‘Write the opening to a dystopian novel where you imagine
your school many years in the future’
It wasn’t a surprise to anyone when it happened. The world
had slowly become so artificial that it was almost like natural progression for
students to not only be graded on their intelligence but also on their looks.
It started with the appearance ratings from 1 to 10 whispered between friends
and giggled over. This led to modelling, beauty pageants and apps that allowed
you to publicly rate people that you’ve dated. Until society reached a point where just as letters
were stamped onto our brain capacity, numbers were burned onto our skin.
When I went back to school a few days ago for research
purposes, the outside hadn’t changed much, but the atmosphere was completely
different. I felt like I was being judged the second I walked through those
towering black gates, that eyes were scanning me from my head to my toes in
order to place me in some messed up social ranking. Immediately I felt
extremely self-conscious and wrapped my arms around my waist as if to hide away
people’s looks.
But what shocked me the most was how students were taught. Lessons
like PE and PSHE were now more like ‘Muscle Building’ and ‘How to wear make-up’
lessons and alongside students’ target exam grade was a target appearance grade.
As well as this, some teachers have been replaced by YouTube videos and online
lessons. This shocked me in a way that I hadn’t expected, because the concept
of being judged on your appearance would have caused riots in 2015, but here in
2025 it doesn’t seem odd at all, as if it had always happened. Maybe it had,
and we’d just never noticed it before.
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