Every living thing on planet earth has emotions. These emotions have been used since the beginning of time to express the feelings of the people around you. However, these emotions can be decieving. Someone could say they are happy, when really they are angry or upset. This is where the Facial Action Coding System comes into play. The FACS is a software that detects human emotion by tracking muscles in the face. For example, when you are happy, muscles in your face move up, and when you are sad, they move down, FACS tracks this and calculates your emotions. The creators of this software, Prof. Thomas Huang and Prof. Nicu Sebe are the leading experts of developing better ways for humans and computers to communicate. There are still some questions surrounding the usefulness of FACS, like what could this software actually be used for? One of the ways FACS may be used is in classrooms. It may sound far fetched, but actually, FACS may be the best thing to come to schools because of its flexible learning and the ability to read the students.

In the education world, teachers are the backbone of the infestructure. Without teachers, the whole system would collapse. However, it may be hard for one teacher to connect with every student individually and make sure they are learning properly or if they are paying attention. This is where FACS comes in. In the article "Making Mona Lisa Smile", Dr. Huang talks about FACS in classrooms more in depth, "'A classroom computer could recgonize when a student is becoming confused or bored,' Dr. Huang predicts. 'Then it could modify the lesson, like an effective human istructor.'" With FACS, every child could essentially have a customized lesson plan exactly for their needs. This would make children more eager to learn because they begin to enjoy it. Besides the classroom, FACS could also be used in the school elsewhere. One of the other important areas this could be used is in counceling.

It is very hard for anyone to tell someone they are sad. This is especally true when they barely know the person they are talking to. This can be the case for school councelors and the children they are meeting with. FACS may be able to help. With FACS, the school could see if children are upset or scared. The school could also see how often these children feel this way. When a child is unhappy or scared, it is very unlikely that they are going to be doing their work at full capacity. If FACS could find these children that need help, they could be helped faster. This could also be used to find children being bullied. If the child is feeling scared around another student, or if a child is afraid of a classroom, they could be helped because FACS was able to read them. FACS may even be able to detect if a child is afraid of leaving school. With FACS, it's like every child in school has someone that is looking out for them, even if no one else is. It may be true that some children might not want people to know about this, that they may want to hide it. However, it is never healthy to hide such strong emotions, especally if there are people around you willing to help.

With the constant evoultion of the way we learn, its not suprising that something like FACS was created. Emotions have been with everything living since the beginning of time. Before FACS, it was suprisingly difficult to read these emotions in people. Such a crucial part of our everyday lives could be easily hidden away by a fake smile or a theatre tear. But now that there is FACS helping out, looks are no longer decieving.