1.
The Fun They Had –by Isaac Asimove
1. MARGIE even wrote
about it that night in her diary.
On the
page headed 17 May 2157, she wrote, “Today
Tommy
found a real book!”
It was a
very old book. Margie’s grandfather once
said that when he was a little boy his
grandfather
told him that there was a time when all
stories
were
printed on paper.
They
turned the pages, which were yellow and
crinkly,
and it was awfully funny to read words
that stood
still instead of moving the way they were
supposed
to — on a screen, you know. And then
when they
turned back to the page before, it had
the same
words on it that it had had when they
read it
the first time.
2. “Gee,” said Tommy, “what a waste. When you’re
through
with the book, you just throw it away, I
guess. Our
television screen must have had a million
books on
it and it’s good for plenty more. I wouldn’t
throw it
away.”
“Same with
mine,” said Margie. She was eleven
and hadn’t
seen as many telebooks as Tommy had.
He was
thirteen.
She said, “Where
did you find it?”
“In my
house.” He pointed without looking,
because he
was busy reading. “In the attic.”
“What’s it
about?”
“School.”
3. Margie was scornful. “School? What’s there to write
about
school? I hate school.”
Margie
always hated school, but now she hated
it more
than ever. The mechanical teacher had been
giving her
test after test in geography and she had
been doing
worse and worse until her mother had
shaken her
head sorrowfully and sent for the County
Inspector.
4. He was a round little man with a red face and a
whole box
of tools with dials and wires. He smiled
at Margie
and gave her an apple, then took the
teacher
apart. Margie had hoped he wouldn’t know
how to put
it together again, but he knew how all
right,
and, after an hour or so, there it was again,
large and
black and ugly, with a big screen on which
all the
lessons were shown and the questions were
asked. That wasn’t so bad. The part Margie
hated
most was
the slot where she had to put homework
and test
papers. She always had to write them out
in a punch
code they made her learn when she was
six years
old, and the mechanical teacher calculated the marks in no time.
5. The Inspector had smiled after he was finished and
patted
Margie’s head. He said to her mother, “It’s
not the
little girl’s fault, Mrs Jones. I think the
geography
sector was geared a little too quick. Those
things
happen sometimes. I’ve slowed it up to an
average
ten-year level. Actually, the overall pattern
of her
progress is quite satisfactory.” And he patted
Margie’s
head again.
Margie was
disappointed. She had been hoping
they would
take the teacher away altogether. They
had once
taken Tommy’s teacher away for nearly a
month
because the history sector had blanked out
completely.
So she
said to Tommy, “Why would anyone write
about
school?”
6. Tommy looked at her with very superior eyes.
“Because
it’s not our kind of school, stupid. This is
the old
kind of school that they had hundreds and
hundreds
of years ago.” He added loftily,
pronouncing
the word carefully, “Centuries ago.”
Margie was
hurt. “Well, I don’t know what
kind of
school they had all that time ago.” She read
the book
over his shoulder for a while, then said,
“Anyway, they had a teacher
They had a teacher... It was a man.
“Sure they
had a teacher, but it wasn’t a regular
teacher.
It was a man.”
“A man?
How could a man be a teacher?”
“Well, he
just told the boys and girls things and
gave them
homework and asked them questions.”
7. “A man isn’t smart enough.”
“Sure he
is. My father knows as much as my
teacher.”
“He knows
almost as much, I betcha.”
Margie
wasn’t prepared to dispute that. She said,
“I wouldn’t
want a strange man in my house to
teach me.”
Tommy
screamed with laughter. “You don’t know
much,
Margie. The teachers didn’t live in the
house.
They had a special building and all the
kids went
there.”
“And all
the kids learned the same thing?”
“Sure, if
they were the same age.”
8. “But my mother says a teacher has to be adjusted to
fit the
mind of each boy and girl it teaches and that
each kid
has to be taught differently.”
“Just the
same they didn’t do it that way then.
If you don’t
like it, you don’t have to read the book.”
“I didn’t
say I didn’t like it,” Margie said quickly.
She wanted
to read about those funny schools.
They weren’t
even half finished when Margie’s
mother
called, “Margie! School!”
Margie
looked up. “Not yet, Mamma.”
“Now!”
said Mrs Jones. “And it’s probably time
for Tommy,
too.”
Margie
said to Tommy, “Can I read the book some
more with
you after school?”
9. “May be,” he said nonchalantly. He walked away
whistling,
the dusty old book tucked beneath
his arm.
Margie
went into the schoolroom. It was right
next to
her bedroom, and the mechanical teacher
was on and
waiting for her. It was always on at the
same time every day except Saturday and
Sunday,
because
her mother said little girls learned better
if they
learned at regular hours.
The screen
was lit up, and it said: “Today’s
arithmetic
lesson is on the addition of proper
fractions.
Please insert yesterday’s homework in the
proper
slot.”
10. Margie did so with a sigh. She was thinking about
the old
schools they had when her grandfather’s
grandfather
was a little boy. All the kids from the
whole
neighborhood came, laughing and shouting
in the
schoolyard, sitting together in the schoolroom,
going home
together at the end of the day. They
learned
the same things, so they could help one
another
with the homework and talk about it.
And the
teachers were people…
The
mechanical teacher was flashing on the
screen: “When
we add fractions ½ and ¼...”
Margie was
thinking about how the kids must
have loved
it in the old days. She was thinking
about the fun they had.
I am a lecturer at Saraswati Inter College Bharat Bhari.I have comleted MA And D.el.ed If you have any problems in provided study material you can contact Whatsapp No. 9172644126
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