Slag School

Slag Schools were the institutions where most slags were trained from age five to age fifteen.

The slag ethos

Slags held U-jobs, that is jobs where they remained unseen to their hanyo masters. Since they had very little contact iwth the hanyos, most slags believed the lies fed to them by the reality shows, romance serials and trashy novels provided to them by their corporation, which painted the hanyos as romantic dreamboats belonging to a realm too rarefied to ever notice a humble slag. Their one escape from the drudgery of their lives was marriage, which by 2050 had become a one- or two year contract with Human Resources, whereby you were given a 'husband' for three months, then you got two weeks in a company flat in a fake plastic domesticity while they implanted a fetus and tested it for viability, then you spent nine months in a MAKER ORB till the baby was born. If it was a girl, you went back with her to spend a year with her in the Baby Barracks, after which you had to go back to work and never saw her again. If it was a boy, you also never saw the child, but you were retained in a 'milking room' for year with nothing to do but listen to your baby's cries on your headphones and lactate for him. These boys were called Orbisons, and because they had no father they were lower status than the Dynasts, but in practice they tended to have more power because their lack of patronage forced them to learn skills and look out for themselves. For slgas who wanted it, marriage cost a year's salary in service dollars in advance, but if you had a boy you got your money back and a complimentary box of chocolates from your 'husband'. About three percent of all embryos implanted were male. The 'husband', usually an Orbison could not impregnate you as he was fitted with a loophead: his purpose was to prime the love-hormones in your body for implantation and gestation.

Before admission

Up to the age of five, children were raised in the Baby Barracks in a service territory of the corporation they served. At age five, they all had to take the Charm Test. Those who passed the Charm Test (about three percent) got to go to the exclusive and elite Charm School inside the corporate enclave where they were taught to be chicks who would eventually hold V-jobs, or jobs that involved being seen by, interacting with, serving and pleasing hanyos. Children who did not pass the Charm Test got sent to Slag School. All children were given new names and numbers upon entering school, to prevent their mothers from tracking them down.

Curriculum and Training

There were four available 'teams' in Slag School. Up till age ten, kids were given education in basic reading, writing and arithmetic. Age ten, they were given various aptitude tests and slotted into one of these streams: RanDee, Cook, Cleaner, Fixer. Those who failed the aptitude tests were sent off to be Factory Shell fodder, although in practice they were mostly chicken-hunted till death by hanyobait supervisors and Bully Boys. Once a slag was selected for a 'team' she was encouraged to look down on, bully and disparage the other three teams. This was called 'building team spirit' but in effect made relationships and united action among slags very difficult.
The RanDees, as tech workers, were the elite, but had to pay for their expertise with the loss of their voices upon graduation. The Cooks were the best paid, but were constantly suspected of attempting to poison hanyos and most did not last more than a few years before being externed to the factories. The Cleaners were the largest and most diverse bunch, and they spent most of their time plotting and scheming to avoid being a Slagserver, that is a cleaner who only worked in the service territories. The elite cleaners worked in hanyo town, where they spent most of their time squeezed into narrow staircases and spaces between walls, waiting for a green light to go on and tell them it was safe to clean a particular space. Fixers had technical knowledge, but often worked in extremely hazardous conditions and rarely survived long enough to become Factory Shell fodder.
Training was entirely technical. No humanities content of any kind was allowed into the hostels, no stories or non-approved texts. Most teaching was lab-based or practice-based, and intensely competitive. Cooperation of any kind was regarded as cheating and severely punished. Leisure activities were done in groups and closely controlled. They were often also competitive. Children were encouraged to inform on each other, and the most dedicated traitors were rewarded with Bully privileges.

Teachers

Classes were large, about 200 at a time, with the teacher enclosed in a transparent box to prevent attacks. Assignments and grading were done online in the study halls. Small differences in grades had big effects on people's lives, so most were willing to do anything to save themselves. Motivational newsreels were regularly shown of Factory Shell victims and their traumas. To become a teacher in a Slag School was one way of escaping the worst of slag town, so there was intense competition between teachers also. Teachers were held responsible for the errors and treacheries of their students, so attrition was high.