"One Thing" for Wed. Nov. 27

Isaac Asimov, the "king" of Science Fiction (in my opinion), wrote this story, The Fun They Had

in 1967...

As I am a bit of a sci-fi lover, and my class will soon be looking at a futuristic novel dealing with population control (Among the Hidden), today we read The Fun They Had believe it or not. Sometimes the neat thing about Science Fiction, is that it's not that far off/away from being current. As we are embarking on an educational reworking of the Prescribed Learning Outcomes and the new BC Education Plan, I thought there were some points brought up by Asimov (over 40 years ago) that are relevant to the conversation going on in BC today.

The kids in this story stumble upon an old "book" (they now read on telebooks) and read about what it was like to go to school a long time ago. They look at several of the differences and are surprised that a man/woman could be a teacher (instead of a machine) “A man? How could a man be a teacher?” and respond by stating: “A man isn’t smart enough.” 

They were also shocked that school happened in a central location and not in their house.
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.” 

But I think the most salient point to educational discourse is this:
“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.” 

Kind of interesting, and possibly ahead of it's time, for the late 1960's, isn't it? Just like a lot of science fiction often is. William Gibson, for instance, is credited (by many, but not in all circles) with coming up with the vision for how the world wide web currently functions in his sci-fi book, Neuromancer (written in 1984).

Here is a link to the whole text  The Fun They Had the whole story (it's just one page) in PDF:  CLICK HERE

Interestingly, we have a bunch of old anthologies of stories hanging around our cabinets here at school, so I actually pulled those out for this reading assignment. We were just like the kids in the story finding an old book...

Oh, "The Fun We Had".