Reflection

The futuristic educational system that we created was inspired by the fictional societies in Star Wars, George Orwell’s 1984, and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Star Wars was a big influence in creating our fictional world. Using the premise of Jabba the Hut was vital to our society. In Star Wars Jabba the Hutt represented Princess Leia in a demeaning and vulgar way because she was a woman. Our society used that as a base for how women were understood and treated in the country of Jabba. One of the biggest challenges that we face when imagining the future of education is how we would be able to diminish the education system for women. As an all-female group, we did not want the usual women to take power, but we also did not want to imagine a world where women were equal. Jabba was also the dictator of his society, while he looks vile due to his alien-like figure he was also ruthless and did not care for anyone who did not follow his laws. In our society of Jabba, everyone is human and we imagined Jabba as a person, but still the most ruthless dictator who was promoting his propaganda and would do nothing to stop those in his way. 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 are both dystopian novels that are based in a totalitarian society. In 1984, citizens were being strictly controlled by the government, known as “Big Brother”. They are told that Big Brother is always watching them. We used this idea of continual surveillance when creating our dystopian society, as the government would make sure that the citizens are always being exposed to propaganda and following the rules that have been put into place. In our current society today, 2022, we are always being monitored through technology. We believe that in the future this is still going to be the case. When creating our futuristic society we exaggerated this point by claiming that all technology would be created by the government so that they could implement their spyware. This also connects to ideas for the course as we read Transforming school culture through inquiry-driven learning and iPads by Kurt Thumlert, Ron Owston, and Taru Malhotra. Inquiry-based learning enables students to be “responsible for their own learning” (88) and is what Jabba is about. The male students are responsible for understanding their education and writing tests for work placement. The education provided is meant for males to understand how they help grow the Jabba society. Furthermore, using the technology created by Jabba students are able to further their learning through inquiry based learning but are also being fed the propaganda. Through inquiry-based learning, Jabba can see how students teach themselves their value to society. Inquiry-based learning “provided opportunities for students to create knowledge and demonstrate more sophisticated competencies than through standardized assessments” (90).

Thinking critically about the future has helped us to reflect on how we are influenced by technology in the present. Although many people know that their cell phones are being used as a way to get information about them, most of these people do not care. In Fahrenheit 451, firefighters are employed to burn and destroy books to censor the information and knowledge that can be received by the citizens. We used this as an example for our dystopian society because we wanted to create a place where the education that individuals received was written by the government to depict Jabba as the best country in the world. This can be compared to social media algorithms. In today’s society, the internet and social media have become a large part of social engagement. People can connect to others from all over the world who share similar experiences and views. However, this is a problem as the media that individuals are receiving is limited to the algorithm of the platform. Therefore, the individual will not get the chance to expand their knowledge and hear different perspectives. Similar to how these fictional stories are depicted, telling a story about a dystopia is important because it enables imagination. Through dystopia, you can picture these alternate realities that one would imagine and it gives students emotional creativity. They are also able to use inquiry-based learning to discover how to apply topics they have learned to these dystopian worlds. We also took inspiration from real life, using North Korea as an example. In North Korea, the citizens are completely restricted from the outside world. They cannot access the outside world. Their internet is on a closed circuit and not everyone gets internet access as well. They also create their technology and have no human rights laws, enabling them to punish their citizens in any way they choose. Their elite government is the only people with access to the rest of the world’s joy.

Refrences: Thumlert, K., Owston, R. & Mulhotra, T. (2018). Transforming school culture through inquiry-driven learning and iPads, Journal of Professional Capital and Community, Vol. 3 Issue: 2, pp.79-96.