Rooted
1997: First Migration Wave started. Thousands and millions of people left Hong Kong
2020: Second Migration Wave started, at least 90000 left Hong Kong
August 2027: The government announced several draft laws including The Speech Laws
September 2027:
On my journey from my home in Tai Tong, rural Yuen Long to the campus of Shue Yan University in Hong Kong Island, I take the MTR bus K66 to the train station. By the side of the road, there is my church, the Yuen Long Baptist Church. Next to the church, there is an old house. So old, predictably from the last century. The dull grey makes it stick out from all the bright sliver modern buildings nearby. It has two stories, built with dark grey stone. At the right side of the house, a rather large tree grows out from the house’s first-floor window, and stands taller than the house. The house, the tree, they grow together.
It is Thursday, the 9 th . My girlfriend Meander Lee is interviewing a very distinguished person, the Vice Secretary for Education on the Issue of Childhood Education. She works part-time as a host for the radio broadcast “The People” since her internship as a Journalism Major. Now, education is a topic I am highly interested in, but unable to join. Because… Anyway, with everyone in position, I can picture the director counting down five…four…three…two…one…the programme starts.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to ‘The People’, guardian of your voice and your right to information. I am your host Meander Lee. Recently, our city Hong Kong has seen changes in different aspects, and education is one of them. With The Education Bureau announcing some reformation of school curriculums in primary schools, we as ‘The People’ want to know why. Today, we are honoured to have with us, the Vice Secretary for Education Ms Teresa Tam. Welcome, Ms Tam.”
“Glad to be here Meander,” Ms Tam greets.
“So, big news Ms Tam, big news. The EDB is now reforming childhood education. Can you briefly tell is what is it about?”
“Sure Meander. Traditionally, childhood education is substantially institutional. We teach kids knowledge, expecting them to finish homework and have exams on a regular basis. I am not saying we should not have done these, but there have been criticisms on what to include for primary schools. Children are facing immense pressure they should not have been facing. The reformation aims to alleviate these problems. The amount of homework is restricted, lesson times are shortened to make room for extra-curricular activities, teaching is revised to be more well-rounded. In short, education will be getting less academically oriented.”
“That surely is a huge change. But Ms Tam, why would the EDB make such changes?” asks Meander, “I mean, yes, we children suffer from immense pressure. But what specifically motivates such changes?”
“Many organizations, psychologists, and educators have been researching children’s development. And many point out that, despite dealing with knowledge remains essential, education shall do more for children. Since it is their first years of development, learning from textbooks must not be the only way. Classroom education should also motivate students, expand their horizons, and encourage mastering self-discipline and life skills. Well, theories aside, the actual reason is that, a few years ago, government officials were invited by our country China to pay a visit. Since 2021, children in China are not required to be doing much homework and instead, focus more on non-academic developments. Spending a week with them opened our eyes. Despite not seeing them recite much from lessons, their children are the most competent learners we have ever seen. Then we visited Sweden, where education is more flexible and concerns more about whole-person development. It is since then we decided, children don’t need two exams and two uniform tests per year with loads of homework. Instead, we need to work on a well-rounded education.”
“It seems that learning from the better does help,” Meander comments.
“We would say that we take inspiration on what education should have been,” Ms Tam responds, “for that there has never been a solid answer. For that our education system originated from the Industrial Age when people had to sit in rows and complete tasks with measurable outcomes. That is something over 150 years ago.”
“Indeed, someone I know once suggested a conspiracy about schools that,” Meander is referring to me, “schools were, in fact, initially set to keep the children in check when their parents are working. Then in order not to bore the kids, they started to draft all kinds of lectures for kids just to keep them entertained.”
“He may not be far from the truth,” says Ms Tam and they both laugh.
“Anyway, we have only briefly talked about the reformation,” Meander addresses Ms Tam, “can you share some details about this reformation?”
“Not quite of a reformation,” Ms Tam explains, “but making small adjustments to achieve big effects. There are two directions we are following to solve their respective issues. First, it is about the curriculums themselves. The academic pressures need no introduction. The amount of homework will be reduced to less than 20 per week, meanwhile providing guidelines to teachers on effectively assigning homework based on the latest studies. Conventional lessons are arranged to finish before lunch. These are not ridiculous changes, many countries such as China and nations in Europe are adopting these ideas. The second area is the after-school activities. We have research concluding that over 95% of parents have the habit of arranging interest classes for their children. This gets us thinking, why don’t schools contribute to this as well? Therefore, we have the general plan of allocating the afternoon for children to choose a skill to develop whether it is mastering a musical instrument, a sport, or creative writing. Additionally, there will be free time after lunch, enabling spare time for children to either take some rest, or sharpen their skills or play with peers. In the end, we train students to be skilled in areas other than academics. Oh, and one more thing, Hong Kong students always carry the stigma of being high scores low abilities. We need to start dealing with that. Every Friday afternoon, there will be some sort of a ‘life-skill course’ training kids to pack clothes, operate daily machines, tie shoelaces, cook simple things, so on and so forth. On Saturdays, students are led by mentors to take them hiking or doing group activities, with the goal to enhance social and problem-solving skills. Occasionally, students will pay visits to companies to intrigue their interest in various industries. In short, we are equipping children to be versatile, and provide professional aid in everything they need as a child.”
“Now that sounds like some sort of school I would like to attend,” says Meander, “quite unfortunate that I was born too early to enjoy them. And oh, before I forget, we are not your average radio programme. ‘The People’ values your voice. Should you have any questions for our guest Ms Tam here, feel free to message us via our CloudSound The People 2027 one-word lowercase. Now back to our topic. One thing we need to confront, Ms Tam, is that our education system has been running in the mode we are used to for decades already. Are there any obstacles you foresee? Or let’s say, are there any opposing voices commenting on perhaps the feasibility of shortening class time and adding extra-curricular activities?”
“I was a teacher before I applied for this post. The criticisms we receive, are always from parents. And now that I am in an administrative position, complaints are from teachers. And yes, they care about the feasibility of the reformation. Because it may increase the workload of both parents and teachers, for that they have to care more about their children. Now, there are several things I would like to clarify. One, we do add more elements to school education, but we intend to balance it with reduced lesson time. For teachers, adding more extra-curricular activities would surely be stressful, only when they need to ta