Chapter 3
“I have to admit it, Ama Joy, I am struggling today,” Faith Opuku said to her colleague. “Six years have taught me how much of a challenge it is to keep young minds focused, especially in warm weather, especially during the lead-up to the Africa Cup, …”
“And especially with the boys and girls taking more of an interest in each other than in their books,” Ama Joy Nkansah interrupted, raising her eyebrows and shaking her head as she took the last sip of lamujee juice from the bottle in her hand.
“Yes, and that too,” Faith agreed. “I’m no stranger on how to direct those young minds back to the classroom, but this week seems to be almost as hard as my first month teaching. It seems like nothing else matters other than those alien spacecraft, or at least that seems like the only event the broadcasts have any interest in covering.”
“I need to get back to my classroom, Faith,” Ama Joy said as she tossed the bottle in her hand in the trash bin they were standing by. “I need to check in with the babysitter before the children return from the playground break.”
“Yes, I suppose we should head back.” Faith agreed as she fell in stride with her co-worker on the path back to their classrooms. “It’s just that I have all these lessons I’ve had planned for this week – a pre-algebra review, some reading on the Ashanti Empire which we have to get in if we want to finish this history module before the end of the term – – – I had even made arrangements for a field trip where we could study the impact of all that rain we received last week on the flora on the hillside behind the school.”
“Do you think you’ll get any of the kids to listen to you this week?” Ama Joy asked.
“I haven’t been able to yet today,” the young teacher sighed.
“Then let it go, Faith. Ask a few directing questions and let the kids do most of the talking. They need to speak about their concerns and fears about what’s going on, and ask questions of someone who will listen to them. I know your students trust you and they feel safe in your classroom. Let them talk it out of their system and you’ll be able to get back to your lesson plans before you know it,” Ama Joy said as she stopped in front of her classroom. “OK, I need to go. We’ll talk tomorrow morning. I need to leave for home as soon as the end-school bell rings this afternoon.”
“I suppose you’re right, Ama Joy. It’s just that…” Faith paused, looking to her side and noticing her co-worker had already slipped inside her room.
Faith sighed heavily and continued on to her own classroom. “It’s just that I need some normalcy myself,” she said to herself softly.
The junior-secondary school teacher sat at her desk for a moment, and then tapped on her teaching console, searching through images. Faith found one she liked, brought up a virtual whiteboard, got out an electronic tracing pen and began outlining the shape in the image. After another three minutes, the return-to-class bell sounded, and the students began to make their way into the classroom.
Faith tapped on the teaching console and had the outline she was creating displayed on the classroom whiteboard as the students were taking their seats. Most of them quieted down to watch what their teacher was drawing, a few whispering to each other.
Faith set the tracing pen down. “Who can tell me what this is?” she asked.
Four students quickly raised a hand.
“Yes, Kofi?” the teacher called.
“A big cigar,” he said with a sly smile.
Nearly all the boys and a few of the girls began giggling.
“No,” Faith said with a slightly disapproving look. Then she pointed to another student, “Ámmá?”
“Is it the alien spaceship?” the girl responded.
“Yes,” Faith responded as she tapped on her console and brought up the image she had been tracing.
“Is that the real spaceship?” one of the students called out.
“No, this is an artist’s rendition,” the teacher explained. Then she tapped the console again, and four other smaller images appeared in the corners of the screen. “No direct images have yet been taken of whatever it is that is approaching Earth. But there are many telescopes and monitoring satellites that are accumulating measurements of what most people suspect to be a craft or vessel of some sort.”
“Why haven’t they taken a photo yet?” another student asked.
“The item is still very far away and, based on its size, is traveling too fast for the telescopes to get a clear image,” Faith said. “To give you a sense of how fast the item is moving, let’s compare it to something we know. The average transpod on the motorway travels at one-hundred kilometers per hour. What many are calling a spaceship is estimated to be traveling at four-hundred-thousand kilometers per hour. That means it is traveling four-thousand times faster than a transpod on the motorway.”
“If there were a road that went all the way around the equator of Earth, it would take a transpod four-hundred hours to travel the equator. That would be almost seventeen days, traveling the entire twenty-four hours of each day,” the teacher continued the lesson. “If that craft were on the same road, it would only take one and one-half hours to circle the entire equator. That is many times faster than any vehicle, jet or train we have here on Earth.”
“What can anyone guess is the purpose of different sections of the craft?” she asked.
None of the students raised their hand.
“That was probably not a fair question I asked of you all,” Faith noted. “This cylinder-shaped main body is where any contents of the craft are likely placed. And this forward-facing funnel is suspected to be a braking mechanism helping the craft slow down.”
A boy raised his hand and asked his question before being called on, “What do you mean by contents?”
“Cargo or perhaps alien beings,” the teacher said, looking around the classroom for facial reactions from the students.
“But Ms. Opoku, why are you so sure this is a spaceship with aliens on it?,” asked one of the more popular students. “My father said that it is likely a random asteroid that the broadcasts are turning into something more than it is. But if it is something, he said, it is just a research vessel, since aliens would be too afraid to directly confront us humans.”
“I have never seen nor heard of an asteroid that wears a collar, so this tells me this is not a natural object. Let me ask you a question in return, Afiriyie. What is your opinion of what would be inside this ship? Your view, not the thoughts of your father,” Faith prompted her.
The question gave the young girl a brief pause, as she had to consider how to respond to being asked to ignore her father’s input. “My father has much more experience in life,” the girl started, “so I trust his opinion more than mine.” Faith started to sigh with disappointment, but then the girl continued, “but if I had to guess why aliens would come to Earth, I can’t imagine it would be for anything good.”
Faith smiled, happy to hear the young girl share her own views.
“My father says the aliens are coming to take control of us all and make us do all of the dirty work for the aliens so they can live as lazy things,” said Kofi.
“But why can’t they want to come here just to meet us?,” asked Ámmá.
“They may be coming here just to meet us, Ámmá, but they could also be coming for any of the other reasons your other classmates are bringing up. We can’t automatically say everything is good or bad. We must think of all of the reasons and be prepared to act on whichever is the real reason. We cannot control how any aliens may act, if there are any on the ship. But we can control how we react to what the aliens may do. And the best time to think about that reaction is now, before the ship arrives and while we can think more clearly and with less emotion.”
One of the smaller boys in the class raised his hand to ask a question. “Yes, Mensã,” acknowledged Faith. “Ms. Opoku,” he asked, “why hasn’t the ship sent any messages to us? If they truly did come to do research or to simply meet us, wouldn’t it be safer for them to announce their intentions? Even if they wanted to do us harm, they could lie to us so we would not attack them first.”
“That is an interesting question, Mensã,” Faith started off slowly, thinking of what would be a good response. “But perhaps we apply too many of our human ways to how aliens think and act. Also, who knows if they understand how to communicate in terms we would understand. Their language, even what they consider communication, could be very different from what we comprehend.”
“So if we can’t understand them,” Mensã continued, “and they won’t want to communicate in a way we recognize, won’t we be like the pet dogs we keep in our homes? We will be the pets that surround the aliens.” Everyone in the classroom went quiet upon hearing this comment, letting the thought sink in.
Then one of the other boys piped up and said, “So I guess you would be a chihuahua, eh, Mensie?”
“And you would be an ugly British Bulldog, Kaaky,” Mensã replied without missing a beat. The children all broke out in giggles and laughter, declaring what breed each other would be.
Faith let them enjoy the jokes for a few moments before she quieted the classroom again. “OK, let’s talk about a few other ways to understand this new visitor to our solar system. If the destination of this object is to come to Earth, let’s find out when it is going to get here. I’ll divide up the class into pairs and you can work together on a few different calculations,” she said, displaying a few formulas and problem statements on the screen.
Faith followed this lesson with a preview of more advanced math by showing them a graph with the speed the object had traveled each day since it’s initial discovery five days prior and how the object was slowing down (“decelerating”, she was able to work in as a new word for the day) more each day.
She then transitioned into science, with an explanation of fuels used to power different craft – the bicycle, the transbus they used to travel to different sections of Kumasi, the transpods that the wealthier people (or those with good government connections) would ride in, the jets and fast-drones used by the Air Force, and even the giant mining “spacecraft” that now supplied a large percentage of raw materials used on Earth by mining basic elements from asteroids moved into far-Earth or lunar orbit. They all used different fuels – from muscle power for the bicycle, to ultra-density batteries for the transpods, to complex dark matter transfer engines for the asteroid barges. As she progressed through the different human craft, the teacher could tell this topic wasn’t as exciting to her students as it was to her, so went back to art and had each student draw a picture of what they thought the object looked like close-up.
As the school day was drawing to a close, Faith brought everyone’s attention back to one conversation.
“OK, everyone, I’ve placed the details of your homework assignment for this evening on the main display,” she said. “Each student will write at least one but no more than two pages on how you would plan to meet any aliens if there are any on the ship. How would you greet them? What questions would you have for them? Would you offer them anything to eat? And would you take any food or beverages they offered you? Along with the details of the assignment I’ve also sent to your tablet some information about the craft we covered in class today. Remember to be good learners and research yourself and don’t just accept something as true just because you’ve seen it on one cast. Be producers of knowledge, not just consumers of video.”
The end-of-school bell rang as Faith finished this instruction.
The children quickly stuffed items sitting out into their desks or their backpacks and hurried out the door.
As she was organizing her classroom, the commpad rang on her desk, with the name ‘Vice Principal Evans’ showing on the display.
Faith tapped the ‘Answer’ button. “Hello Vice Principal.”
“Hello Ms. Opuku,” he answered. “I was listening to the children on their way out of school and overheard a conversation that caught my attention. Some students were excitedly talking about a homework assignment their teacher gave about meeting aliens coming to Earth. I asked them who their teacher was, and they said it was you. Is that correct? Did you give them an assignment to write about aliens?”
Faith took a deep breath. “I asked my students to write about how they would plan to meet any beings on the craft.”
“And why was that, Ms. Opuku? Are you looking for ways to encourage parents to call me and complain about teachers putting wild ideas into the minds of their children?” the administrator asked.
“Vice Principal Evans, I recognize this is a risky exercise, but the children need an outlet,” Faith tried to explain. “The spacecraft is nearly the only thing the students talk about, and the same goes for all of the broadcasts anyone is watching. If we ignore that and pretend it is not happening, then the students will ignore what we are telling them, thinking we are out of touch. I am already starting to see a larger absence than normal from my classroom in the past two days. And I need some way to engage the children and make them want to come to school.”
“The absences are happening across the entire school, Ms. Opuku,” the Vice Principal responded. “Parents are starting to keep their children home from school, and I’m hearing that a few families are leaving Kumasi and going to the countryside. The parents of the students still at school are in no mood to have the anxiety and fears of their children stoked. We don’t need any more reason for parents to use it as an excuse to keep the students home from school, wanting to keep the children from being exposed to rumors and stories.”
“Mr. Vice Principal, I have no desire to alienate parents,” the teacher shared. “My job is to prepare my students for the future. And the best way to prepare for the future is to think about the future. There is no hiding the fact that something is heading this way, and all of us should seriously think about what is happening. And this writing assignment will make my students think, since they all know that I will require them to re-write the assignment if I feel they are not taking it seriously.”
Faith could hear some loud voices from the other end of the call.
“I need to go, Ms. Opuku. Do not make things more difficult around here. We will talk more tomorrow,” and with that, the Vice Principal ended the call.
Faith’s gaze wandered around the room, not focusing on anything in particular until it landed on the framed plaque behind her.
“University of Education, Winneba
Ghana
This is to certify that
Ayawa Faith Opoku Gyambibi
having pursued the prescribed programme of studies at
the University of Education, Winneba, Ghana
and having passed the prescribed Examinations,
has on the 29th of July, 2085
been admitted to the degree of
Bachelor of Education
with FIRST CLASS HONORS
in
Basic Education
Faith read the diploma three times over.
“I am a teacher responsible for the education of thirty-five children in the Seventh Grade,” she said to herself in a soft but firm voice. “I am to prepare them for the future. To complete their BECE, to receive their Senior School Certificate, to succeed with their National Service, to enter the workforce, and to make Ghana a shining example, not just for West Africa, nor for the continent, but for the entire world, of how a country is powered by the passion, pride and performance of its people.” This was the empowerment speech she gave herself at the start of every school term, and during those weeks when teaching didn’t seem at all glamorous or even appreciated by her students or their parents.
But now she began having some doubts herself. What – or who – is on that ship, she wondered. What will the future bring for her students? Will there be any need for classroom teachers a year from now? Next month? If there are aliens, as she was convinced, would Kofi’s father be correct after all, and they would make humans their servants? Would history turn back the clock 300 years since the last slaves were taken from the shores of Ghana?
Faith shook her head as if to loosen the grip of the thought from her mind. She visibly straightened her shoulders and stood up tall. “I am a teacher responsible for the education of children. I have accepted that as my career, and will not abandon it,” she firmly told herself. “No matter what that object brings, I will not abandon my children and will make sure they are prepared for whatever comes in the future.”
Faith quickly cleaned up the classroom for the next day, walked out of the room and closed the door securely, and knew what her own homework was going to be that evening.