[ExI] the fun they had

[spike]

________________________________

	From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] 
	Subject: the fun they had
	
	
	 
	>...A few weeks ago I posted a comment about writing a memoir, but I
feared that it would be inaccurate, since my memories of past events are
happier, funnier, less boring, generally more positive than they actually
were at the time...I will report back after I reread The Fun They
Had...spike

Oy vey, I was right.  My own mind had added a bunch of material to this
story that wasn't in the original.  The entire story was very short: in fact
the whole thing is not much more than a page, as copied below.  Before I
read, I remembered this:

	>...Two kids, about fifth grade or so, discover a book which is
about 100 years old, so it was written about 1960, and start to read about
how school was taught back then.  A grandfatherly sort, historian, tries to
explain how it was back in those days, when the kids sat and listened to a
single adult teacher, who put the lessons on a chalk board.  The 2060 kids
were absolutely amazed that the historian could do arithmetic without a
computer of any sort, and could actually remember the days when there were
classrooms, instead of the lonely way the 2060 kids learned, one on one with
a computer.  They imagined the classrooms as far better than they actually
were...

OK as you can see if you read the short story, I missed it by a mile.  A
grandfather was mentioned, but the two kids had little interaction with
adults.  There was nothing about arithmetic, nothing about a lot of stuff I
thought was in that story.  This surprises me at how far off I was, since I
recently compared notes with my high school companions at my 30th HS
reunion, and found those memories fairly accurate.

Now I don't trust my own memories from my misspent childhood.

{8-[

spike



http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/funtheyhad.html
	 
	 

The Fun They Had

Isaac Asimov

Margie even wrote about it that night in her diary. On the page headed May
17, 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. 

"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." 

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. 

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 mark in no
time. 

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
over-all pattern of her progress is quite satisfactory." And he parted
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?" 

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." 

"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." "A man isn't smart
enough." "Sure he is. My father knows as much as my teacher." "He can't. A
man can't know as much as a teacher." "He knows almost as much, I betcha." 

Margie wasn't prepared to dispute that. She said, "1 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." 

"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?"


"Maybe," 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." 

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 on the homework and
talk about it. 

And the teachers were people... 

The mechanical teacher was flashing on the screen: "When we add the
fractions 1/2 and 1/4..." 

Margie was thinking about how the kids must have loved it in the old days.
She was thinking about the fun they had.