The Class of 2017

We wanted to know what Texas will be like in the future, so we asked the next generation of doctors, schoolteachers, superstar athletes, construction workers, and stay-at-home moms. We crisscrossed the state interviewing third-graders in tiny schoolhouses and on elite private campuses, and they had plenty to say about population growth, time travel, and whether the ground will be made out of lava.

Janes Bonham Academy

San Antonio
Number of third-grade classrooms: 4
Number of third-graders: 56

Sadie Rodriguez “I think there will be fewer jobs available because technology will take over the jobs. Like, instead of doing tests, veterinarians would use a scanner that would tell you which medicines the animals need.”

Bean Elementary

Lubbock
Number of third-grade classrooms: 4
Number of third-graders: 63

Madison Baeza “There will be more than ten new planets, and we’ll have to learn about them. They’ll be named after Dracula and some of the presidents.”

Fannin Elementary

El Paso
Number of third-grade classrooms: 5
Number of third-graders: 90

Javier Olivares “Chinese people will be here, and they’ll teach English- and Spanish-speaking people how to talk their language.”

The Carver Academy

San Antonio
Number of third-grade classrooms: 1
Number of third-graders: 16

Adrian Segovia “There will be a time machine so you can take field trips into the past and know what happened.”

Crawford Elementary

Houston
Number of third-grade classrooms: 2
Number of third-graders: 34

Darreon Bonner “My brother and I think about this a lot. People who ride in flying cars will be on a flying freeway, and when they don’t feel like flying anymore, he’s going to build a car that will have a button you can push so that wheels will appear and you can drive. I saw a movie one time about the future. The ground was made of lava! Maybe it’ll be like that. The buildings would have to float if that happens.”

Hyer Elementary

Dallas
Number of third-grade classrooms: 6
Number of third-graders: 118

Bryce Blinn “They’ve already invented hover cars— they go sixty yards, I think. Instead of flying cars, you can use normal cars and convert them.”

Reers Elementary

Houston
Number of third-grade classrooms: 6
Number of third-graders: 114

Zoë Samuels “Many people will come to Texas, and Texas will have a city like an urban community as big as New York City that will have its own president.”

Aoy Elementary

El Paso
Number of third-grade classrooms: 5
Number of third-graders: 104

Arturo Castorena “I want to be a football player for the Dallas Cowboys. We’ll have to lift one hundred thirty pounds to train. The shirt and pants will be yellow, but you can choose your own shoes.”

Divide Elementary

Mountain Home
Total number of classrooms: 3
Number of third-graders: 1

Gracey Taylor “I hope they can make something that zaps us from here to there so we don’t get lost, because there will still be a lot of interstates.”

Travis Elementary

Harlingen
Number of third-grade classrooms: 5
Number of third-graders: 76

Jorge Moran “They’ll make more places where people can live and be sure there’s no bugs so we won’t get diseases. Also, there will have to be more land for farmers to grow vegetables and sell them to the USA.”

St. Mark’s School of Texas

Dallas
Number of third-grade classrooms: 2
Number of third-graders: 36

Patrick Magee “We will have a worse than F5 hurricane, and people will move inland, causing more of a population problem, so we’ll build higher buildings. Also, in islands like Japan, typhoons may get so bad people will leave their resources behind, and if they don’t recycle their waste, there will be a lot of litter.”