Better School/Class System

[punkspyda]

What's your Minecraft Username?: punkspyda
What's the title of your suggestion?: Better School/Class System

What's your suggestion?:
Update the school's system, as in add NPC classes, a grade system, and a tardy system. SRP has a good system for everything besides the things that actually makes it feel like school.

Potential Concept:
- NPC classes | NPC classes are where there is no player running the classroom, it's an NPC that assigns NPC-like assignments to students. HOWEVER, this should not mean that players who have a teacher/professor role should get replaced. The school is big but not all teachers/professors are active in each of their classrooms, so the classrooms that are active (Active as in a teacher/professor is online) are player-ran as for the other classrooms that are empty are NPC-ran. In addition, each grade level should have their own classes; there's no reason why 7th-9th graders should be in classes with 10th-12th graders.
- Grade system | A grading system is self-explanatory, but the purple book that's stuck in every player's inventory should have an option to review the grades of their characters. I wouldn't say it's urgent to add, but it's not unnecessary. Grades are given by either teachers or NPCs based on how your character does on an assignment or project, whether it's something simple as participating or completing an actual on-paper assignment.
- Tardy system | The tardy system should be simple, when a player does /record they could see how many tardies their character has, and if a character gets a certain amount of tardies in a week, they get a detention. Tardies shouldn't count against a player if they're offline, only when they're active and choose not to go to class.

How will this benefit the server and community?:
I feel like this would give players something to do as well as remove all the lingering, loitering, and emptiness that's in SchoolRP. To further explain what I mean, when I log on and its school time, I usually see characters just standing somewhere with no business whatsoever. I can see this update adding more realism and making it feel like school, plus it would make college/grade 12 characters more active in class. (I also think it would live up to a greenies expectation, because I sure didn't expect SRP to be how it currently is when I first joined)

 

[DarkEclipic]

Overall; -1
NPC Classes: No this will never be a thing, As they can't give responses and answer questions like a normal player can, they also wouldn't be able to hand out stickers or do half of the stuff that we teachers/faculty can already do. so, -1

Grade System: Each Teacher/Professor is different in their classes and how they grade. If there was only 1 teacher per department, sure I could see this being a thing, but in reality, there isn't, so -1

Tardy System: This seems like punishing students on SRP for not attending classes, as recently we had College classes not mandatory(only mandatory if you wish to go up in the next college rank) and high school never had that type of system. If HS students don't wish to attend classes, then they don't have to attend classes or risk a 'tardy' and get a detention. That isn't fun. so -1

What I do agree with in this post of that HS/College students should be more interactive within their classes IF they do attend. If you see a new player on the server, its best to try and help them out the best you can than trying to avoid them, that is part of the problem we face as players of SRP.

 

[Valentine_Lols]

-1

NPC classes - self explanatory, something that isn't the best idea, IRL, HS students gets mixed up in classes anyways, there's no need to separate them from the others imo, only thing it would cause is more confusion. For teachers as they would then have to implement grades and who they take, too much for teaching role itself.

Grade system - Have that in the education srp discord server, sometimes they make you not sign your books on purpose so they can grade it and give it to you on the spot.

Tardy system - Not worth it, no students are required to go to classes, gives them less freedom. This includes College, only time it's mandatory to go into class is when you're trying to get into Masters in college. We literally JUST got not mandatory classes, what's the point of undoing what we literally wanted(aka students who have been skipping college classes)?

 

[NoZinth]

Pls dont remove RP from an RP server. I like having an in game way to see your character's grades that'd be sick but -1 with the tardy system as it could discourage people from attending classes

 

[punkspyda]

-1 with the tardy system as it could discourage people from attending classes

The whole point of the system is for them to attend classes

 

[NoZinth]

The whole point of the system is for them to attend classes

But replacing teachers who can roleplay with students with NPCs is taking away roleplay from classes which is the whole point

 

[Classicalist]

-1 Like said above making NPC's would take away the roleplay aspect of the school. If there is no teachers or professors online I know it can be frustrating but there is always other faculty to go to like tutors. For the grading system we already have this in a way with the bulletin boards in the academics server and for the tardy system is just a no for me. Classes are not mandatory so why punish for not attending? Overall -1

 

[Valentine_Lols]

The whole point of the system is for them to attend classes

No point if classes aren't mandatory for HS and College :sob:

 

[punkspyda]

HOWEVER, this should not mean that players who have a teacher/professor role should get replaced. The school is big but not all teachers/professors are active in each of their classrooms, so the classrooms that are active (Active as in a teacher/professor is online) are player-ran as for the other classrooms that are empty are NPC-ran.

But replacing teachers who can roleplay with students with NPCs is taking away roleplay from classes which is the whole point

 

[punkspyda]

-1 Like said above making NPC's would take away the roleplay aspect of the school. If there is no teachers or professors online I know it can be frustrating but there is always other faculty to go to like tutors. For the grading system we already have this in a way with the bulletin boards in the academics server and for the tardy system is just a no for me. Classes are not mandatory so why punish for not attending? Overall -1

Why should classes NOT be mandatory on a school roleplay server?

 

[Squidjees]

+1

 

[Valentine_Lols]

Why should classes NOT be mandatory on a school roleplay server?

Because, if they wanna go, they go, most of HS students go to classes and it's not mandatory, they often fill up quickly. :shrug:

 

[punkspyda]

-1 Like said above making NPC's would take away the roleplay aspect of the school. If there is no teachers or professors online I know it can be frustrating but there is always other faculty to go to like tutors. For the grading system we already have this in a way with the bulletin boards in the academics server and for the tardy system is just a no for me. Classes are not mandatory so why punish for not attending? Overall -1

Pls dont remove RP from an RP server. I like having an in game way to see your character's grades that'd be sick but -1 with the tardy system as it could discourage people from attending classes

If there are no teachers, there is no roleplay. There are only 3-5 faculty members on a week and most of them don't even host classes. But like I said if you read the full thing... I'm not suggesting they get rid of teachers and RP, I'm suggesting that they add an option for players to choose whether they want to join an NPC class or a Player-Ran class because sometimes teachers aren't available so I think it'd be nice to have that option.

 

[punkspyda]

Because, if they wanna go, they go, most of HS students go to classes and it's not mandatory, they often fill up quickly. :shrug:

They fill up quickly because there aren't enough teachers hosting classes -
And classes should be mandatory ICly, not OOCly, because I find it odd how faculty approach College students and tell them to go to class but not High School students.

 

[Valentine_Lols]

They fill up quickly because there aren't enough teachers hosting classes -
And classes should be mandatory ICly, not OOCly, because I find it odd how faculty approach College students and tell them to go to class but not High School students.

Not really, when there were a lot of teachers, they still also fill up a lot as the max is 30...38 students? (Someone who is a teacher, correct me!) due to the amount of more HS students rather than College.

However, classes shouldn't be mandatory, secondly... College had it mandatory because they're not a HS school student, stuff about role model stuff, BUT



It haven't been mandatory recently, so your point of how faculty approach College students is now invalid for current standing and future standing

 

[DarkEclipic]

They fill up quickly because there aren't enough teachers hosting classes.

As I understand there aren't enough teachers(15/30 current teachers on the roster as of typing this) teaching, but you also have to understand the time it takes to do lesson plans for us to teach along with our rules and stuff, we are also humans who have lives outside of SRP so we cant teach classes 25/8. So just be pacient with teachers as lesson planning and scheduling with irl takes time

when there were a lot of teachers, they still also fill up a lot as the max is 30...38 students?

Pretty much, it also depends on what subject you teach and what time you host classes, but our max is 30(I believe its 30, i would have to recheck)

 

[andrei]

-1

NPC classes is just taking away the fundemental of RPing in School, plus not only that classes (specifically college ones) aren't mandotory anymore.

Grading system, each faculty (teacher/prof) has their own way grading a student, whether it be giving a sticker for class participation or overall getting a good score on a short quiz.

Tardy system, no point when students will just attend, then /spawn.

like dark said, were human beings and we have to plan our lessons, review them to see if they'll be fun for the class to enjoy.

 

[kustomzero]

-1

Something similar to this idea was suggested and denied already.

 

[Blossom789]

-1 what’s the point of playing on School role play if the teachers are npc…. It takes away role play and that would be a boring class

 

[philbertman42]

Everyone's complaining about how NPC classes would remove the roleplay aspect from class, but like... Have you SEEN some of the classes people do? You could replace some teachers with an automated text script, and almost nothing would change. The concept of automated lessons is something I've thought about a lot, and genuinely think it would be a good idea... Just not on SRP. At the present time, it would require much more effort than its worth, especially when we could recruit more teachers and train them up to host decent activities. I could see automated lessons on a larger-scale future version of SRP, but certainly not in the present day.

As for teacher activity, it's 100% the fault of the quota, which is 10 classes every month; over time, I've observed that most people can complete the quota in full within 1-2 weeks*, some even finishing within a span of a few days. Our lax quota enables us to speedrun classes, then either grind out more for a higher paycheck, or just take it easy for the rest of the month**. To fix this, we should change the quota from a monthly cycle to a bi-weekly one, which would encourage teachers to actually do what they signed up for on a more regular basis.
* When I say 1-2 weeks, that doesn't always mean at the beginning of the month. Some of us do it towards the end, during the middle, or do actually take longer.
** We're technically supposed to do something at minimum once every 5 days, but this isn't enforced (I know because I'm one of the speedrunner guys in question).

In regards to grades and class segregation, both are necessary in real life academic contexts, but for the sake of a server whose objective is to entertain rather than educate, it would only serve to make the game less fun. Grading work not only requires students to do an academic assignment, but it requires the teacher to go over every single one, mark the errors, then upload the scores; this is fun for neither parties, because rather than it being about roleplay, it turns the server into doing work and doing chores. Splitting classes based on grade would make the teacher inactivity problem even worse, because it would require even more teachers that we do not have, meaning the server would feel even more dead than it currently does.

Mandatory classes are one of those things that I would personally like to see, but not until the teaching factions are improved significantly. When college classes were mandatory, most people only went there because they had to, and instead of interacting with the class they would either roleplay quietly with their friends or just AFK through the entire thing. This is not the fault of the students themselves, but of the professors; most classes just aren't that engaging for the common player, and as such, nobody really cares to roleplay out being in class. A more realistic approach to this would be, "give reasons* for people to want to attend class willingly, so classes don't feel as empty."
*These reasons should not be extrinsic things like class credits or other rewards, they should be fun and interesting experiences, actually engaging roleplay.

TLDR: The problems you aim to solve are (mostly) notable issues, but the solutions you've provided will not work. To fix them, we need to fix our teaching factions.