Civics: First Class

[Jocelyn Tate]

Professor Tate's classroom was still rather barren and clean. It was merely a generic classroom, with a few cupboards, a chalkboard, an overhead projector, desks and chairs for students, and in front a large desk, behind which Professor Tate herself was writing some notes as the students filed in.

At the stroke of the hour the class was scheduled to begin, she put her pen down, stood up and stared at the students, waiting for them to fall quiet.

"Good morning, everyone. I'm Jocelyn Tate, and this is the Civics class", she opened, smiling brightly.

"The ancient Greeks, progenitors of democracy, had public places of assembly in their cities, called agora. The Romans, of course, had the forum. I want you all to consider this room your own agora, your own space of discussion. You may have noticed that I have not furnished the classroom - I want us all to do it together over the semester, to make the classroom look like us."

"This class is all about being a knowledgeable citizen in a democratic society. This means we will delve into politics, government, law, economics, why societies work the way they do, and how they work the way they do, and whether they actually work the way they should."

"According to the curriculum, the goal of our school is to ensure our students become law-abiding citizens who value justice and treat each other fairly and ethically. That's not a bad thing to aspire to, is it? Knowledge and intelligence are the best weapons we have against people who want to have unfair power over us."

"In the more practical sense, this class will have an end of semester exam and some quizzes, but the majority of your grade will be based on how active you are within the classroom. The school elections are also upon us soon, and this is something that we will focus on strongly. I think election campaign posters would be a great way to begin decorating the classroom."

"Do any of you have any questions before we begin today's class proper?" She folded her arms and looked at the students expectantly.

[Kent of Korbania]

Kent sort of heard what his teacher was saying.

Then he spaced out.

He started thinking about the Greeks, and how Greek sounded like Creek. He then thought about Greeks in creeks and then the crayfish at the bottom of the creeks which the Greeks could eat.

He had become lost in his own thought again.

[Destiny Valencia Everett]

Destiny had miraculously arrived on time to the class ("on time" in this case meaning "arrived only a few seconds after the class had started"), and was finding herself surprisingly interested.

She didn't know a lot about politics. Didn't care very much about politics, for that matter. But she knew a whole lot about "society", including the one that had sent her bouncing around like a pinball for the last four years before she had landed at this school. Society, Desi knew, was a word for a group of people making an agreement about who didn't belong in the group.

And Desi hadn't belonged, because strange things always happened when she was around; because her hair wouldn't stay in a ponytail; because other people ignored the could-be places in the world that Desi saw, and sent her to the children's hospital when she talked about them.

"Why," Desi said out loud, "do we need countries and politics and society and things?"

It sounded kind of stupid as soon as she said it, but Desi really couldn't think of a single reason why any of those things existed.

[Jocelyn Tate]

Tate opened her mouth, then closed it again, yet her smile never left her face. Finally she mustered a response.

"Uh... that is a very good question. It is something thinkers and philosophers have pored over since the beginning of time. I am going to give a very simple answer, but I encourage everyone to think about this on their own. Basically, people can't live alone, they need help from each other. And because people often end up disagreeing with each other, they need some way to solve their differences. Used to be people would resort to violence, but people thought that was not helping anyone, so now we discuss and negotiate and make compromises. That is what politics is."

"I was expecting you would ask about the class or the exam, but it's wonderful you have such inquisitive questions already! We have a whole semester to think about them."

[Jocelyn Tate]

The professor proceeded to explain the finer details of the scheduling of the class, the evaluation process and the dates for the final exam and the likely dates for the quizzes. She then went on a short explanation of the United States government (division of powers, branches of government, the Congress, and so forth) before it was already time for recess.

[Scott Logan]

Scott sat at the back of the classroom, taking notes as Professor Tate went through the first lesson. He forced himself to pay more attention to what she was saying - he needed to do well at this subject, not just to keep his parents happy, but since as heir to the throne he'd have to put it into practice one day.