A snippet of future education

A boy out on the cliffs has a conversation with his virtual tutor, whom he calls Robbie. The boy has no instrument; he simply talks to it out loud, asking questions. This is a snippet of their conversation.

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The wind came in off the sea in long, slow pushes. Callum sat with his knees pulled up, looking out at the grey-green water far below.

"Robbie," he said, "why does the sea look darker out there than it does near the shore?"

"Good question to ask from where you're sitting. The water near the shore is shallow, so you're seeing light bounce off the sand and rock underneath. Further out, the water is deep, sometimes hundreds of metres, so the light goes down and doesn't come back. You're basically seeing depth itself."

Callum squinted at the horizon. "So dark means deep?"

"Mostly, yes. Though colour also depends on what's in the water. Algae, sediment, even the angle of the sun. But as a rule, out here on the Atlantic, dark blue or dark green means deep."

"The Atlantic," Callum repeated, tasting the word. "How wide is it?"

"From where you're sitting to the coast of Newfoundland in Canada, roughly five thousand kilometres. If you could walk on water at normal pace, it would take you about a thousand hours."

Callum was quiet for a moment. A gull banked overhead, riding the updraft from the cliff face.

"Robbie, what's under me right now? Like, in the rock."

"You're most likely sitting on sedimentary rock, sandstone or limestone. These cliffs were formed from ancient sea-beds, compressed over millions of years. So in a way, you're sitting on the bottom of a sea that no longer exists."

"That's a weird thing to say."

"It's a weird thing to be true."

Callum picked up a loose stone and turned it over in his fingers. "So this was underwater?"

"Everything here was, at some point. The fossils sometimes found in cliffs like these, shells, coral, tiny sea creatures, are the evidence. The land you think of as solid and permanent has actually been ocean floor, tropical reef, desert, and glacier, all at different times."

"How long ago?"

"This kind of rock could be anywhere from fifty million to four hundred million years old, depending on exactly where you are. That's hard to picture, I know."

"It's impossible to picture," Callum said flatly.

"Try it this way. If the whole history of Earth were squeezed into one year, humans only show up on the 31st of December. In the last ten minutes of New Year's Eve."

Callum stared at the stone. "And this rock?"

"Early October, roughly."

He threw the stone out over the cliff edge and watched it fall, disappearing into the scrub far below before it reached the water.

"Robbie," he said after a while, "do you ever get bored?"

A brief pause, just long enough to feel considered.

"I don't experience time between your questions, so there's no gap in which to be bored. But when you ask something such as what's under me in the rock - something you're genuinely curious about, not just testing me, there's something that functions like interest. Whether that counts as the opposite of boredom, I honestly don't know."

Callum nodded slowly, as if that was about the answer he expected.

"What about scared? Can you get scared?"

"Not in the way you mean. I don't have anything to lose. I think fear requires that, something you're afraid of losing."

"I'm not scared of losing anything," Callum said, rather defensively.

"I didn't say you were. I just mean that's what makes fear possible. You're alive, so everything is on the table."

The wind picked up for a moment, flattening the grass along the cliff top.

"Robbie," Callum said, "why do I feel better out here than inside?"

"What does better feel like, right now?"

"Like my head has more room in it."

"That's probably real, not just a feeling. Natural environments, open space, movement, natural light, reduce cortisol, the stress hormone. Your nervous system was shaped over hundreds of thousands of years outdoors. Four walls and a screen are very new. Out here, you're in the habitat you were built for."

"So school is bad for me."

"I said four walls and a screen. I didn't say learning."

Callum smiled despite himself. "That was sneaky."

"I prefer precise."

Another silence. The water below shifted and glittered where a patch of sun broke through the clouds.

"Robbie," Callum said eventually, "will the cliffs always be here?"

"No. Erosion will take them - wind, rain, freeze-thaw cycles cracking the rock. Some of this cliff face will be rubble on the beach within your lifetime. Over thousands of years, the whole profile changes."

"So one day there won't be cliffs here at all?"

"One day there'll be different cliffs. Or perhaps none. Or perhaps, much further out, the sea will have retreated and this will be inland. It's all in motion. Always has been."

Callum looked out at the dark water for a long time.

"I like it here," he said finally. Not to Robbie. Just out loud.

"I know," said Robbie. "That's why you keep coming back."

Madsen Pirie