Rancho Verde High School · AVID
First, a show of hands
Where are you right now?
- 1Have you used AI this week?Hands
- 2Have you used it for school?Hands
- 3Has anyone told you not to?Hands
- 4What would you never let AI do for you?Out loud
Hands and voices only. Nothing is written down or saved.
The pace
The newest tools finish longer tasks every few months.
If the pace holds, a month of work by mid-2027 at the recent pace, early 2028 at the long-run pace.
The length of task the newest systems can finish on their own has doubled about every 4 months since 2023.
That is why helpers that finish a whole job are suddenly real.
About every 4 monthsAbout every 4 months
is how often the length of task the newest systems can finish on their own has doubled since 2023.
Recent pace: doubles every 4.3 monthsLong-run pace: every 7 months
Source: METR, updated Sept. 8, 2026. Dashed lines: a projection, not data. Press the info mark for the full receipt.
Scholē
Our word for school comes from the Greek for leisure.
One word, on its way to us
σχολή
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Spare time, leisure, rest.
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Leisure given to learning: a lecture, a debate, and then a place of learning.
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The same word, carried into Old English.
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And into Middle English.
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The word we use today, for the place we send children to learn.
Source: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, read Oct. 23, 2026.School
Source: Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, 1879.Schola
An everyday task: a walkthrough
A made-up example on a pretend computer. The people, rooms and sites are not real, and nothing leaves this page.
Computing power in your pocket
From a Moon landing to a phone.
One square: Apollo's guidance computer, 1969. 78 thousand bytes.78 thousand bytes
13.3 million times as much
square fill a new iPhone 17, 2025: 256 billion bytes.256 GB
Sources: MIT, Digital Apollo; Apple Newsroom, 2025.
Apollo's guidance computer held about 78 thousand bytes. A new iPhone 17 starts at 256 billion bytes, about 3.3 million times as much: one square against 3.3 million squares.
Your answer
A week has 168 hours. What are they for?
People have always spent free hours on music, play, craft and each other, and now the question is yours.
Your week: 168 hours
Work Rest What you will
56
56
56
Keynes, 15Slogan, 56
Drag the two dividers, or focus one and use the arrow keys: one hour a step, or a day's hour every day of the week with Page Up and Page Down.
Each square is one hour; seven rows of 24 make a week.
Work 56 hours, rest 56, and 56 for what you will: a third each.
Most weeks are not split so evenly. Where would yours begin?
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56, 56, 56
Eight hours- What it says
- Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will: the chorus of the song "Eight Hours," published in 1878, and the strikers' slogan on May 1, 1886, when workers across the United States struck for the eight-hour day.
- Where it comes from
- Gale, Eight Hours (Development of the Industrial U.S. Reference Library), via Encyclopedia.com, Entry on the song; words by I. G. Blanchard, music by Rev. Jesse H. Jones.
- As of
- read Oct. 23, 2026
- As the source states it
- The strikers' slogan was, "Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will!," the chorus of the song "Eight Hours."
- How it is calculated
- The slogan names a day. Kept every day of the week: 8 hours times 7 days is 56 hours each for work, rest and what we will, 168 in all.
- Easy to misread
- The song named a day, not a week. Multiplying by seven is this page's arithmetic, not the song's.
The eight-hour song, 1886. Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will. The song named a day; kept every day of the week, that is 56 hours each.
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15 hours of work
15 hours- What it says
- 15 hours of work a week: the fifteen-hour week Keynes imagined for his grandchildren's time.
- Where it comes from
- John Maynard Keynes, Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930), in Essays in Persuasion, Page 369.
- As of
- essay of 1930
- As the source states it
- Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while.
- How it is calculated
- Read from the essay.
- Easy to misread
- A guess written as an argument, not a forecast. He named a working week; he said nothing about how the other hours would be split.
Keynes's week, 1930. Fifteen hours of work a week. He did not say how the other hours would be split, so trying it keeps your rest as it is.
Nothing here is saved or sent.
Your turn
Bring a real problem. We build it now.
Something in your week that takes too long, gets forgotten or bugs you.
Say it in one sentence. We pick one together and build a fix on the screen, right now.
- A plan for a big project
- A tool for a club or team
- A study routine that fits your week
- Something that helps at home
Out loud only. No names, and nothing is saved.
Thank you
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