CH 44

New Program

Translated by Dawn

New Program

The homeroom teacher was an intelligent-looking woman with her hair pulled back in a bun and glasses.

When she arrived at the teacher’s table, she proceeded to speak in a clerical manner.

“Congratulations on your enrollment. For the next three years, you will study at this school. As you all know, this National Academy of Extraordinary Power is a newly established school that only children with supernatural abilities can attend.”

Shisae raised her hand.

“Yessssss. Why isn’t it called a supernatural ability academy if people with supernatural abilities go there?”

“Because the name “Supernatural Ability Academy” is not a good name for an academy, and there were opinions that the name sounds too strange.”

–The same as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Department of Extraordinary Ability, huh…

I realized that names were important.

“However, even though you will be studying, there is a huge gap in your academic ability. Since all the supernatural ability students have passed the exam, there is a wide variation in academic ability. By the way, as for the results of [All students’ examinations], you all range from first place at the top to 280,000th at the bottom.”

The fact that the number one ranked student was in this school caused an uproar in the classroom.

The fact that the number one ranked student was in this classroom caused an uproar.

The first place meant that this student was a brilliant person who reigned at the top of 300,000 high school first-year students nationwide.

They must have alien-like brains that I could never match.

“Because we can’t set a fair class level in this situation, we’re going to put you on a certain program.”

–Program?

Everyone looked at each other and their neighbors or tilted their heads.

“This is the first school in history to be newly established with only students with abilities, so it serves as a test school that serves as a model case for many different types of schools.”

–Are we guinea pigs?

“You may be thinking, ‘Are we guinea pigs?’”

–Teacher is a mind reader!?

Although it was unlikely since the birth of the ability was 18 years ago, but, I thought so for a moment.

“This is also for everyone’s benefit. Or would you have preferred the old school with its black school rules?”

I had never seen more than 30 heads bobbing at the same time. I didn’t want that either.

“That’s right. To put it simply, I’m going to ask you all to start over from the first grade.”

–What?

“During the first semester, students will acquire the academic skills of an eighth-grader, and during the second semester, they will acquire the academic skills of a ninth-grader. Also, the learning methods will be somewhat different.”

While we were puzzled, the teacher opened the MR screen in front of all of us.

Today, in any school, students’ devices were forced to connect to the school’s local network while they were on school premises.

So, in this way, the school could forcibly deploy the school’s communication and class data.

Showing us the curriculum of the class, the teacher began to explain it fluently.

“We make students write more than they read. And we correct them thoroughly. The traditional method may improve reading skills, but it does not improve writing skills. In addition, while we leave modern literature as it is, we remove works by great writers of the Meiji and Taisho eras, and focus on things that will be used in society, such as contracts.”

Indeed, apart from works of the Showa and Heisei eras, it would seem to make little sense to read a novel from the Meiji era, which was different in terms of its wording.

“Also, Kanji characters teach the history of their origins. People remember kanji more easily when there is an episode involved. Also, we prioritize those with a small number of strokes and those that can be used as materials for Kanji characters. For example, [So(総)] in Sogo(総合) is a combination of Ito (糸), Kou (公), and Kokoro (心).”

As it was said, just the mere sight of a kanji with many strokes would cause a person to reject it. However, if one looked closely, they were nothing more than a combination of simple kanji characters.

“Math is all about basic skills. If you do a lot of math, like the multiplication table, you will be able to get the answer easily. People who don’t understand math start the next lesson without understanding the basics, so it sounds like a curse.”

This reminded me of something I saw on the news a while back.

As a matter of fact, it was said that there were a lot of people out there who went on to middle school without knowing what fractions and decimals meant. Maybe such people are the ones who don’t like math.

“History is not taught at the elementary school level but is taught carefully over the course of three years. We will teach it thoroughly and step by step, starting from the Jomon period. History is a story; it has a past and a future. The mistake of the traditional learning of history is to skip over periods in the middle of the story.”

I understood that very well.

It was the same in elementary school and junior high school.

When the Edo period ended, we skipped the Meiji-Taisho period and suddenly entered the Showa period. And all of a sudden, it was explained to us without us even knowing what happened in that period.

In other words, it was like having the readers skip the second part and read only the first and third parts of a 20-year-long manga series. It would be natural for them not to understand.

“And then there’s English. This is more a matter of awareness than a learning method. Everyone who can speak English sees English as a [dialect].”

–Dialect? What does that mean?

“Now, everyone, look at your hands.”

Everyone raised their right hand and looked at their own hand in view.

“When people say “hand,” you think of that. But when you say “hand,” you also think of that, don’t you? This is because we recognize hand and hand as a dialect of hand. Even in short sentences, there are English words such as ‘Hey pass,’ ‘Come on,’ ‘Good luck,’ and ‘Clap your hands’ that make sense without Japanese translation. However, people who cannot speak English translate English into Japanese and then recognize the meaning. This puts a burden on the brain, and since they do not recognize it as a language in the first place, they have to think about it as if they were solving a mathematical equation every time.”

–Hmmm, I wonder about this. I understand if she says so, but still, it would be unreasonable to think of English as a dialect.

As for English, it seemed a bit difficult.

After that, the teacher went on to teach about how to study each subject and how to change one’s mindset.

“That’s all for the explanation. However, I don’t think you need to review the first and second-grade levels of elementary school. So I will give you homework. The first-grade level study should be completed today at the entrance ceremony, and a second-grade level study should be completed tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, on Saturday and Sunday. Next Monday, we will start studying at the elementary school [third-grade level]. However, we will finish that in three days as well.”

–Three days?

Studying for the third grade is easy.

But could one complete a year’s worth of study in three days? I was worried not about the difficulty level, but about the time and quantity.

“Now, I will send you the homework file.”

In the lower right corner of my vision, the receiving lamp glowed. I opened the file, and inside was the homework data for each subject.

“The math section includes 1,000 arithmetic problems, and for kanji, you can use a small number of strokes from the list of common kanji, and create examples of each of the 600 characters that make up the material for the kanji.”

–1000 questions!?

The numbers were so startling that I looked up reflexively.

“Arithmetic takes less than 3000 seconds, or an hour if you solve each problem in 3 seconds. But you will acquire the ability to calculate at the level of a spinal reflex. In Kanji, too, you will acquire the ability to imagine sentences at once. Let me tell you, no, forget it. After all, these are first-grade and second-grade level problems. All you need is motivation. Well, that concludes today’s homeroom. See you all in three days.”

The teacher made half-moons behind his glasses.

The smile she showed for the first time was a bit meaningful.