Britght Writers

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JUNE 2020•ISSUE 3

THE READERS AND THE WRITERS OF TODAY ARE THE LEADERS OF TOMORROW!


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Contents JUNE 2020 • ISSUE 3

FOREWORD FROM THE EDITOR OF THE MAGAZINE, ADELA MANTESCU – ADAM

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GREAT UNDERTAKINGS: INTERVIEWS WITH STUDENTS WHO PASSED THE CAE EXAMS WITH DISTINCTION INTERVIEW WITH MIHNEA IORDAN 7A

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INTERVIEW WITH ANDRA PALADA 8D

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INTERVIEW WITH ALEXANDRU PRECUPAS 7D

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INTERVIEW WITH SERBAN DRAGHICIOU 8E

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IF TEACHERS WERE REPLACED BY ROBOTS THE IRREPLACEABLE BOND BETWEEN TEACHERS AND STUDENTS TUDOR OPREA / 8C

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A TRIP TO MY SCHOOL IN 2119 TUDOR BOTEANU / 7F

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THE HUMAN ASSESSMENT DAY ELIZA TOMA / 8A

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TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF ALIONA BUSTIUC / 6C

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TEACHERS ARE HEROES WHO INSPIRE US TEODOR MELEGA / 7A

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ROBOTS DEVOID OF EMOTIONS NICOLETA COJOCARU / 7F

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A FRIGHTENING SCIENCE FICTION FILM OR A HAPPY EVER AFTER BIOGRAPHY? MIHNEA IORDAN / 7A

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A WORLD WHERE TEACHERS ARE REPLACED BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MATEI SERBANESCU / 7B

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A FUTURE OF ROBOT TEACHING? MARIA CHIRICA / 7E

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE REPLACING HUMAN TEACHERS? MARA PAVELESCU / 8D

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HUMAN TEACHERS ARE THE ONLY ONES CAPABLE OF ELEVATING OUR SPIRITS MADALINA CONTSTANTINESCU / 7F

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE VERSUS HUMAN TEACHERS LUCA ILIE / 7A

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THE FUTURE IS HERE LAURA DRAGOI / 7F

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IN THE CLAWS OF OBLIVION KARINA MILEA / 7E

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THE ODYSSEY OF REPLACING TEACHERS WITH ROBOTS JASMINA GATAIANTU / 8A

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THE FUTURE OF MANKIND IULIA PANTER / 7B

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ROBOT TEACHERS AREN’T RESISTANT TO HUMAN KIDS IOANA STANCIU / 7F

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TOWARDS OUR DESTINATION, ELEVATED HUMANITY FRANCESCA BALAUR / 7A

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MY OPINION ON ROBOT TEACHERS EMMA ANNEMARIE STAN / 6B

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THE SCHOOL OF LOVE EMILIA ARICIU / 8A

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TAKING OVER TEACHING POSITIONS: HAVOC, DISORDER, UTTER FAILURE DIANA POPA / 8A

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THE WHITE BLEEDING HEART DAVID IOSEF / 8F

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INSTEAD OF TEACHERS BRIANA OUSOR / 7B

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THE COLLAPSE OF THE WORLD WE KNOW TODAY ANTONIA NASTASE / 7A

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A WORLD WITH LIFELESS OBJECTS AS TEACHERS ANDRA NEGOESCU / 7E

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ROBOTS WILL NEVER RENDER COMPLEX TEACHERS ANA LAZARUS / 7E

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IT IS THE YEAR 3020 ANA BRINZAN / 7E

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IT IS THE YEAR 2100 ANA ANGHEL / 7E

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THE GREATNESS OF TEACHERS ALEXIA HAGIU / 8C

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ROBOT TEACHERS, A DREAM OR A NIGHTMARE? ALEXANDRU DAIANU / 7C

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THE AFTERMATH OF ROBOTS CONTROLLING US ALEXANDRA VASILE / 7F

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TEACHING WITHOUT TEACHERS, A DYSTOPIA? ADRIANO EFTIMESCU / 7D

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DEVOID OF SPIRIT IN A WORLD OF ROBOT TEACHERS ILINCA STOIAN / 7B

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TEACHERS ARE AMAZING FATIMA BULUT / 8F

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ROBOTS AS TEACHERS? NOT SUCH A GOOD IDEA... ALEXANDRU BEBIA / 7B

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JUNE 2020 • ISSUE 3

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN EDUCATION IDRIS AL KHATIB / 7E


OUR WORLD IN THE FUTURE OUR WORLD ONE YEAR FROM NOW EMILIA POPA / 7F

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OUR WORLD AFTER THE PANDEMIC DAVID IOSEF / 8F

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OUR WORLD 50 YEARS ON CONONOV MATEI / 5G

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A DAY IN THE FUTURE YASMINA DINCA / 8C

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MY DREAMS OF A FUTURE WORLD ANCA MARIA ONITA / 5G

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THE INVENTIONS OF THE FUTURE BOGDAN DAMIAN / 5E

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MISCELLANEOUS OUR CORE VALUES DOROTHEEA STEJAR / 6F

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THE FENCE EMILIA POPA / 7F

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THE FIRST DAY OF THE LIFE OF A SUPERHERO MIHAI DUMITRESCU / 8B

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WE FINALLY REALISED THAT WE WERE COMPLETELY WRONG MIHAI DUMITRESCU / 8B

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THE MOST TRANSFORMING EXPERIENCE OF MY ENTIRE EXISTENCE MIHAI DUMITRESCU / 8B

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THE MOST TRANSFORMING EXPERIENCE OF MY ENTIRE EXISTENCE EMILIA POPA / 7F

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THE MOST TRANSFORMING EXPERIENCE OF MY ENTIRE EXISTENCE INGRID BADETOIU / 8C

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THE YEAR IS 2169 TRIPSA ALEXANDRU / 6F

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THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT TRIPSA ALEXANDRU / 6F

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INTERNET LEARNING TRIPSA ALEXANDRU / 6F

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ISSUE ISSUE 2

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JUNE 2020 2019 SEPTEMBER

Foreword from the editor of the magazine, Adela Mantescu – Adam

In the first section of our magazine, you will find interviews with some of the students who managed to pass the CAE Cambridge exam with distinction while still being in gymnasium, a great undertaking. They share valuable words of advice about their experience in an attempt to inspire other students to work hard and achieve outstanding results in their Cambridge exams as well. The second section of the magazine deals with a very intricate and debatable topic, namely robots replacing teachers in the future. Our students have had a plethora of utterly interesting ideas about artificial intelligence replacing teachers but most of them have advocated for the fact that robots could never replace human teachers since robots are devoid of feelings and since human teachers are and will always be the ideal sculptors of the minds and characters of their students and the superheroes who elevate minds. The third section of the magazine imagines the world of the future, a world which massively relies on technology and which has at times, unfortunately, lost its human touch. A world whose perfection astonishes us and scares us at the same time. Our bright writers do hope that we will maintain the righteous balance between technology and what makes us great, our humanity. The fourth section of our magazine is miscellaneous and tackles the importance of our core values, the most transforming experiences in life and the obstacles we need to face in order to become the best versions of ourselves and live the best lives which we could possibly live. You will enrich both your knowledge of English and your reading experiences by devouring the words which give light to the pages of this magazine and we do hope that you will enjoy this intellectual odyssey as much as we have enjoyed putting it on paper. In times when reading might have lost its spark for some, I do urge you to read extensively because reading and knowledge elevate your minds and spirits and turn you into highly knowledgeable, mighty and proactive individuals, capable of making the world a better place for all of us. Read as one breathes air because reading makes you genuinely wealthy by nourishing your minds and souls: “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” George Martin

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A D E L A M A N T E S C U - A D A M / TEACHER OF ENGLISH & HEAD OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

We have the pleasure to offer you the gift of our cherished magazine, Bright Writers, issue no. 3, a magazine in which our avid readers and writers share the breathings of their minds with all of us, mesmerizing us with their vivid imagination and impressive creativity.


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

Interview with Mihnea Iordan 7A M I H N E A I O R D A N / 7A

1. What drives your inexorable passion for English? For how long have you been studying English and which is your "secret" for having reached a native-like command of English in gymnasium? I would say my passion for English is driven by its ubiquity. Having been learning it since kindergarten, it was bound to rub off on me eventually, and it did. Once I understood the basics, simply being in constant contact with the language subconsciously increased my skills. Interestingly, I did not realize it at the time, though my father did. He disapproved of my constant watching of YouTube videos, except for the fact that they were in English. 2. Which are your favourite writers and books? How often do you read and how has reading literature in English helped you drastically improve your vocabulary, creativity and imagination? I can’t say I have a favourite author, though I always prefer books that are lighter in tone. My reading habits are erratic at best; I might go a month without even touching a book and then read for six hours a day for an entire fortnight. As for vocabulary, most authors tend to favour certain structures or expressions, and they are probably ingrained through repetition at this point. My creativity, however, I have no measure of quantifying, though I must have drawn a few ideas. 3. What do you like reading, prose or poetry, fiction or nonfiction? What profession/mission would you like to embrace when you become an adult and why? Which are your future goals and academic and career plans? I generally prefer prose fiction, steering clear of the mundane. My career goals are rather clear, I wish to study naval engineering and work on a ship, once again avoiding the mundane with a rather uncommon, and well paid job, as well as the sheer appeal of sailing the high seas. 4. What words of advice would you give to all our students who have the objective of passing the Cambridge Advanced (CAE) with Distinction as early as in gymnasium? What helped you achieve such an outstanding performance at such an early age? My words of advice, thus own techniques are simple: Expose yourself to the language! Books, movies, videogames, anything at all that contains grammatically correct English will help, slowly but surely.

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

Interview with Andra Palada 8D

Whenever I think of English, I immediately get excited and my heart starts racing, as this language has always been such a wonderful subject in my eyes. I first started learning it when I was about eight years old, and my passion for English has only flourished since then. Since my primary school only taught French, I remember attending the British Council with such excitement and thrill, since it truly was the highlight of my day! The very comfortable, inviting and warm vibe was always something I looked forward to experiencing, and the teachers were absolutely amazing. It was indeed the ideal environment that nourished my commitment to learn English, especially at such a young age. As the activities were very fun and motivational for every child to learn effective communication skills, important traits such as team work and social interaction were developed from the beginning. 2. Which are your favourite writers and books? How often do you read and how has reading literature in English helped you drastically improve your vocabulary, creativity and imagination? Honestly, I do not have a “secret” to learning English, for I truly believe I was very emotionally attached to it and it caught on to me purely due to my love of communicating this way. It has always been much easier for me to express my feelings and opinions in English, and I believe this is because of how surrounded I have always been by British and American media, such as videos, movies, music and games. Although I was first introduced to French as a second language, English surrounded me through outlets such as YouTube and has always attracted me much more. 3. What do you like reading, prose or poetry, fiction or nonfiction? What profession/mission would you like to embrace when you become an adult and why? Which are your future goals and academic and career plans? As much as I believe technology helps somebody learn a language much faster, I still think books help immensely with learning languages, since they require the reader to make connections between events and figure out certain hidden plots, helping develop one’s logical thinking. Moreover, they also leave much more space for imagination than movies or videos, which is another reason why I find it important for children and adults alike to read quite often. Personally, I find myself choosing prose over poetry, mostly because I enjoy following the storylines of various characters.

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A N D R A P A L A D A / 8D

1. What drives your inexorable passion for English? For how long have you been studying English and which is your "secret" for having reached a native-like command of English in gymnasium?


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

A N D R A P A L A D A / 8D

When I was younger I used to prefer fictional books, as I suppose many children do, because of their tendency to explore more unusual and creative worlds, characters and plots. For instance, until about a year ago, my favorite book was “Enders Game” by Orson Scott Card, one which I could not put down and would never cease to surprise me with the mysterious and unexpected plot twists that would often occur. Despite having grown up a little bit, I still find myself enjoying fictional books, yet with less of the supernatural element. For example, an outstanding book I adore is “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, presenting a futuristic world were books are forbidden and have been destroyed by firemen. It portrays a brainwashed society, as books no longer influence them to have an opinion or personality of their own or to think outside the box. It was a great eye opener for me, since, after a long period of time without having read, this book sent a very powerful message and inspired me to start reading again. Nonetheless, another wonderful book I would recommend anytime is “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, being a classic novel that combined serious topics with humor and warmth. As for my future life, I have yet to decide upon a career path I would like to follow, mainly because I believe I will choose one a little later in life, when I will have discovered more traits and aspirations of mine and will be more prepared to make an appropriate decision. However, I have thought about it a few times and I think a career in business might suit me best, for I see myself fitting into a workplace of this sort. 4. What words of advice would you give to all our students who have the objective of passing the Cambridge Advanced (CAE) with Distinction as early as in gymnasium? What helped you achieve such an outstanding performance at such an early age? Last but not least, I don’t think I have extraordinary advice to give to people who are trying to pass Cambridge Advanced, because there isn’t a sure way to ace the exam. Aside from doing your assignments in due time, which I know can be very difficult and exhausting, I believe it is very useful to try not to see it as a burden. In spite of the very stressful periods of time, moments of questioning if you are really qualified to take this and the urge to quit, it is all completely worth it in the end and you will be extremely proud of yourself for having got out of your comfort zone and having achieved such an amazing goal. I know it can be challenging at times, but you will benefit for the rest of your life from having this important qualification on your CV, and, most importantly, knowing that you have the will power to fulfill any desire that you have.

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

Interview with Alexandru Precupas 7D

To begin with, English has been an integral part of my life practically since my first exposure and coming into contact with school, and kindergarten, for that matter. I attended one where English was seen as optional in the most technical way, though all of us had been signed up by our parents. At first this new and weird concept didn’t attract or entice me in the slightest, but things took a turn for the better when my mom asked me if I wanted to join in on the fun. I said yes, because what else are you supposed to say to your mom, plus it wasn’t like I was being forced into doing it and nor do I think I understood completely what I was about to be learning. The teacher, Miss Alina, whom I still keep in contact with, commenced my journey as we know it. I don’t recall just how much I learned during my time as a pre-schooler, safe to say not a lot, but still, this laid the foundation for my primary school, in which I was taught by none other than Miss Alina. I gradually started racking up the first certificates, meaning Starters, Movers and Flyers. Though it wasn’t really until the third grade that my English actually started improving. It was around this time that I discovered this site called YouTube, and thus my exposure to many content creators, in particular one guy from England which I will not name. This continued throughout the fourth grade, when I remember being distinctively better compared to my colleagues. It is at this moment that I want us to stop and think of what I just said about my evolution for the better because of YouTube. I want to emphasize that this was only the beginning. In the summer of 2017 my English skyrocketed by all standards, and I cannot stress this enough. It was because, and I repeat solely and chiefly because of YouTube. I would watch content for hours on end, practically immersing myself while remaining at home. By the time fifth grade had rolled around, and after taking a placement test, I found out I had scored a B2 level result, for those of you who are familiar with the CEFR. I had jumped, mind you, from A2 to B2 in a single summer. Now that’s impressive. I took up the Cambridge course for B2, or FCE, during the fifth grade. I didn’t attend the exam, as I wasn’t feeling quite ready just yet. Next year I aimed even higher, I had the C1 level on my mind. I didn’t study that hard, and yes, I did do my homework more than half the time. Next thing I knew I was in the exam room.

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A L E X A N D R U P R E C U P A S / 7D

1. What drives your inexorable passion for English? For how long have you been studying English and which is your "secret" for having reached a native-like command of English in gymnasium?


JUNE 2020

ISSUE ISSUE 3 2

A L E X A N D R U P R E C U P A S / 7D

Ironically, just after my speaking exam I went to the city centre with a guy from Pittsburgh. By the way, did you know that they say yinz instead of you in Pittsburguese? To be frank I kind of forgot about the whole Cambridge thing until my mark arrived. It was a solid A. I was honestly surprised, as I had been told that you need to work hard to accomplish such a great feat. I guess YouTube was kind of a shortcut and an alternative to the classical way of doing things. 2. Which are your favourite writers and books? How often do you read and how has reading literature in English helped you drastically improve your vocabulary, creativity and imagination? What do you like reading, prose or poetry, fiction or nonfiction? What profession/ mission would you like to embrace when you become an adult and why? Which are your future goals and academic and career plans? As I have previously stated, and as I will state how many times necessary, contrary to popular belief, no, reading books isn’t always a necessity or an essential part in learning a new language. I have studied Shakespeare’s plays, but that only because I like some of the features that English used to possess, but are now lost to time. YouTube, and, by all means, any kind of immersion that you may like is welcomed and valuable. I still do watch YouTube to this day, maybe not as much as I use to, but still a substantial amount, which has helped me retain my English skills. And you may be doubtful of my methods, so I want it to be clear that I am in the same process again and I am testing it out on Spanish, which I started with Duolingo, rather than a real tutor, oddly enough. Safe to say, this method works for every language, as I am now at the B1 level in Spanish, though I have switched it up a bit, this time watching many Spanish language shows on Netflix. 3. What words of advice would you give to all our students who have the objective of passing the Cambridge Advanced (CAE) with Distinction as early as in gymnasium? What helped you achieve such an outstanding performance at such an early age? Advice? Do what you like, whatever it may be that aids your learning process, but if I had to pick something specific, then immersion would be the key to success. In conclusion, like what you’re doing and how you’re learning, else it’s better to just leave it altogether.

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ISSUE 32 ISSUE

JUNE 2020

Interview with Șerban Draghiciu 8E

English has always been a weird subject for me, ever since I heard the first song on radio I wanted to learn the language, I never had a reason for it, I simply enjoyed the sound of it. As for how I learned such advanced vocabulary at my age, well, I just surrounded myself with English, for over 10 years. I’ve lived half of my life in English, watching videos, listening to songs and, of course, learning in school. 2. Which are your favourite writers and books? How often do you read and how has reading literature in English helped you drastically improve your vocabulary, creativity and imagination? Weirdly enough, reading books didn’t play a major role in the development of my English knowledge, I only started reading late into my education as I learn better by listening but my favorite author is HP Lovecraft, nothing comes close to the thrilling horrors he conveys. 3. What do you like reading, prose or poetry, fiction or nonfiction? What profession/mission would you like to embrace when you become an adult and why? Which are your future goals and academic and career plans? I enjoy reading prose more than poetry because, while I can admire great poems, I can almost feel like I’m one with the characters in prose. I want to become a scientist so I only wish to get a science degree. 4.What words of advice would you give to all our students who have the objective of passing the Cambridge Advanced (CAE) with Distinction as early as in gymnasium? What helped you achieve such an outstanding performance at such an early age? The best way to learn ANY language is to surround yourself with that said language. That and use it as much as you can since everything comes with experience.

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S E R B A N D R A G H I C I O I U / 8E

1. What drives your inexorable passion for English? For how long have you been studying English and which is your "secret" for having reached a native-like command of English in gymnasium?


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

The irreplaceable bond between teachers and students T U D O R O P R E A / 8C

by Tudor Oprea 8C

There have been immense advances in technology in most aspects of people’s lives. One of the fields which has benefited from this is education. An increasing number of students start to rely on computers for research and to produce a perfect paper for school purposes. Others have decided to stick to the original way of learning. These changes in the learning process have brought a special concern regarding the possible decrease of importance or even the disappearing of teachers in the classroom. Many people nowadays believe that the role of teachers is starting to disappear because computers have been helping some students gain easier progress compared to studying in an original classroom. However, teachers are required in the learning process because they acknowledge the students’ deficiencies and help them solve their problems by giving them separate tasks so students can have a better chance of becoming better at a subject. In conclusion, the role of teachers in the learning process is still very important and will continue so for a long time because at the moment no machine can replace the human relations that are formed between a teacher and his students.

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

A trip to my school in 2119

It was the final day of the school year, more precisely 15th June 2019, when it happened. I was on my way home, alone, with no other students on the way to the metro, since I was the last kid who left the school, because I remained at the school to finish my holiday homework earlier. While I was approaching the gas station nearby, I saw a weird spiral shaped like a portal. When I tried to approach it, I was suddenly absorbed in it. I woke up in the same place, lying on the ground. Luckily, I was lying on the grass, so I didn’t hit my head nor break any bones. I stood up and continued my trip home. At that time, I was very hungry that I couldn’t wait till my mom came home and cooked, thus I decided to go to Ikea to eat something. But when I approached the building, I saw that there wasn’t the Ikea logo on it, but I did mind back then because I didn’t know that I accidentally time travelled to the year 2119. I went in to the building and saw a humanoid robot at the door. When I saw it, I was so shocked that I almost fainted. With some courage, I asked the robot the date that we were in. He said that the date was the 15th of June, 2119. I remained silent for a moment, and left the building in shock. Then I checked my phone and saw that it was 8:15 am the time I exited the metro that day. But there were no students on the road. I decided to go in the school to see if what I thought was true. IT WAS. I saw a lot spiral like things in the parking lot when I arrived there. But there were kids exiting them. NO CARS, ONLY PORTALS. I was providentially allowed to enter the school, because somehow my ID card was still valid. Then I checked my phone and an email popped up (yes, they still used emails) which said that all the students from ICHB needed to grab their free time machine from the reception, as it was a gift for the students because the school had promoted all students with annual averages between 9.30 and 10 for over one hundred YEARS!! I was so happy that I had a way to return home back in 2019 (at that time I already realized that I accidentally time travelled). Along these lines, I decided to repeat this day at my school in the future. There were NO teachers, NO janitors, NO anyone, just students and ROBOTS. When the classes finished, I took my free time traveling machine and successfully went home. For the safety of other people, I decided that I needed to destroy the time machine for good.

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T U D O R B O T E A N U / 7F

by Tudor Boteanu 7F


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

The human assessment day by Eliza Toma 8A E L I Z A T O M A / 8A

It's seven o'clock and a sweet music wakes me up. My lessons will start in 15 minutes and I have to move faster than ever. Today is my THAD - “the human assessment day”. After so many months of training I will have the chance to interact with a highly prestigious assessor, of course a non-human teacher. I went through the recommended learning resources, passed all the tests, completed all the assignments with good grades, so why am I so nervous? The path I should follow in the next period will be decided today. I didn't ask for it, the old one has just reached the deadline. So should I accept all the automatic recommendations? Should I let an algorithm which analysed my activity (and of course the history of all students since the creation of the system) decide my future? I know there is a “society needs” factor in the formula (and many others that I don't know about), but do Artificial Intelligence machines really know what's the best next move for a human being? Of course not. AI masters the past, but not the future. It can only predict based on available data. But sometimes humans evolve in the most surprising ways. On my way to the assessment room, I have decided my sentence, I will rebel against the system and ask for a human teacher to evaluate me and help me decide my becoming. After all, what could go wrong? In the worst case scenario, they could send me to the detention room and announce my burst of rebellion to my parents. But I will assume this risk wholeheartedly. Nevertheless, I prefer physical detention rather than the callous imprisonment of my human ideals and my earthly dreams ...

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

Turning over a new leaf

Artificial Intelligence as teachers, quite an intricate idea. I mean really fun idea too, but when this idea came to your mind, did it ever occur to you how many bad things can happen? People can easily be hurt by those mind-free robots who don’t even have a brain to realize what they are doing. They are set to do one job but what if the system breaks, they will start acting all crazy. And also, as I said, they are set to do one job, so kids won’t really pay much attention in class and fail their exam because “teachers” don’t realize if they are or not. On the other hand, children may enjoy the robots, as long as the programmers know they are made to lure children and make them astute students as they should be. Also for the heedless kids, robots may woo them too and turn over a new leaf.

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A L I O N A B U S T I U C / 6C

by Aliona Bustiuc 6C


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

Teachers are heroes who inspire us T E O D O R M E L E G A / 7A

by Teodor Melega 7A While teachers are forced to deliver the majority of learning in a whole-class setting, artificial intelligence can deliver tailored learning, carefully evaluating every response to calibrate when to stick with the current topic and when to move onto the next. The brightest pupils can be given additional work, while those that need additional help would receive it, all within the same class. AI offers almost unlimited possibilities in terms of identifying student’s strengths and interests and building on them. Perhaps surprisingly, teachers seem to like robots, once they’ve worked with them at least. Research has found that while teachers generally expected robots to be disruptive, in reality they reported that they were not and teachers often went on to develop numerous positive ideas about the robot’s potential as a new educational tool for their classrooms. A teacher is also looking after the students in the class, spotting those experiencing difficulties and supporting them as necessary. In this sense it is one of the most human jobs we have. Reading subtle social cues that students need help is not something robots do well. Humans like to learn in groups and they like to learn from other people. Robots will never be able to match humans on that count. Another factor which is likely to be irreplaceable: the ability to inspire. Teaching facts and theories is one thing, relating the things you teach to everyday life is quite another. Teachers are there to answer the really difficult questions when students get stuck. Teachers are there to share their experiences in life, to relate to the students, one human to another. It is for this reason that teachers’ jobs are safe for the foreseeable future.

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

Robots devoid of emotions by Nicoleta Cojocaru 7F

When I went to bed, I heard a sound coming from inside the wardrobe, so I decided to go and see what was happening. But, when I opened the door, there was a big machinery, and before I could even say something, I found myself at school. I went to the class, but when the teacher entered, she was a robot. I was shocked, I couldn’t believe it. But when I told ‘the teacher’ that last night I felt sick, went to the doctor’s and therefore, I could not do my homework. The robot did not care. On the way to school, while I was telling mom about my dream, I realized that even if it may seem tempting and exciting at first to have a robot teacher, we need to be aware of the fact that they don’t have feelings, and cannot teach emotions to students, as humans can.

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N I C O L E T A C O J O C A R U / 7F

“Mom, the teacher gave us ten essays due tomorrow. If we had an app which would have taught us, I would love school. “I’m sorry, my love. You can ask your sister to do half of it.”


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

A frightening science fiction film or a happy ever after biography? M I H N E A I O R D A N / 7A

by Mihnea Iordan 7A Self-aware A.I. It has been the subject of many works of fiction in recent history, every year inching closer to reality, though usually depicted as an out-of-control experiment intent on establishing global dominance. But what if the A.I. was "shackled" so it could not rebel? What if it took on the mundane jobs in the world? Perhaps it would, one day, become advanced enough to teach in schools. This would be an evolution of great significance because of the nature of the job. For instance, teachers constantly assess a plethora of essays. These include various opinions on the same subject, relayed in a myriad of manners. This makes their quality hard to gauge mechanically, simply following protocol, meaning the automated teachers need to be capable of highlevel logic. This says something interesting about the bigger picture, however. If robots are so smart, what will be left for humans to do? Firstly, and rather obviously, developing A.I. This job must be done by humans, lest the robots rewrite themselves, break free, and rebel. Secondly, and also rather obviously, the humans must be governed by humans, since the machines themselves serve the humans. Thirdly, art, in all forms, cannot be made by robots, unless they are advanced enough to break free. Finally, architecture must be made by humans, lest the world be covered in identical square blocks of flats built for efficiency. However, this raises questions about the state of the rest of the world. Since the machines will sustain humanity, everyone who fulfils the roles mentioned above will do so out of their own desire. This leaves a large part of the population unemployed. As I see it, it could go one of three ways: either all people become artists and spend their lives making and discussing art, or humanity loses its purpose so utterly, and descends into such a deep state of depression that humans will desperately disable all the machines and start life from scratch. In conclusion, robotic teachers are only a symptom of an extreme advancement of technology which could have rather interesting outcomes, but which also brings about the question of what makes humans human. Will a robot be capable of educating the mind and the heart at the same time? Will robots be able to foster creativity and imagination? Will robots teach us moral values and instil in us the desire to do good to other human beings? Unless these questions are positively answered, a world of robot teachers seems more of a frightening science fiction film rather than a happy ever after biography.

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ISSUE 3

June 2020

A world where teachers are replaced by Artificial Intelligence

“-Good morning, Matei!� It is Tuesday 11th of February 2031, 7am. Today you will have a busy agenda at school: you start with 2 classes of maths, then 1 History, 1 Biology, 2 Chemistry and finally 1 Music class. And I suggest you hurry up with your breakfast, because weather forecast shows some rain today, so traffic will be bad. This was Alexa waking me up. Alexa seems to forget that today I am taking the subway, so traffic will not be a problem to me. It took me 45 minutes to reach my school, using the no-driver subway, fully controlled by A.I. George (the robot at the entry of the school) greets me after carefully scanning my face and recognize me as a student in 11th class. I entered my class and our 4k whiteboard started to show us a live image of our virtual Math teacher, Riana. She has introduced us into new theorems, and she was asking us to upload our homework from last class. I really hope I will get a good feedback from her! This is the experience we are having for majority of our classes. But I am looking forward to the Music class. You know why? We will have a chance to interact with our great teacher, the well-known piano player, Peter Brown. Yes, he is not a robot and he will be teaching us the emotions of playing in front of the public. Yes, we can get the theory of music from a robot, but never the emotions of playing. And what is music without emotions?

15

M A T E I S E R B A N E S C U /7B

by Matei Serbanescu 7B


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

A future of robot teaching? by Maria Chirica 7E M A R I A C H I R I C A / 7E

What if teachers were replaced by A.I.? Being a girl who watches and reads a large number of science fiction films and books, I've encountered this topic in a few stories. Nowadays, technology keeps evolving, and this evolution might bring us A.I.s someday. When this Artificial Intelligences will be advanced enough, they may be able to become teachers. Teaching might not be one of the jobs which is performed by humans. If A.I.s become teachers, we might not even have school, we may learn from home, through computers or, who knows, through holograms. Although we think about A.I.s teaching, we don't really think about how will they teach us. Human teachers teach with emotions; with the passion they have for their job. A.I.s would not teach with the same passion, because they would never have the same emotions as us. To be a good teacher, you also need to understand the students, if you do not understand what they feel, you will never be a good teacher. A.I.s would never be able to understand the students, would never be able to be sympathetic to the students when they make a mistake. Our future is an uncertain thing. We do not know what it holds for us, but whatever it is, we will get through it if we preserve our humanity and the kindness, candour of our hearts.

16


ISSUE 3

June 2020

Artificial Intelligence replacing human teachers?

Nowadays, everybody has gone to school or is still attending classes and learning salutary skills taught by teachers, but just imagine if these people were replaced by artificial intelligence. Firstly, I want to emphasize the idea that the passion of a human being for his/her job cannot be replaced by any state of the art artificial machine. At the other end of the spectrum, this might be a blessing in disguise for many people that may find it really interesting and not appalling. Some could be as happy as a dog with two tails to learn from a robot and we need to embrace the fact that we are not on the same wavelength and that is totally normal but roughly speaking, not for all the tea in China would I agree that a robot can be a better teacher than a human who puts everything into his/her job and has a real genuine connection with a student, together making a great team where everybody has the ability to improve their skills in any subject in which they want to evolve, thus gradually taking everything step by step in order to reach the top. A penny for your thought?!

17

M A R A P A V E L E S C U / 8D

by Mara Pavelescu 8D


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

Human teachers are the only ones capable of elevating our spirits M A D A L I N A C O N S T A N T I N E S C U / 7F

by Madalina Constantinescu 7F I can’t believe the school finally changed the uniform” my friend says while taking a bite of her toast toast. “It’s pretty cute!” I respond, spinning around to show the way I personalized mine, making sure not to bother anyone else passing by, “Though I don’t really get this thing around our necks. It said it was obligatory for us to wear it.” “It looks like a dog colour!” Maddie replied. Without realizing, we have arrived at the school gate: “Something is off....” I whisper. “Let’s go, Alice! We’ll be late!”. “I’m coming!” I replied, quickly following my friend. The hours passed and I got even more anxious about the unusual setting, but I said nothing. The teachers looked... strange. Physically, they looked the same, but their aura was strikingly different. They did not feel human. As lunch break arrived, everything seemed more quiet. I realized that I was not the only one who was feeling uneasy. Other students were debating about it, whispering while keeping their heads down, as not to get caught. The last bell rang and everyone headed home. “Should I say anything to my older sister? I don’t want to worry her.” After our parents passed away, the whole burden of being the adult had been taken over by her. She was still young. It’s not that big of a deal. I can take care of it by myself. I did not mention anything about the strange things that had been happening in school. Next day, I woke up feeling uneasy. “So it wasn’t a nightmare” I think to myself while looking at the new uniform which was resting on my drawer. I took a deep breath and headed to school. On the way, Maddie didn’t say anything. I could tell that she was nervous about going back to school. Something had changed and everyone could tell that. We didn’t know that today would explain all our questions. It was 9:45 on a Tuesday and we were in English class and as we finished reading the text which was given to us, we started debating on its meaning as we always do. After my classmate, Jason, told his point of view, I did not think much of it and told him that I do not fully agree and tried to explain a different option of looking at it. As I was in the middle of my explanation, I felt a strong electric shock and cried out in pain.

18


ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

The “person” in front of us explained something between the lines that every teacher had been replaced by robot lookalikes since they are more efficient. I can agree, we did learn more than in other days, but what mentally stable person zaps a child?! I don’t remember anything else about that day. I woke up in a hospital. “Doctor!” I did not recognize the voice so I start looking around my surroundings. I saw a purple haired girl running back inside the small room in which I was placed, followed by someone which I could guess was a nurse from the clothes she was wearing. After she gave me some pills, the strange girl sat next to me. “Hi” she says with a smile. “Hello. I don’t want to seem rude but” I take a moment to look at her once more “who are you?” She freezes into place and looks at me as tears fill her ocean eyes “you don’t remember anything, do you?” “I do remember being in school and getting electrocuted by a robot which was also my teacher, but that’s it” she looks at me as I realize how insane I sound, so I continue “I know it sounds strange but it’s true!” It’s been a while from that incident. I am still not accustomed to my robot teachers and I will never be since I reckon that humans, in their ocean of faults and qualities, are the only ones capable to elevate our spirits.

19

M A D A L I N A C O N S T A N T I N E S C U / 7F

Everyone turned around to me as I fell on the floor. “W-what was that?!” I said while still trembling. Our teacher got up from the chair as every student in the class looked at her. “She doesn’t seem startled at all? Someone please explain what’s going on!” says Andrew, the head student. “In a moment” the teacher replied calmly “But first, Alice stop making a scene and get back on your chair!” Olivia, which was already next to me, helped me up and then went back to her seat.


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

Artificial Intelligence versus human teachers L U C A I L I E / 7A

by Luca Ilie 7A Why would AI replace teachers? The teacher's job is difficult, because children can lose focus and must be motivated permanently. In addition, teachers spend a lot of time planning lessons. AI would eliminate many of these difficulties. I believe that in the future AI will assist each teacher. I could document online for the teacher, looking for lesson plans according to various criteria. AI could make the attendance and could record the grades. Classes could be equipped with speech and gesture recognition technology and eye movement detectors to collect information about each student. In this way, the teacher would always know how the students receive the information and how to help them. He would also know when some students are sick and need care. In addition, the information would help teachers create a more effective teaching strategy, adapting the style of teaching to each individual student. I don’t think robots will replace teachers, they will only assist them. AI cannot understand, as a teacher, when you have a bad day. Robots don’t understand humour, sarcasm, exceptional situations. Robots can perform fixed tasks and provide information for predetermined sets of questions, but are unable to adapt their database to unpredictable situations. Only a human teacher can appreciate the work of an innovative and creative student, who thinks beyond conventional questions and answers.

20


ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

The future is here

One day I find a very weird and interesting watch in my father’s office so I take it. I go to sleep like nothing has happened. When I wake up, I’m in a very strange place, but it looks familiar to me. It’s a very weird place, which may be my school, but it’s very different than what I was used to. Very frightened, I enter the strange building. I couldn’t believe my eyes, there were robots everywhere. I decide to enter a random class. I was the only human there. I thought that I could finally experience what I’ve been dreaming about. At first, I was thrilled about this, but then, I realized it wasn’t interesting. I tried to interact with my colleagues but they couldn’t understand my feelings. After a while, I went to the restroom. There was a mirror. I could see. myself there. Out of a sudden the mirror started making signs. After a few seconds I was surrounded by loads of robots. I started to panic and to run faster than ever before. After a while, I got out of breath, so I decided to destroy the watch. There were sparks everywhere. After a few seconds I arrived home as if nothing had happened. My only wish is that I hadn’t destroyed the future.

21

L A U R A D R A G O I / 7F

by Laura Dragoi 7F


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

In the claws of oblivion by Karina Milea 7E K A R I N A M I L E A / 7E

I know that you think our world is peculiar, but we believe the same thing about you. Now hang on, I have to start my daily YouTube video. It’s getting late already! ‘Hi guys, welcome back to my channel! Today I have a special guest. Say hello to my best friend, Emily. She is the newest robot ever invented’. Do you wonder what am I doing? I’m not joking, all the kids with the age between 5-15 years old must have a YouTube channel, not mentioning our Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook and other apps that are used 24/7. Welcome to 2100. A beautiful year, robots as many as humans, teachers and workers replaced by artificial intelligence and so on. Every house has to have a minimum of one robot helping the family. My grandma once told me how it was back in the 2000. She said that there were no robots, no digital glass, nothing. Just paper! How is that even possible? Of course people were more energetic and hard-working. Once we discovered how much robots can help us, people became kind of lazy. All we have to do is being popular on social media. As I’m thinking about our social cause, I wonder how people lived then. Were they happier? Were those times better? Maybe... I mean, in our house we can’t even go shopping. Our robot can go by himself. But we can’t go alone. I personally feel like I’m trapped. The doorbell starts ringing and my thoughts are interrupted. Of course I don’t have to do anything, besides pressing on the digital screen, so that my mum can enter the house... I wish I could spend just one single day with you and discover what your world is really like. I feel that what we live nowadays in 2100 is an alienation from humanity itself and a digital trap that has captured us all together in the claws of OBLIVION.

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

The odyssey of replacing teachers with robots

When talking about the technology development over the past years, I would say that everything is almost completely changed. I think that technology took over a lot of the duties that a person used to have some time ago such as: cleaning, washing dishes and many other mundane and sullen chores. This might by a huge advantage but thinking outside the box, I am slightly concerned about what might happen a few years from now. A few years from now, one of the biggest issue I am petrified about is children’s health that will probably get damaged by the new technological systems everyone will use. For instance, I always imagine teachers being replaced with robots. This is not an impossible scenario since the press and the news are already writing about the experiments scientists make in this field. From my personal standpoint, if I had to enter the classroom and see robots instead of teachers, I would become really scared and anxious because I do not know what robots could teach me better than a human being. A good tutor needs to make you understand by explaining and constantly adapting to your capabilities, talents and interests, but a robot could not adapt to what makes you who you are and personalize the content in order to suit your personality. Empathy is also a really important element in how people bound and unfortunately robots can’t offer us any kind of emotions from the spectrum of colourful feelings which embellish our human existence. Teachers are those impressive and mesmerizing superheroes who find children’s superpowers and give them the tools and the bravery to change the world. Therefore, when and how could superheroes who forge our identities, souls and minds, be replaced by some staid and dull repetitive machines who are actually programmed by highly intelligent and creative human beings?!

23

J A S M I N A G A T A I A N T U / 8F

by Jasmina Gataiantu 8F


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

The future of mankind I U L I A P A N T E R / 7B

by Iulia Panter 7B Everyone knows that Artificial Intelligence is advancing faster and faster as time passes by. It is only normal for people to start asking themselves questions like “Will we control the robots or will they control us?”, “Will the robots start a war against us ?” or one of the other questions humans ask themselves about what the future holds for mankind and robots. One of the most frequent questions is “Will there still exist human teachers or are the people going to be taught everything by robots?”. In the next lines I am going to show you what school will be like a hundred years on from my point of view if teachers were to be replaced by robots. The next century school is a building that is equipped with the latest cutting - edge technology. In the cafeteria, everything will be automated, from the robots that prepare the food to the robots that serve it and also to robots that clean the cafeteria after the students leave. Also, the all cleaning will be done by robots. Now I know this is not really in the context of teachers being replaced, but I felt like I had to talk about those other things a little too. Going back to the idea of teachers being replaced by robots, I think that each class is going to have its own robot that will teach all the subjects. It won’t have the experience that a teacher or just a human will have, it will only be able to access the experience of an actual human being by searching it on its server or on the internet. It will not know how it is to learn, because it never did the action of learning, it was just programmed to search for it. I don’t think it will be able to teach its students how to learn. Also, if a kid had a problem and they needed the teacher’s understanding, I don’t think that the robot will understand him or her as well as a human teacher would. Another thing that would be different would be the fact that the robot may not understand its students’ needs , like for example the need to go to the restroom or the need to blow your nose , because it has never experienced them and it will never do, because , after all, a robot is just a bunch of metal pieces and wires that however well is built and designed, it cannot feel anything and, yeah, maybe it can offer you much more information than a human being can , but it will never understand you and offer you all the other TREASURES a human teacher has to offer you. In conclusion, I would like to say that I do not know what the future holds for the humans, but one thing I know for sure, people can offer each other a lot more than a piece of metal will ever be able to.

24


ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

Robot teachers aren't resistant to human kids

Hello my name is Suzan and yesterday I had a fight (verbal) with my English teacher. Everything went wrong and after all. I wished that all the the teachers from my school were going to be take-over by artificial intelligence aka robots. I did not think that the worst wish was just about to happen. The next morning, I woke up, brushed my teeth, my hair, got dressed and walked down the street to the subway. Once I arrived to school, I saw a lot of strange things. At first, there was no gate keeper at the entrance, then I saw a bunch of children going home, when I immediately looked at my watch to see if it was morning or noon, and in the end I understood what was going on......my request had become reality! That means that the gate keeper was replaced by a face ID scanner and I directly rushed to the classroom. On my way to the third floor, I peeked through the open door of other classes and indeed, all the children gathered around entities that appeared to be robots, so very curios, I stepped up to my course. I was surprised to see all my colleagues being much more attentive to the teacher than in a normal math hour. Someone or something was sitting on a chair, it looked at me and asked with a metallic voice: “Your name please!?”. Astonished, I pronounced my name. Automatically I heard the same callous voice telling me to take a sit. Looking around, the atmosphere was unusually quiet, as if all of us were in a sort of trans.... At the end of the day, the situation was totally different, everything was out of control: children screaming, crying, running, but everyone wanted the same thing: we all wanted our lovely, irritating and usual human teachers back, so, for the first time, we agreed with and made a plan to destroy the unusual robot teachers. We did what we knew the best, we were so annoying and irksome that the robot teachers plucked their batteries and went “dead” and the school had to bring our imperfectly perfect teachers back to the comfort of our classes and to the comfort of our innocent souls and insatiable minds.

25

I O A N A S T A N C I U / 7F

by Ioana Stanciu 7F


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

Artificial Intelligence in education I D R I S A L K H A T I B / 7E

by Idris Al Khatib 7E According to some people, the conventional method of teaching by humans will be replaced in the near future by artificial intelligence. I disagree with this statement as computers are not efficient enough to understand mankind and hence there will always be a need for teachers. Also, in my opinion, online classes led by human teachers will be an alternative solution to traditional classroom lecture in the future. Some people argue that robots will take teachers position to teach in school in the future. I completely disagree with this statement and I believe the new teaching approach like online learning should provide students more benefits. Teachers cannot be replaced because of their intelligence, happiness and bond with their students. Teachers are well-trained in how to interact with students in a perfect and magic-like manner. Although technology has immensely developed, computers have not attained the stage to understand students’ feelings or level of understanding. A teacher can use many factors such as evaluation, guidance and motivation in his work with a young student which certainly cannot be provided by a machine. For example, there are a lot of applications which can check and automatically correct the structure of a sentence and word spelling; however, it is no substitute for a teacher and it cannot provide adequate help to English learners because it does not explain the mistake or offer any feedback to avoid it next time. But for sure in the nearest future will be a lot of alternatives to traditional classroom teaching. In my opinion, online courses may be very important in the coming years. They save individuals travelling time, infrastructure costs and give the opportunity to the students who are leaving far away from schools to have access to education. By using this technology with the basic requirement of a laptop and an internet connection, a student can learn from any part of the world and can revise the lessons until they get satisfied. Important universities like Oxford and Stanford, have online courses which can be attended by anyone for free and the doubts can be clarified with the instructors through Skype. In conclusion, replacing teachers in the classroom by artificial intelligence may be possible in the next years. However, in my opinion it is not certainly beneficial to pupils due to many reasons like deep understanding of different problems, student –teacher connection, connections between students, people friendship. Online teaching will be a possible alternative solution to the conventional classroom lessons, but in front of the computer, it is still of paramount importance to have a teacher to help us since teachers will still be the main sources of education because of their incomparable knowledge and experience.

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

Towards our destination, elevated humanity

In the near future, probably no later than 5 or 10 years, the technological evolution will come to a point where plenty of our jobs, duties or tasks will be fulfilled by AI. We already let AI to be part of our common life even to manage our homes from the other side of Earth. It became normal to speak to a robot when we have a malfunction of our different home system or we want to place a sale order. We succeeded to develop even tiny Nano robots which are planted in our body to search for a particular illness and to fix it. So yes, I think that in very short time there will be many places where AI will be put in action as a teacher. For sure there will be many advantages, like it will be always up to date or it will be affordable for even the farthest places in the world. At the same time, there will be losses also because even the most performant AI will not understand the children emotions, all our internal beliefs which make us individuals and because of that we have to find the right balance between the human and AI, otherwise we might get lost in technology and might never find our route to our destination, our elevated humanity.

27

F R A N C E S C A B A L A U R / 7A

by Francesca Balaur 7A


June 2020

ISSUE 3

My opinion on robot teachers E M M A A N N E M A R I E S T A N / 6B

by Emma Annemarie Stan 6B While artificial intelligence can teach students skills or reinforce difficult concepts for struggling students, it can't replace a human teacher. Teaching social and emotional skills is more intricate. AI teachers have unlimited knowledge, but can they empathize with their students? A human teacher can be inspiring to students. They are great in creating connection and belonging, seeing the world from the perspective of individual students, mentoring students. With an AI teacher, students will acquire knowledge faster, will be able to progress at their own pace, will be more confident thanks to the appropriate stimuli. AI teachers can be personalized for the needs of each student, some learn quicker and others have difficulties in understanding. For this AI it is the future in changing the system of learning, but how can we adjust to a teacher that has no emotions? Human beings learn best from practicing with other human beings. Can AI supplement the work of teachers? Or is the relationship between a teacher and a student more personal? Can a machine not reproduce the experience?

28


ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

The school of love

The night before my birthday I started to think about what I really wished for that day. All I wanted was more Artificial Intelligence in my life so I imagined what it would be like if robots would totally replace teachers. I went to school the following day. My first hour, in my schedule, was the English class. Not little was my surprise when I entered the class to see that instead of my teacher, a robot with other robot assistants were there to teach us. I looked at my classmates and to my amazement they were all smiling and enjoying themselves. I tried to behave as normal as I could so I went at the back of the class and sat in the last desk. The hour went on pretty well and I even got to interact with the robots but you know what lacked from that conversation? It was the fact that the robot teacher didn't convey me any emotions which I dearly missed from my real teacher. The other classes went on the same as this one, staid and predictable. I went home and told my parents all about it. They thought I was exaggerating. At that moment I felt alone and misunderstood. I went in my bedroom and tried to fall asleep, but tears were overflowing in my scared eyes at the dread of being trapped in this school, filled with technology but sadly devoid of feelings and humanity. I wondered about what we were heading towards, a world of robots and human extinction? A chill climbed up my spine and I wished I hadn't made that irrational and horrific wish ‌. The next day, I woke up and I realized it had all been a nightmare and that fortunately I still have my beloved teachers and I am still surrounded by what makes us humans: LOVE!

29

E M I L I A A R I C I U / 8A

by Emilia Ariciu 8A


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

Artificial intelligence taking over teaching positions: havoc, disorder, utter failure D I A N A P O P A / 8A

by Diana Popa 8A Havoc. Disorder. Utter failure. Does anybody really think that objects can replace humanity? In my opinion, they can’t. It’s true, teachers are meant to transmit knowledge onto their students, a job which an AI device can do too, the same as books, videos, articles, the true learning and understanding being the pupil’s job in the end. But just amassing knowledge and remembering lessons and information is not what education is about. Teachers are also meant to be there as mentors and role models for the future generations. They pass on their life experiences. They help them form strong opinions about the world around them. They empathize with them. They become their second mothers and fathers. They observe them and approach their work style and behaviour just in the right way. They lead them on the right path. They become their friends, in such a way that they are trusted, respected and listened by their classes. Each teacher brings something new to their lesson and students learn something from all of them nonetheless if they like the lesson, or even that particular teacher. A robot, however intelligent it is, could never do these things. I consider that in a world where teachers are replaced by Artificial Intelligence, children would turn into devoid like the robots in front of them, losing their sense of heart. How could we ever live in a world like a this, a world without emotions? AI will always be meant to help people, not take their place. I look at the future and dread a world where teachers are replaced by Artificial Intelligence.

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

The white bleeding heart

The bright silver sky was blinding me. The snow was carefully falling on the colourless, yet still healthy flowers. It was the most beautiful work of a human being. It was an utterly disturbing and perfectly white flower. It was one devoid of any mistakes, one that would continue its bloodline for the simple purpose of achieving perfection. But it was all for nothing! They perfected it, but at what cost? At the cost of our happiness, of our imperfections or of our spirit? The school is where you grow up. Even though some of us dislike it, or even despise it, it is what shapes us, what moulds our character and uplifts our spirit. We want to become better, but is this considered better? If robots became teachers, there would be no artists to sketch beautiful human beings, no superheroes without capes, no sculptors of great achievers. There’d be no black hole that could turn into a supernova... there’d be just a distressing, disturbing and perfect white street lamp creating the perfect environment for distressing, disturbing and perfect white flowers. But at the end of the day, I look at the bright and perfect flowers and I dream of leaving this disturbing and perfect world and returning to my imperfect world in which divine, mortal human teachers foster and spread the wings of countless children so they could fly to the height of their heavenly dreams and reach the zenith of their brave potential ...

31

D A V I D I O S E F / 8F

by David Iosef 8F


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

Artificial Intelligence instead of teachers B R I A N A O U S O R / 7B

by Briana Ousor 7B Nowadays, we hear more and more about new technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), robots and even some argue that in the near future, people will be replaced in their jobs by artificial intelligence. First of all, I think that, yes, some jobs are prone to such replacement – for example repetitive and routine jobs such as supermarket cashiers, which already started to be replaced by automatic machines. On the other hand, it’s hard for me to imagine a world where teachers are replaced by artificial intelligence. It’s true, robots can be programmed to store and access a lot of information, far more than a teacher could ever do. Some AI systems probably could in the future even identify personal preferences of students. But an AI system – a robot – will never be able to understand the emotional and spiritual pattern of a student. Even if they could be programmed to read our facial expressions, they cannot learn the complexity of human feelings. Maybe a robot will know more information, but a teacher tries to explain it in different ways so that the lesson is understood by different children – some children are more visual, some are more logical, some more emotional, some need a story to relate to, some need the see the practicality of the lesson, etc. A human teacher will always seek to accommodate almost all types of students ‘personalities. A teacher becomes very close to their students, since they spend a lot of time together and many kids even tell their teachers secrets or stories that their parents do not know. However, I strongly believe that an AI system could help and assist the teachers in their work. The classes could become more vivid, more interactive and fun, while the robot could also help the teacher with correcting the tests, supervising the exams, even with assessing each student’s learning and development needs, based on statistical analysis. In a nutshell, we must not be afraid of artificial intelligence and look at it as a threat. On the contrary, we should embrace it as an opportunity to make our lives easier. Change is good – we just need to be flexible and agile enough to capture its benefits and always learn more!

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

The collapse of the world we know today

One day, when I went to school, there were no teachers in the hallways. It was really peculiar. First period I had mathematics. When I got there our teacher wasn`t inside, and she is always there before we get there. When the bell rang, she didn't come. Then we heard a voice. It was like the computer was talking. It told us that from now on there would be no teachers anymore and that they, the artificial intelligence, would teach us. Each of them knew exactly what they should teach and no more than that. Because they didn`t a physical body, every time a teacher would write something, it would just appear on the board and on our tablets. We didn`t have to write anymore. It didn`t care when we talked and it didn`t have feelings. It felt different, it was almost like it wasn`t school anymore. But at the same time, it felt unnatural, almost scary how artificial intelligence could replicate the job of a teacher so easily. I thought would never say this, but I missed the teachers. It wasn`t the same. The teachers were human, the artificial intelligence wasn`t. I missed the human emotion. Then I woke up. I realised it had all been a dream and I was very relieved. It was impossible that teachers were replaced by artificial intelligence. It would have been too strange, because a machine could never have the same impact a teacher has on us. It could never truly understand us. I hope teachers will never be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence because that would mean the collapse of the world we know today.

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A N T O N I A N A S T A S E / 7A

By Antonia Nastase 7A


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

A world with lifeless objects as teachers A N D R A N E G O E S C U / 7E

by Andra Negoescu 7E What would a world without teachers look like? Will robots teach us to think for ourselves? Will we become addicted to them? Will they be able to feel emotions? Those are some of the questions many of us ask. Even though there aren’t any certain statements about this subject, nothing stops people from imagining this reality. From my point of view, artificial intelligence will be able to transfer the information to the students, maybe even explain better than a human, because they would never lose their temper. The problem is that the role of a teacher isn’t just to teach, but to create independent and mentally balanced people. In order to do that you have to create a connection with the children, make them love you and love them back. Which is impossible, not just because robots won’t feel real emotions, at least not as intense as a human being, but because it is harder to emotionally attach to a lifeless object than to a living creature and almost unfeasible to start a proper relationship. In conclusion, replacing teachers with A.I. can have positive and negative effects. I sincerely prefer the human teachers, but that doesn’t mean that robots wouldn’t do a great job. Nevertheless, worries do linger about AI’s ability to create human-like connections with the students and teach the moral values that we need in order to survive and thrive.

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

Robots will never render complex teachers

Nowadays, when children spend most of their free time online, in the virtual reality of games or social networking sites, it is the teachers’ role to keep them connected into the real world. As knowledge is now only one click away, teachers have to help us understand it and decide what is important for us and what is not. Education changes are frequent, so it is not impossible to imagine a world where online courses and robots replace school as we know it. If robots will be the new teachers, in my opinion, it would be a disaster because robots will be programmed to do only certain things. What if a student would like to discover new things and when he asks the robot, it won’t be able to answer his/her questions because he absolutely won’t have all the information registered? I don’t agree to having robots as teachers especially because this job would be non-existent and many people who adore teaching kids will not have access to this profession anymore. Nevertheless, children will be deprived of all the fantastic emotional intelligence and information human teachers have to offer. In conclusion, while I do think that robots are great teacher assistants, they should never take over the teaching profession which is one of the most important professions in the world since it creates the basis of all the other professions.

35

A N A L A Z A R U S / 7E

by Ana Lazarus 7E


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

It is the year 3020... A N A B R I N Z A N / 7E

by Ana Brinzan 7E It's the year 3020, I wake up early, brush my teeth, grab my backpack and take a pack of raisins to go. I get to the Aidia station in about 20 minutes and the train comes almost instantly. I hop on, knock on the window next to my seat two times and a screen pops up. I select my school's icon from plenty of others and sit down. I buckle my seatbelt and open up the tray by lifting the seat's armrest. When I get to school I'm greeted by Alleds, my Physics teacher who just so happens to be a robot even though that's not out of the ordinary considering there aren't any human teachers working here. With two taps into thin air, my schedule appears in front of me in the form of a telegram, I have English. The first bell starts ringing and kids start rushing towards the entrance, doing all they can not to be late, you see, the doors automatically lock when the second bell stops ringing. I get to class in time and have the opportunity to choose where I want to sit. The back row is always the best if you don't want to reach the robot's radar so I immediately bolt for the farthest desk. I take out my notebook (we still use notebooks because studies have shown that students can't concentrate while having electronics nearby, which is a little ironic now that I think about it) and, without skipping a beat, our teacher, Powa starts teaching us about the past tenses. The teaching system in our school is obviously different than in others but it's not too offbeat. The teacher usually starts by scanning the classroom which takes approximately 0.2 milliseconds and then instantly starts talking in a very shrill voice. Then they just teach like every other middle school teacher. When the final bell rings I rush home and take a long nap, the best part of studying at a school like mine is that we don't get homework. All in all, I like school but I will never cease to wonder what a school made up of human teachers FEELS like.

36


ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

It is the year 2100...

It’s the year 2100. You may be wondering what it is like. Nothing peculiar really, just a few changes there and there. Technology has improved from previous years, that’s all I can say about it, but there is one major change in the teaching-system. We no longer are taught by human-beings, but by Artificial Intelligence, which, honestly, is not as brilliant as you might think and here I am going to explain why, so put on your safety belts, hence we are ready to take off. So, most of you would think “Oh but it’ll be great with robots instead of human-beings! They won’t give us that much homework!” and I’m going to stop you right there. Unfortunately, homework it’s still a pretty big deal and it hasn’t decreased at all, the tables flipped and there we ended up with even more homework than you would expect. Yes, you heard me. EVEN MORE HOMEWORK. Horrendous right? And that’s just one of the MANY disadvantages of A.I instead of teachers. For example, you haven’t understood a certain thing in class and you really wish to ask “the teacher” to explain it one more time. And here goes nothing. It’s only you, wasting your breath just for asking a question which is never going to be answered, but on the other hand, if we only pretend to work and mind our own business, the so-called-teachers will let you be. But worse, whenever we are given tests or exams, the robots are always, at every second as you write down on that piece of paper, you can feel their intense staring, thinking that you would copy from your colleagues. It’s dreadful. I wish I could go back in the past and enjoy life as it used to be, with human teachers guiding your steps and helping you build your future, brick by brick, dream after dream.

37

A N A A N G H E L / 7E

by Ana Anghel 7E


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

The greatness of teachers A L E X I A H A G I U / 8C

by Alexia Hagiu 8C Will children still need teachers by 2100? Who will teach them? If kids will be taught in 2100 by robots, I think that the kids will be bored if the robot isn't programmed to make learning fun. Also the robots will be connected to the internet and show children a lot of useful facts and interesting things such as space and many interesting places on earth.I think that by that time humans will have invented holograms and that robots will be using them in class to show the children all of the wonders of the world in 3-D. In my opinion, that will make learning more interesting. Also robots and machines don't have human emotions so they can't really connect with the student like with the internet, because they should help them and understand them if they have questions about the lesson. The human mind isn't perfect and fast like the Artificial Intelligence robots and maybe, in the future, technology will control us and we won't want that to happen, instead we'd prefer a normal teacher that we all know and love. At the same time, I think that a teacher can do what robots do too. They can also make learning fun if they want to and teach kids a myriad of interesting things. Maybe they're not smarter than a robot but they have human emotions and can understand their students and help them. In conclusion, I reckon that human teachers will not be replaced in 2100 either because we will not be able to endow robots with what makes human beings great, feelings. In the absence of feelings, robots will remain useful machines but will never elevate to the importance and the greatness of teachers.

38


ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

Robot teachers, a dream or a nightmare?

What would happen if teachers would be replaced by robots? It’s an interesting question, however it’s a real situation too. The present day human is surrounded by technology. Electric fridges, mobile phones, laptops etc. are all examples of the human’s dependence on technology. In Japan, some hotel receptionists are actually robots. So what would happen if teachers would be robots? First of all, schools or universities would not need to pay salaries to teachers, because they would be robots. The people would just program the robots to do the teaching job in a school. People who want to work with students and teach them would be left without jobs because robots would be taking their place. Joblessness is a worldwide problem, and robots teaching students would only increase this. Secondly, what would happen if a robot will run out of batteries in the middle of a lesson? Children would go home without their lesson learned, because the robot stopped teaching. It would also take time to charge the robot. Humans instead have an infinite potential. This means that humans can always teach. Thirdly, a robot would send your results in a test automatically, without having to wait days to see your mark. A robot would grade you by your activity in class, while a human teacher would grade you by your level of understanding. Robots will judge you by how you do in class, not by what your level is. Furthermore, the class would be a total chaos. The robot doesn’t know how to deal with students. It doesn’t know how to comfort a student if something bad happened to the student. It doesn’t know how to confront and/or punish a student if he does something mischievous. It doesn’t know what to do in case of a medical emergency, or in a general bad situation. It doesn’t know the best for a student. It doesn’t know how to reason and think logically. It just wouldn’t be able to control a class, let alone being the head teacher of a class. In conclusion, it would be impractical to have a robot as a teacher, and it wouldn’t be the beneficial for the becoming of a child.

39

A L E X A N D R U D A I A N U /7C

by Alexandru Daianu 7C


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

The aftermath of robots controlling us A L E X A N D R A V A S I L E / 7F

by Alexandra Vasile 7F Artificial Intelligence is a perilous thing. Humans invented it in order to help themselves, but will it really turn against us one day? And what if teachers were replaced by robots? Will it affect us or will it help us learn how to think for ourselves in order to gain more knowledge? To my mind, no matter how hard scientists an inventors try, they will never be able to attain their biggest goal, creating a robot which will be able to express human feelings perfectly. In a world where young people are retreating more and more into virtual unreality, the teaching profession has become more important than it ever was. It is teaching that keeps it real – teaching that keeps young people alive. It’s the talk of the town – when you say the word “future”, you hear “robots”. Artificial intelligence is rapidly growing, and that fear of losing your job to technology has become very real. Therefore, we should try to maintain the balance between Artificial Intelligence and human beings, although people are snowed under with other responsibilities and think that other jobs are better and more well- paid, because the aftermath of letting robots control us might be dreadful.

40


ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

Teaching without teachers, a dystopia?

Technology has been evolving up to the point where nowadays we find ourselves surrounded by all sorts of robots, machines or brainless metal contraptions equipped with software capable of answering any questions. This is what we call Artificial Intelligence, also known as AI. People in the past have imagined that technology may evolve, but not to such an extent that teachers could ever be replaced by it. Never have I thought of this. Could it be a lucrative change or an utter disaster? Have you ever thought of going to school and being welcomed by a robot instead of seeing your teacher’s familiar face? As a rule of thumb, I always think about the ins and outs of every single thing. The first thought that crossed my mind was that robots must be lacking the ability to feel emotions and therefore empathy. Artificial intelligence hasn’t got any common grounds with owing a heart. For one thing, a human teacher can successfully help improve the level of knowledge that brings about a bad mark. Long story short, I believe that AI. is becoming increasingly popular, considering the number of users and the impact it has on our daily lives and activities.

41

A D R I A N O E F T I M E S C U / 7D

by Adriano Eftimescu 7D


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

Devoid of spirit in a world of robot teachers I L I N C A S T O I A N / 7B

by Ilinca Stoian 7B Even if, nowadays most of the jobs require technological skills, human teachers are indispensable for several reasons. Human teachers have the capability to create a safe place where students feel welcomed, protected and cherished for their uniqueness. A good teacher is not only defined by his/her knowledge, but also by their capacity to embellish spirits and to elevate. They can empathize with students, so they can tell when someone needs to be saved from the claws of depression or mediocrity itself. Therefore, teachers are the counsellors carrying the torches in the darkest times, disguised angels who show us the silver lining in every cloud. Robot teachers incapability of encouraging the students to develop their independent thinking leads to the suppression of their imagination. An immediate consequence would be that the number of innovations would drastically diminish, sentencing our creativity to a morose imprisonment. Therefore, mankind, as we know it, revolutionary, visionary and creative, would stumble and stagnate. Communication, critical thinking, collaboration and problem-solving can be way better be stimulated by human teachers. They can explain concepts by means of their real life experiences which make the lectures extremely captivating and enchanting for students. Even if humans are more error prone, they can teach students abilities beyond robots’ strong database: human values. At the end of the day, both social skills and knowledge matter, so technology is useful for the education process, but it definitely should not replace human teachers for us not to lose the one thing that makes shine brighter than any star ... our humanity, that mix of supreme kindness, sheer generosity and adamant ONENESS.

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

Teachers are amazing

Teachers are amazing, but what if they were robots? It was night. I was going to sleep after I watched a film about robots taking over the world. I laid on the bed and closed my eyes. I woke up and went on with my morning routine. I went to my first class which was my favorite, English with Miss Adela. When the bell rang, the teacher came in to. She started to hug us before she began teaching, like she always does. When she hugged me, I had a strange feeling, her skin was cold like ice. After class, I talked to other teachers, they gave me the same feeling. I asked one of the teachers if something was wrong and she told me that all the teachers were a copy of the real teachers, they were robots. I went to the bathroom to cry, but I remembered from the film I saw last night that if you ask robots stupid questions, they will be destroyed. I told my friends about this and they helped me ask the robots bad questions. We destroyed all the robots and I woke up again in my bedroom. Fortunately, it had all been nothing but a nightmare.

43

F A T I M A B U L U T / 8F

by Fatima Bulut 8F


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

Robots as teachers? Not such a good idea... A L E X A N D R U B E B I A / 7B

by Alexandru Bebia 7B In the future, everything might be replaced by A.I. Many jobs might disappear and also other professions might appear. But, with the advancement that happens every day in the technology field, robots or artificial intelligence would replace the jobs that people have. It is safe to say that professions like the workers in the factories or the public transport drivers are going to disappear, given the fact that in many countries robots are already “stealing� people’s jobs. Also, more and more companies invest in factories controlled by artificial intelligence, with only a few people still working there, for example to program those robots. But the real question could be: But what about teachers? Well, everyone is wondering if they are going to be replaced or not. Many people might think that it is going to be better if the teachers would disappear and be replaced by robots. But I have a different opinion. Teachers have a distinct characteristic of sense of humour and not only. Some of us may befriend with teachers or create connections with them. Not only that, but some of the students use to negotiate with their teachers about their marks from a test to change it into a better one, by making projects or work more than other pupils. Having a trip with a robot would also be pretty boring. The robots could be very strict and not let the children have fun. They could also give some pretty bad sanctions to the kids who do not respect their rules. When being in school, the students would feel like being in prison. In a nutshell, I think that having robots as our teachers would not be a really good idea considering the arguments I have written above.

44


ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

Our world one year from now I wrote when my thoughts became too confusing to decipher. When life got a little out of hand. When choices became burdens. And dreams blend too swiftly into reality. When our world was nothing short of a S.F. movie and slowly but surely uncertainty engulfed each of our minds. I wrote a list. A list of 25 things that I ought to do when COVID-19 was no longer a threat. Some were ludicrously insane and others plainly ubiquitous. But they were all things that at one point or another had undoubtedly run feverously through the layers that painted my inpatient quarantined mind. Now, a year later, each of those 25 checkpoints written in blank ink acquaint a precious time that will forever accompany me on this adventure, we refer to as life. Each of them held blissfully frozen in the depths of the chamber of memories. Go for a run in the earliest hours of the day: You know that moment when it isn’t night time nor is it morning. When even the busiest of boulevards seem deserted and you can’t find more than 4 or 5 people on the whole street. It almost feels like the world isn’t real. All the purples and pinks dancing on the dimly lit sky, as the empty stage gradually fills with actors and sounds. And you are the lucky one who got to watch it all unfold. That was the first checkpoint I managed to cross. Let the menacing rain drench you like the prospect of catching a cold doesn’t exist: I vividly remember when me and my best friend were in the park, swinging with the light breeze, talking about nothings that meant the world to us. It all started with a single drop that landed on my head, see that’s the thing about rain it only takes a drop to cause a storm. After that, one thing led to another until due to the violent rain we weren’t able to hear each other properly. But we didn’t mind that one single bit. We just lay on the hard ground as it devoured everything in its path. The contrast of the warm weather brought upon the middle of august and the cold unforgiving rain was what really made us bask in the feeling of invincibly. Needless to say we were both coughing and sneezing the next day.

45

E M I L I A P O P A / 7F

by Emilia Popa 7F


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

E M I L I A P O P A / 7F

Be in two places at once: This one here was hard to pull off. I had shared the list with mum after I first wrote it, subsequently meaning that she knew about my rather peculiar plans, so imagine my surprise when I get forced out the apartment door and buckled into the car, and each time I would pray for information about where we were heading my mother’s only answer was “checkpoint number 3”. After a roughly 2 hour drive we came to a stop. Getting out of car and into the brisk early summer weather, I slammed the car door shut, and followed behind my uncharacteristically giddy and secretive parent. Only when she started positioning me on something that resembled a line, did I take the bright approach to examine my surroundings, coming to the realisation that I was at the border between Romania and Bulgaria, right on the divining line. Hence the marking of ‘being in two places at once’. Do something spontaneous: I’m a tortured soul, in the way that overthinking might as well be my PHD, so this checkpoint was way outside of my comfort zone. But at last this was one of the most important parts of this list, doing things that I will forever remember. It was a lousy Sunday afternoon, my friend and I had spent our day browsing through books, in our all-time favourite library, when she came up with the idea that would not only help us achieve one of the points but utterly and irreversibly embarrass ourselves. We had to run around the library and give random people a compliment to brighten up their day, whoever was to compliment more people in the span of 40 minutes won. Thus it began, almost an hour filled with giggles, smiles and frantic running. Although we encountered a few bumps down the road, such as tripping over and getting yelled at by an employee, it will always remain as one of my favourite days. In the end we came to a tie, neither of us losing as the number of compliments given was soon to be forgotten...

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

Let go of all my worries: Again with the 5-person group consisted of my not blood related family, and rather a silly, distorted chosen one, I managed to cut off the last of the checkmarks. Each of us with a myriad of papers, we used to write some of the things that seemed to never fully leave our minds, the ones that weighed heavy on our shoulders and sometimes worried us to no end. A bonfire that waltzed through the deafening quiet night, was assembled in the middle of out make shift circle. Folding the papers that now held to our biggest concerns, we counted down from 25, throwing each dooming piece of paper in to the souring fire. Finally letting go. It’s been a year and even if the world might have not changed a whole deal, I’m sure that each and every person got to learn something new about themselves during the quarantine and after it ended. Weather it was their priorities, the people they truly missed or a quality they never knew they had. Personally I learned that even if the world is literally or hypothetically speaking paused, we don’t get the privilege to stop with it. We take it day by day, minute by minute, time by time and moment by moment, careful not to lose a single precious breath.

47

E M I L I A P O P A / 7F

Stargaze with my closest friends: The peaceful evening that engraved itself in my memory, will never cease to bring a smile to my face. Me and 4 of the people that greatly impact my life each and every day, my closest friends, settled on a tall hill. With a thermos full of boiling hot tea and numerous bags of unhealthy snacks we went through a sleepless night riffled with lighthearted jokes and deep conversations, we spent it looking at the bright shining stars. For one whole night we all felt infinite.


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

Our world after the pandemic D A V I D I O S E F / 8F

by David Iosef 8F I hate thinking, still this is what I do every day. It’s the same with this competition, it’s all about thinking, so I’ll do what I’m best at. I’ll think. The world is a strange, sad, and quite a beautiful place. It’s a precious sensitive gem. One that us humans are destroying every day which is understandable since humans are limited selfish beings. Before diving into my philosophies and ideas, I would like to say that this essay is written corresponding to the masses, to the average human. My predictions of the future are based on previous pandemics and how people have reacted to them. My first logical prediction based on facts goes something like this: From a realistic viewpoint, I don’t see anything special happening to 2021. Everything will return to normal. History will repeat itself. Six months from 28th of May 2020, if another wave isn’t going to have hit, the economy will be back up on its feet and if another wave does arrive the economy will just take six more months to recover. Six months because that’s what the experts calculated regarding previous worldwide epidemics/pandemics. I could easily let my imagination fly and say that in 2021 most of the people on earth might perish leaving only an x number of survivors who desperately try to revive society while encountering many obstacles or that the world will become a better place, that people will realize what they are doing, and come together being altruistic and wonderful as if life was a fairy tale, yet I am not. It’s childish and foolish. People tend to despise change. Or, actually, maybe this pandemic will have hurt them so much that they’ll convert? Wrong! As I mentioned before, people do not change, at least not in a single generation. It’s pretty straight forward from my point of view. Socially speaking, people will just be the same. People will still interact. It’s exactly as Aristotle once said; “Man is by nature a social animal”. But that does not mean there are no exceptions. Some people might switch to working from home, online, or some might not want to engage with other people until no more are present, but we aren’t talking about minorities. Regarding the average, “normal population” I don’t see them as being affected because humans are human.

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

I see this essay as a mirror reflecting every kids’ personality and their opinions on life. So in my case, I see life as being as meaning-less as something can be and I don’t believe in anything. I just experience life as it is. I do not know if there is a God who decides if I go to hell or heaven, if I become a leopard after I die or if I just end up nothing. I’ve mentioned this in some of my past poems. It’s my philosophy but, unfortunately, I’m part of the minorities so this can’t really be applied to how people will think in 2021. But at the end of the day, I am not a philosopher nor a scientist, I’m just an almost 15-year old selfish, egoistic and intelligent kid speaking about the meaning of life and what the world would be like one year from now so don’t expect my predictions to be 100% accurate or my philosophies to match everybody’s opinion.

49

D A V I D I O S E F / 8F

I do believe that certain people might develop applications or gadgets that could help the human race in future pandemics. I am able to make this statement since I have an example in my family.


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

Our world 50 years on C O N O N O V M A T E I /5G

by Cononov Matei 5G I would start our discussion about what will happen 50 years from now with the beauty of our dreams. Everyone should have his own dreams especially 50 years from now on, when technology will be at its highest level. Even if you are in a wretched situation, deep down, you still have some dreams of your own. But these dreams do not materialize if you just want it to happen. You need to believe in what you wish for and do something for it to occur. If you don’t do that, your dreams will not come true as Eleanor Roosevelt said: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” The future will be different, in a way that we cannot even think about now. Our lives will meet many good changes. Some of them would be in technology, healthcare, environment and education. The changes in our lives will never be easy and many people see this as an aberration, but we need to keep in mind that the place where our society has arrived these days is an aftermath of many other changes made by the industrial and social revolution during the ages. The key word is “ADAPT”!

50


ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

A day in the future

I remember waking up one fine morning, and admiring the sun that was trying to enter my room thru the window, the birds that were chirping. I could hear my mum that was making breakfast downstairs. It was that kind of day when you just want to stay outside, on the grass, and admire the beauty of the nature. I finally hopped off the bed, and went downstairs. I hate it when my mum wants me to go to the basement in the morning, when it’s still cold, and grab some honey. I usually just take it and hurry back up, but that morning was special, and I had the feeling that something was pulling me to the wall. When I got closer, I somehow saw a light coming from inside the wall. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I tried to ignore it, but when I turned my back to the wall, I heard a door opening, and immediately turned back. It was right there, a door that I’ve never seen in my life, I didn’t even know it existed before. Something kept telling me to go and enter the room that was behind that door. I hesitated, but eventually did what I was told to do. There was a small old room, that looked like it had been there for ages. There was one thing that grabbed my attention, and it looked like a box. I opened it and, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There was literally a strange machine right in front of my eyes. There was an old almost rotten button, and I felt the urge to press it, and, at first, it didn’t seem like anything has changed, but after I went back to the basement, I realized that it was different. It seemed to look more like a luxurious room with an expensive chandelier on the ceiling. I was starting to panic, so I went upstairs to my mum, but only she was not there, and the entire house was changed too. There were robots in every room, that were cleaning the house, washing the dishes and so on. I didn’t know what to do, I thought that I was dreaming. After looking around I saw 2 little girls with their mother relaxing in my room. I soon discovered that that was me from the future, and those were my kids.

51

Y A S M I N A D I N C A /8C

by Yasmina Dinca 8C


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

Y A S M I N A D I N C A /8C

It still freaked me out a little bit. Then I realized that somehow I may have travelled in time. I looked around me until I saw on a display the date and time. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was 25TH of May, 2050. I felt scared and anxious. Then I went out and spent my day exploring the city and examining the changes that have been made. The streets were up in the air, jammed with flying cars, and people seemed to disappear in front of my eyes. I realized that they were teleporting themselves whenever they wanted. I lost track of time, but as much as I was mesmerized by the future I still wanted to go back to my old house. I had to find a solution. How could I succeed in doing that? A lot of questions rushed in my mind, I was afraid that I could have been discovered and be trapped in the future. That has definitely been the most exhilarating and transforming experience of my entire existence.

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

My dreams of a future world

Life in fifty years will be a lot different then it is now. In most people's eyes they see the world having flying cars and floating houses but I also believe the world will be more eco-friendly, organic and more technology evolved. Lives will be better saved by a highly developed medicine science, let it be humans or even animals, thus with new living styles, and hoping horizonts. By 2061 technology will have greatly improved developing new communication possibilities with holograms and largely use of robots. With a rise in population, the environment is in constant need of a solution for housing. Everyone begins to leave the cities and moves to the forests or other spots in nature. The homes will mainly consist of tree houses. They will be made of solid reflection glass so one can see out, without being seen from outside. Also, there will be clever heating and cooling solutions using the solar energy. There will be no reason to cut down trees or corrupt animal habitats. Children will start school around the ages of 2 to 3 years old. Teachers will appear as holograms interacting with kids in all teaching aspects. Computers will be the main resource that anyone will be using. The students will get their assignments through e- mail and kids will go to school 4 days a week. There will be robots that clean our house and do our homework. In the future I see the world coming together as a single continent because of the global connection as well as the use of a single language. I also think that new species on animals will appear, books will no longer exist in their actual format, they will be pdfs on our tablets, phones or laptops. People will use electric cars, planes and trains so that the environment will regenerate and animal habitats saved. I truly hope that humanity will be also able to solve the issue of traveling to other planets and why not, being able to colonize them. Great challenges stay ahead of my generation, so all these dreams may come alive.

53

A N C A M A R I A O N I T A / 5G

by Anca Maria Onita 5G


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

The inventions of the future B O G D A N D A M I A N / 5E

by Bogdan Damian 5E Years ago, the technology we are having today could only just be seen in a science- fiction film or series. A good example can be found in Star Trek, where the automatic doors were firstly introduced, and at the time the invention we see everywhere did not even exist! One invention which would probably exist are robots. It is a common subject in apocalyptic movies and books, in which the world is controlled by artificial intelligence. The fact that many employees will lose their jobs is real, because having robots working is much simpler and more profitable. But there is one problem, the world’s chess champion cannot beat the computer at the board game, however the champion can easily win a game against the inventor of the computer chess game. I think the great minds should find a solution to limit the capacity of robot’s knowledge, preventing the worse. Space journeys are possible, but the price of them is exhausting and it also takes a lot of time. Even if our star-ships will be able to perform at the speed of light, it will take a long time to arrive in another system. But if we look back in history, we can see the difference between the ages. For our ancestors what we achieved would seem impossible. That is what is giving me hope we can travel among the stars. Another thing which will change is war. From the first use of the catapult until today, the concept of warfare changed a lot. As I have seen in some games and films, probably the next decade, war will bring lesser casualties. Virtual reality will be used, and the soldiers will control robots with high durability and offensive power. The future is awaiting us, with glory and pleasures. Space travel or modern warfare, technology will always surprise us in doubting ways. In my opinion, even if technology will nearly control our behavior, we should protect our entities, rights, hopes and dreams.

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

Our core values by Dorotheea Stejar 6F

They are rules. But they are not the kind we despise, the “made to be broken” type. These values are rules we follow involuntarily, which determine our way of life, our choices, and, in the end, the future of our society. The widely known ancient Greek philosopher by the name of Aristotle once claimed that, “educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” This statement conveys a quite elaborate meaning, which many don’t seem to fully grasp. That it’s no use having an outstanding logical comprehension of the surrounding world if your emotional intelligence is not as cultivated. Experiences affecting us psychologically rather than physically cause the human brain to automatically decide whether the happenings were beneficial or not. It creates the basic concept of good and bad. This is where the previous talk about core values starts to make sense. This concept is solely mental, and we consider things good or bad according to the principles we imposed for ourselves. To conclude, I believe one of the most significant factors that caused us to evolve are core values. And not only did they lead how we wrote the history of humankind until now, but they will continue to forever.

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D O R O T H E E A S T E J A R / 6D

The disputed question of whether humans are animals or not brings some of us to wonder this: What makes us human? The common answer to this is that the difference between us and other species is mainly our intellect. What I fail to understand is why we are satisfied with mainly, why we don’t delve deeper into this subject. What brought us so far, apart from our natural survival instinct, is our wish to evolve. Our intellectual superiority in comparison to other species is one of the many factors that aided this constant need for evolution. It isn’t our logical thinking alone that differentiates us from animals, but our emotional impulses, our ability to subconsciously generate a set of principles we follow, as well. These principles we call core values. But what are they, really, setting aside fancy words and complicated explanations?


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

The fence by Emilia Popa 7F E M I L I A P O P A / 7F

There is this one fence hid in the darkest corner of the garden, it separates our house from the neighbors, its tall and lean, made out of some sort of concrete. I’ve acquired quite a liking toward it; it’s a perfect place to just think. To merely lose yourself in the chain of thought. The thing that thrills the most is that you never really know if you are going to fall, or in which direction. It gives this sort of…control. To be taller than everything that surrounds you, to no longer be faced with curiosity but to finally see what’s on the other side and to be able to choose your own faith. Maybe it’s just for us ones who feel like they aren’t in control or maybe everyone secretly longs for that sense of utter freedom. The metaphor of a fence is just as powerful as the real deal. There is a great fence between dreams and reality, between good and bad, between darkness and light, there is a fence between freedom and enslavement, between future and past, between every soul and mind. We are always just a fence away from falling into one extremity or another. One fence. The at most border that keeps us at bay from ultimately destroying ourselves. But it is and forever will be, only one fence. Easy to lose balance from and swing too hard one way, and the destruction that it makes, never suffices to the time that it took to fall. The fence is more of a line, a grey area if you will, a bridge that lets us acquire the smallest illusion of balance. But in the end like all other things in our lives, that fence is nothing more but an object until you give it a bigger meaning. Screams are nothing more than sounds. Sharp spikes are nothing more but branches. And creeping thoughts are nothing more than whispers.

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

The first day of the life of a superhero One day I woke up to find myself hanging sideways from the wall next to my bed. Frightened, I tried to walk away but my hand wouldn't move. It was stuck to the wall. After several minutes of trying to unstick my hand, I finally managed to somewhat take it off, when suddenly, I just fell down on my bed. Testing to see if it was still working, I induced myself the idea that I was just daydreaming and I left to school. In the first class, English, we had a hard test. I finished it just before the bell rang, but the paper got stuck to my hand. I couldn't get it off and the teacher thought I was mocking her so I got sent to the head teacher’s office to receive my unfair warning. Being overly mad, I went home and tried to not touch anything. When I finally arrived home, the big wooden door got stuck to my right hand and unknowingly, I tore it in half. Scared but a little bit excited, I exited the building and tried climbing it using my new discovered power. My plan worked, until my right hand stopped sticking to the wall. Suddenly, my left hand slipped and I fell onto a big pile of trash. Hurt and not knowing what to do, I put on a pair of gloves and started making up a story to tell my mother. Little did I know that that was the first day of the life of A Superhero.

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M I H A I D U M I T R E S C U / 8B

by Mihai Dumitrescu 8B


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

We finally realised that we were completely wrong M I H A I D U M I T R E S C U / 8B

by Mihai Dumitrescu 8B One day, me and my friends started skipping classes that we thought were unimportant. We used to take long walks, play basketball or even mock the homeless people sitting on the benches of the park while we should have attended different classes. Having a system that records our absences, our head teacher quickly noticed our habit and we were called in his office. He was disappointed with our behavior, so his voice was deep while he told us this: "So you don't want to attend all of the classes... I'll show you what life looks like with a poor education!". He clapped twice and I suddenly found myself sharing a bench with my friends in the park we were going to, while skipping classes. Our clothes were torn up and used. We stood up with a weird feeling and started walking towards my house. On the way, we saw a large window that acted like a mirror in the bright sun of the afternoon. We looked old and tired. Scared, I looked at my face only to find an old, worn out visage. A little shook we continued walking towards my house. When I knocked at the door and my mother saw me, she screamed fearfully and called the police. She didn't recognize me or any of my friends. While running away as fast as our old bodies allowed us to, I finally realized what had happened. Our head teacher had turned us into the homeless people we used to mock every day. Suddenly, I heard a high pitched voice yelling at me. It was my mother telling me to wake up and do my homework. The next day at school I told my friends what I have dreamed about and they whispered to me, in a frightened voice, that they had had the same dream. While roaming the corridors of the school, we walked past the head teacher and he smiled at us in a way that confirmed our fears. What we had experienced was not a dream. We finally realized that we were completely wrong.

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

The most transforming experience of my entire existence One day I woke up to find myself hanging sideways from the wall next to my bed. Frightened, I tried to walk away but my hand wouldn't move. It was stuck to the wall. After several minutes of trying to unstick my hand, I finally managed to somewhat take it off, when suddenly, I just fell down on my bed. Testing to see if it was still working, I induced myself the idea that I was just daydreaming and I left to school. In the first class, English, we had a hard test. I finished it just before the bell rang, but the paper got stuck to my hand. I couldn't get it off and the teacher thought I was mocking her so I got sent to the head teacher’s office to receive my unfair warning. Being overly mad, I went home and tried to not touch anything. When I finally arrived home, the big wooden door got stuck to my right hand and unknowingly, I tore it in half. Scared but a little bit excited, I exited the building and tried climbing it using my new discovered power. My plan worked, until my right hand stopped sticking to the wall. Suddenly, my left hand slipped and I fell onto a big pile of trash. Hurt and not knowing what to do, I put on a pair of gloves and started making up a story to tell my mother. Little did I know that that was the first day of the life of A Superhero.

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M I H A I D U M I T R E S C U / 8B

by Mihai Dumitrescu 8B


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

The most transforming experience of my entire existence E M I L I A P O P A / 7F

by Emilia Popa 7F Last year I had the most unforgettable holiday of my life, but that shouldn’t phase me as most of my life is pretty much an enigma itself. My job isn’t as ubiquitous as most, I don’t have regular hours of work and my life is always at risk. Why do I do it? Nothing compares to the feeling of adrenaline and ecstasy that floods your body with every mission. Hello, my name Knox, and I work for a nongovernmental special agency. Last summer I was at this lavish charity ball, it was the pure definition of glitz and glamour. Expensive dresses that drape with sparkle in a waterfall manner and suits that enhance your status just by looking at them. It was one of the most important missions I’ve ever been sent on, we were looking for the “el secreto dentro” a painting from the 15 thousand, that supposedly condones teleportation. The name directly translates to “the secret within”. As I was running down the embellished, hard wood hallway, passing hundreds of marvelous paintings, each protecting their own mischievous secrets. Brynn, my colleague and my childhood best friend, was in front of me sprinting, her heels echoing through the hallways with each step she made, her golden locks floating behind her, as we both frantically searched for the mysterious painting that was about to change our whole life. “Knox, it’s-...it’s h-here” she said, her voice shaking with emotion, as the painting held her in an overwhelming trance. I stopped dead in my tracks as I was faced with one of the, if not the most alluring thing I’ve been faced with, it was as if it was calling for me. Gathering what little strength I had, I put my hand on my ear piece and called for backup. When the SWAT teams arrived, it was time for me to do what I had been trained to my whole life. Brynn turned toward me taking my hand in hers, it was a shocking sight if you happened to stumble upon us, two girls in elegant gowns, tears streaming silently down their face as they prepared for potential death, as they prepared for the world to change and never be the same whole swat teams behind them, all guns pointed toward a painting. Nothing but a simple painting. “Forever” Brynn managed to let out in a shaky voice as she looks at me with her best attempt of a reassuring smile. “And Ever” I said in response in almost a whisper. We then both turned around and walked with anxious steps, going head first into the painting. A simple painting, portraying a carnival, with a carousel in the middle and a full moon in the dark sky shining even brighter than the neon lights scattered through the carnival…

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

The most transforming experience of my entire existence It was a sunny Saturday. I didn’t want to do my homework, so I decided to do research on my favorite subject: outer space. At some point I got really hungry, so I went off my computer just to realised that it was already evening. I went downstairs just to find a mess in the hallway and a letter on the kitchen counter. It was written in some language that I couldn’t understand, but I was devoted in learning about that information. After some time, I found out that it was a language that nobody knew. That really got me thinking. Could it be aliens? Immediately after I speculated that, the letters changed into something I could read. It said that “They” took my mother to test some experiments. I was confused and scared at the same time and I knew that if that was real, my mom was in danger, so I just took off to a location that I’ve found on the letter. There, waiting for me, were indeed some aliens. Honestly, I wasn’t scared. I was impressed. They said that I should get through some tests. They straight forward gave me time travelling powers and said they wanted to test the human race. Firstly, I went to the future. Everything was changed. Then I went to the past to see some old friends. After I returned to the present, they let my mom go without telling a thing. Before I left I asked them what they were testing. They just stood there cold faced and said ‘We tested your intelligence and will. At first we wanted to destroy your planet because we thought that you weren’t that smart to understand some things, but you proved us wrong’. I went home feeling good about myself, but at the same time fatigued. Before I went to bed, I tried my powers one more time and they worked. From that moment I realised that I’m going to have these powers forever. That has definitely been the most exhilarating and transforming experience of my entire existence.

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I N G R I D B A D E T O I U /8C

by Ingrid Badetoiu 8C


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

The year is 2169 by Tripsa Alexandru 6F T R I P S A A L E X A N D R U / 6F

During the Carbocalypse, the greatest minds have created completely replaceable mechanic body parts. The first attempt at creating cyborgs. It took years of practice, but, ultimately, it all came to an end. After the Earth’s resources were drained completely, the only survivors left were experimental cyborgs and the bio-engineered foetuses. This was enough for them to repopulate. Years and years have passed, and they managed to remake a civilized society. Under very short notice, engineers, scientists and even political leaders appeared in this society. They discussed diplomatically and split the land amongst each other. They made nations and empires. Every year they became more intelligent, every year they invented things never to be seen before, but treated like day-to-day objects. You would think that in such a socially and economically evolved Earth there wouldn’t be war. That is where you are wrong. War is in human blood, no matter how many body parts they replaced with insignificant metal. Secretly, the governments were working on super soldiers, a breakthrough made incredibly fast. They sent them outs with no warning and started wars, wars that lasted hundreds of years. The civil families were exterminated like pests, the last thing women, children and men heard were the loud metal clanking of the soldiers in the distance. The beams of red light from their helmets illuminated the dry ground in the wasteland as they marched slowly and impeccably synchronized. They marched and marched, getting commands from their leader every minute. The leadership “fad” became neo-fascism, neo-conservatism, yadda yadda yadda... the point is, they liked invading other countries for their own good, scrapping the civilians like recycled trash. All of the plans quickly ended horribly, as Final War began. A trashy combination of thunderwars, invasions, phony wars, they resulted in the extinction of the Cyborg race. The humans were once again wiped out from their own stupidity, violence and ignorance. When will they learn? Perhaps our next civilized mouse society will indeed learn...

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ISSUE 3

JUNE 2020

The butterfly effect by Tripsa Alexandru 6F

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T R I P S A A L E X A N D R U /6F

It is true to fact that this beautiful world we live in holds no boundaries in order to fascinate us. A curious effect of this “world”, as we call it, is the Butterfly Effect, or the Domino Reaction. This Butterfly Effect is rather a component of life, than a random reaction. If the world wouldn’t react in connections, everything would just be perfect, but that doesn’t make sense. Utopia is called ‘Utopia’ for a reason. Picture a tiny butterfly, flying around in a field. The butterfly roams around and flies towards the opposite direction of the rest of the flower-covered field. It flies, maybe for hours, until it reaches a small, country-side school. The school is situated in a rather poor village, most of the children’s families cannot afford quality medication, therefore, when the curious butterfly entered the class through the small crack in the window, a child sneezed in the air, infecting a small chunk of the air for a matter of seconds, right when the insect flew through it. The butterfly now had bacteria on its fragile wings. It flies out of the school, being overwhelmed by the number of creatures in the building. It flies directly into the nearby flower plantation. It found a big tulip to sit in and tumble around, ultimately infecting the inside of the flower. A swarm of bees started to extract the pollen out of the flowers infecting one another, and then infecting the flower field. The humans that worked there also got sick, infecting the rest of the village, and then cities, through transport, then countries, then the entire world. Soon enough an advanced alien civilization caught interest in the evolved sickness, but after discovering the deadliness of it, they decided to destroy the Earth, and then the whole galaxy, leading to the end of all life. Phew. What about that! Oh.. excuse me. Yes? What? “Butterfly Effect” is used in figurative contexts? Pffff, that’s stupid. No one would think of that. ...Man I get waay too underpaid for this kind of stuff.


JUNE 2020

ISSUE 3

Internet learning by Tripsa Alexandru 6F T R I P S A A L E X A N D R U / 6F

Learning via the internet isn’t consistently effective in all cases, for example it is easier to learn coding languages on the internet, but it isn’t as easy to learn how to play the piano with online tutors. First of all, learning a new language is more or less hard depending on the person, in general, but technically, learning a language could be a bit easier on the internet. Nowadays, people have developed applications and online courses that make learning new languages more fun and better to understand through quality visual apparel, navigation and efficient learning systems. In real life, learning a new language can appear more difficult, especially in educational institutes such as school or college. The main reason for failure in learning languages at school are the amounts of effort and attention that the teachers and the pupils accord to each-other. The problems vary from flawed learning systems to incompetence of the participants. Second of all, regarding learning an instrument, my opinion is that learning an instrument is much easier in real life than online. Online, just like the language learning, there are developed applications and courses that were made for the same purpose: to make learning more interactive and fun, but that isn’t the case for instrument learning. Learning to play an instrument greatly depends on artistic aspiration, which is greatly limited in the online world. Learning art in general obviously requires artistic instruction, something that is better transmitted from person to person, in real life. Other than artistic skills, the technical skills of learning instruments can also be very difficult to learn online. These are things that are the best learnt from humans, who have emotion and passion. In real life, a music teacher is specialized and qualified to teach people how to correctly play instruments. Either with a public or private tutor, sometimes teachers create more private relations with their student, showing care for their success, which greatly improves performance. My point is, that internet learning can be a great advantage when learning more technical things. But some things depend more on the human nature, and can be very hard to learn online. Finally, my opinion is that learning online can be helpful, but at the same time, it can be a disadvantage, depending on what you want to learn. Accepting that nothing is perfect, and everything has their tops and flops is extremely important, it is something that you cannot really survive without in society.

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OFERTĂ EDUCAȚIONALĂ Liceul Teoretic Internațional de Informatică București oferă următoarele beneficii pentru anul școlar 2020 - 2021: DIGITAL CLASSROOM Din anul școlar 2019 - 2020, manuale școlare au fost înlocuite cu tablete, implementarea bazându-se pe noua rețea de internet wireless a școlii. Elevii au acces la un volum impresionant de informații și la căi infinite de exprimare a creativității. 8 clase de a V-a (profil matematică-intensiv, profil englezăintensiv) Elevii învaţă 3 limbi străine: Lb. Engleză, Lb. Turcă, Lb. Franceză/Lb. Germană Clase cu 20 de elevi Program: Luni: 8:30-15:20; Marţi-Vineri: 8:30-14:25 Pregătiri suplimentare pentru Testele Naţionale Îndrumarea copiilor spre concursuri şi olimpiade Ofertă cluburi şi activităţi extracurriculare variate Profesori dedicaţi, cu experienţă Comunicarea permanentă cu părinţii Asistent medical permanent Masă şi transport



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