The Fun They Had Chapter Notes | English Class 6 ICSE PDF Download

Introduction

The story "The Fun They Had" by Isaac Asimov is a science fiction tale set in the future year 2157. It tells the story of two children, Margie and Tommy, who live in a world where education happens through mechanical teachers. One day, they find an old book that describes schools from the past, which were very different from theirs. The story shows how they feel about their own education and imagine the fun children had long ago when schools were run by human teachers. It makes us think about how education might change in the future and how people might look back at our time.

Key Points

The story takes place in the future year 2157.

• Margie is eleven years old, and Tommy is thirteen years old.
• Tommy finds an old paper book in his attic about past schools.
• In their world, education is provided by mechanical teachers at home.
• Margie struggles with her geography tests and dislikes her mechanical teacher.
• The old book describes schools where children learned together with human teachers.
• Margie imagines the fun children had in the past and compares it to her own schooling.
• The County Inspector fixes Margie’s mechanical teacher when it is too fast for her.
• Tommy explains that old schools had human teachers in special buildings, not at home.
• Margie is curious about the old schools and wants to read more about them.

Explanation

The story "The Fun They Had" is set in the year 2157, a time when education has changed a lot. Margie, who is eleven, and Tommy, who is thirteen, live in a world where they learn from mechanical teachers at home instead of going to school. One day, Tommy finds an old book in his attic, which excites Margie because she is used to reading telebooks on a screen. This old book has yellow, crinkly pages and words that don’t move, unlike the screens they are familiar with. 

Tommy thinks the book is useless because it cannot be reused like a telebook, but Margie is interested. The book is about school, which surprises Margie because she hates her own school. Her mechanical teacher gives her many geography tests, and she keeps scoring badly. This makes her mother worried, so she calls the County Inspector. He is a round, red-faced man with a box of tools. 

He takes the teacher apart, gives Margie an apple, and fixes it by slowing down the geography part, which was set too high for her. Margie had hoped the teacher would be taken away, like Tommy’s was once for a month when its history part stopped working. The Inspector says Margie is doing well overall, but she feels disappointed. Tommy tells her the book is about old schools from centuries ago, where a man was the teacher. 

Margie finds this hard to believe because she thinks a machine is smarter than a person. Tommy says his father knows almost as much as the mechanical teacher, but Margie doesn’t argue because she isn’t sure. She learns that in the past, teachers worked in special buildings, and all kids of the same age learned together. Her mother believes teachers should be adjusted for each child, but Tommy says it wasn’t done that way back then. Margie wants to read more about these old schools. 

When her mother calls her for school, she goes to her room where the mechanical teacher is ready with an arithmetic lesson. As she submits her homework, Margie thinks about the past schools her grandfather’s grandfather attended. She imagines children laughing and playing together, helping each other with homework, and going home as a group, which sounds much more fun than her lonely lessons.

Message

The story teaches us to appreciate the joy of learning together with others. It shows that while technology like mechanical teachers can help with education, it might miss the fun and friendship of traditional schools. It suggests that human connection in learning is valuable and that we should think about how to keep it alive even with new inventions.

New Words with Meanings

• Crinkly: Wrinkled or crumpled, like old paper.
• Awfully: Very, used here to show something is surprising or funny.
• Telebook: An electronic book read on a screen or television.
• Attic: A storage space under the roof of a house.
• Scornful: Full of contempt or dislike.
• Slot: An opening where something is inserted.
• Sector: A part of a computer that stores specific information.
• Geared: Adjusted to a certain level of learning.
• Loftily: In a proud or superior way.
• Regular: Of the usual kind.
• Betcha: Short for "bet you," meaning a guess or bet.
• Dispute: To disagree or argue with someone.
• Nonchalantly: In a careless or relaxed way.