Chapter 1: The Fun They had by Isaac Asimov - NCERT Class 9th
The story begins with Margie, an eleven-year-old girl who has just discovered an actual book. To give you the context of the story, it is set in the year 2157, in the far future in which technological advancement has reached its pinnacle. Consequently, it has impacted every aspect of their life, especially education. The school system has been overhauled. There is no separate infrastructure for schools. Students are given education in their homes, by Robotic teachers instead of human ones. One crucial feature of the system is that every student learns at his/her own pace as assessed by their robot teacher.
Coming back to our story, Margie came across a physical book for the first time. She found that the book belonged to her great-grandfather. It made her curious to think that paper was used in place of, then prevalent screens and as she had been habitual to reading from the screen on which one can read all the pages on a single screen, one at a time, unlike books whose get old and yellow with time. Margie was amused to find that the words don't move and are inscribed permanently. She writes about this fascinating thing called "book" in her diary.
Tommy, her elder brother of thirteen called these physical books utter waste because once one read it, it was a waste for them. He found the book in the attic of their house. Margie asked curiously about the content of the book. The book was about the schools. Margie hated school. But those days, she hated it even more as the Robotic teacher was giving her back-to-back tests in geography and unsurprisingly, her performance was dismal. Due to this, her mother set up a meeting with the county Inspector.
After being done with the robot, the Inspector assuaged her mother's fears by telling her that the robot's geography program/software had a minor bug and it was working way too fast and now he has tweaked it according to her age. He remarked that she was doing fine and her performance was satisfactory Margie was not happy with this. She hoped that he would take the robot with him for some time.
Coming back to our story, Margie came across a physical book for the first time. She found that the book belonged to her great-grandfather. It made her curious to think that paper was used in place of, then prevalent screens and as she had been habitual to reading from the screen on which one can read all the pages on a single screen, one at a time, unlike books whose get old and yellow with time. Margie was amused to find that the words don't move and are inscribed permanently. She writes about this fascinating thing called "book" in her diary.
Tommy, her elder brother of thirteen called these physical books utter waste because once one read it, it was a waste for them. He found the book in the attic of their house. Margie asked curiously about the content of the book. The book was about the schools. Margie hated school. But those days, she hated it even more as the Robotic teacher was giving her back-to-back tests in geography and unsurprisingly, her performance was dismal. Due to this, her mother set up a meeting with the county Inspector.
The County Inspector visited them, he was, in fact, a mechanic of the mechanical teacher. With his tools, he disassembled/ dismantled the robot, Margie was there, she hated the slot part of the robot where she had to submit her homework and in no time, it assessed her test and instantly displayed marks.
After being done with the robot, the Inspector assuaged her mother's fears by telling her that the robot's geography program/software had a minor bug and it was working way too fast and now he has tweaked it according to her age. He remarked that she was doing fine and her performance was satisfactory Margie was not happy with this. She hoped that he would take the robot with him for some time.
She was confused about why would anybody write about boring things like school. Tommy replied that a few centuries ago, schools were totally different. It has a separate building where all children of the same age group would visit and a human teacher used to teach them. She is astonished that a man/an adult instructs them and tests them. Margie thought about how could a strange man come to her house and teach them. Tommy corrected her and told her that it was a special building where all the kids would attend classes together, again it was strange for Margie.
Margie couldn't shirk the thought of such kind of school. Her own school is of no interest to her. She wonders what kind of her great-grandfather used to visit with other kids, learning the same things. The human teachers would teach the lessons. She envies those kids and thinks how much fun it was to attend school in those days.
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