His Own Particular Drummer

Author(s): Isaac Asimov

Source: The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 58, No. 1, A Special Bicentennial Issue (Sep., 1976), pp. 99-
103
Published by: Phi Delta Kappa International
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 To some educators today,
HIS OWN technology is a bad word. Yet
Mr. Asimov, a respected teacher/
?
PARTICULAR DRUMMER scientist and author of 174
?
books of amazing variety
suggests that technology can

actually make learning fun.

He starts by retelling his
classic 1951 story, 'The
Fun They Had"....

Isaac Asimov

Dack in 1951,1 wrote a story called shouting in the schoolyard, sitting in the halls and yards.
"The Fun They Had." It was only a together in the schoolroom, going - The
slow students along with
thousand words long and its plot was a home together at the end of the whom you had to crawl in weary
simple one: day. They learned the same things boredom (or the fast students, to look
so they could help one another on
Two children of the twenty-second at the other side, along with whom you
the homework, and talk about it.
century find an old book that, among And the teachers were
had to race in anxious frustration).
peo - The
other things, reveals the nature of the ... inept teachers who Could
ple.
educational system of the twentieth The mechanical teacher was make any subject dull.
- The cruel teachers who
century. To their astonishment, they flashing on the screen: "When we sharpened
discover that large groups of children add the fractions V2 and XA. ..." their claws of sarcasm on the backs of
once went to special buildings to be Margie was thinking about how suffering children who were not allowed
to community education by the ki?> must have loved it in the to talk back.
subjected
human teachers. old days. She was thinking about -The strict teachers who, dissatis
As the younger child, Margie, returns the fun they had.
fied with the innate deficiencies of a
to her own home where her own teach school, made it a prison as well.
is waiting - The
ing machine to continue The circumstances surrounding the relentless competition for
working with her on proper fractions, writing of the story were these: An old marks that taught every kid he was
the story concludes: friend of mine was editing a syndicated nothing, unless he could grind his fellow
children's newspaper page, and he asked kid's face into the dirt.
She was thinking about the old me for a little science fiction story. I Do you expect children to have fun
schools they had when her grand was in the mood to try irony and Iwas under those circumstances? Is there a
father's grandfather was a little
certain that children have as keen a child who wouldn't rather have a tele
boy. All the kids from the whole sense of irony as adults do. Of course, vision set of his own, interested only in
neighborhood came, laughing and
children fall short through lack of ex him, infinitely patient, and adjusted to
perience, so I thought I would hit them the beat of his own particular drummer?

ISAAC A SIM O V is associate profes right where they did have experience,
and wrote "The Fun They Had."
sor of biochemistry at Boston Univer
but he actually Is there any youngster, I thoughti Oince "The Fun They Had" first
sity School of Medicine,
makes his as a professional writer. who would not instantly be aware that appeared, it has been in constant de
living
Although he is best known for his school was not fun? Wouldn't he see mand for anthologies, and has appeared
science fiction, from which has arisen that it was ridiculous for the child who more than 30 times that I know of. I
his interest in the future, his 174 books had all the advantages of a personally would think, then, that I had accom
(as of now) include many works on oriented private education to long for plished my purpose effectively were it
science on
fact, history, literature, the barbarism of an earlier day? not for the fact that, among adults at
humor, geography, and so
mythology, After all, Imyself had gone to school least, a sense of irony seems notably
on. The gamut of his writings may be
once and had done very well, too. I had absent in many cases. The comments
indicated by two titles: Asimov's Guide
managed to finish high school at 15, and that some of the anthologists print in
to the Bible fin two volumes) and
Lecherous Limericks. His most recent
I hovered near the top of the class, if connection with the story, together
novel is a mystery titled Murder at the not at the actual top, at all times. with certain letters I get, often make it
ABA; the initials stand for the American School was about as good for me as it clear that the story is interpreted non
Booksellers Association which, he could* be for anyone. Yet I remember: ironically as a boost for contemporary
- The bullies
hopes, will push the book. who made life amisery education and as an author's expression

SEPTEMBER 1976 90

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 Suppose that communications satel
lites are numerous, and are far more

3 versatile and sophisticated than they are

today. Suppose that in place of rather
limited radio wave carriers, the in

credibly capacious laser beam of visible

light is used to carry messages from
earth to satellite and back again.
Under these circumstances, there
Would be room for many millions of
separate channels for voice and picture,
and it can be easily imagined that every
human being on earth might have a
particular wavelength assigned to him,
as now he might be assigned a particular
telephone number.
We can then imagine, as in "The Fun
They Had," that each child might have
his own private outlet to which could be
attached, at certain desirable periods of
time, his personal teaching machine.
It would be a far more versatile and
interactive teaching machine than any
thing we could put together now, for
computer technology will also have ad
vanced in the interval.
We can reasonably hope that the
teaching machine will be flexible, versa
tile, and capable of modifying its own
program (that is, "learning") as a result
of the student's input. In other words,
the student can ask questions which the
machine can answer, and he can make

of horror at the thought of education Yet who would suggest a total substi statements and answer tests which the
machine can evaluate. As a result of
by machine. tution? There would be many fields of
there is a strong trend of what the machine gets back, the
Apparently study that would require the mass ex
? machine can adjust the speed and in
thought among educators that there is perience sports, for instance, nature

something dehumanizing about machine study field trips, drama, public speak tensity of its course of instruction, and
can shift it in whatever direction stu
education. ing, and so on. On the other hand, there
Why, Iwonder? would be academic subjects that do not dent interest leads.
Is there a feeling that a machine is require companionship. In fact, one Nor need we suppose that the teach

cold and hard and cannot possibly could study mathematics, or history, to ing machine is self-contained and is as

understand the needs of children? if the artificial finite as an object the size of a television
begin with, all the better
Yet if every human teacher who was and of set might be. We can imagine that the
unnecessary open competition
cold and hard and could not possibly the classroom were removed. Then, at machine will have at its disposal any
understand the needs of children were seminars could be book, periodical, or document in the
appropriate times,
removed from his or her position, I arranged in which students could listen vast, central, thoroughly encoded

suspect our educational system would to each other, comment, and profit. planetary library. And if the machine
dissolve. In short, machine education is not a has it, the student has it, either placed
Is there a feeling that a child would on a viewing or
substitute for human interaction, but a directly screen, repro
duced in for more
not relate to a machine?
supplement. In fact, human interaction print-on-paper
I suppose that in the early days of could proceed all the better were it not leisurely study.
the automobile there were those who education cannot exist
oppressed by the negative conditioning Naturally,
felt that no one could possibly relate to of an association with a dull and un apart from the world. Its nature must be
a cold, hard, dead machine as they mass-education in affected by the state of society.
inspired procedure
could to a beautiful, If civilization is to survive into the
sensitive, living volving subject matter that has nothing
horse. Yet though there may be faults in to do with the interaction. age of the communications satellite,
our automobile those do not laser-beam transmission of information,
culture,
arise out of any shortage of affection of computerized central libraries, and
human beings for the cars they drive. teaching machines, we can be reason
Q
Is there a feeling that a machine w uppose, now, that our civilization ably sure that the world will, by then,
educated child would not have contact endures into the twenty-first century (a be far more closely knit than it is now.
with other human beings and would supposition that can by no means be Living, as we do now, in an age of
therefore be seriously lacking in many taken for granted) and that technology life-and-death problems, we can see that

values? continues to advance. without adequate solution of such prob

100 PHI DELTA KAPPAN

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lems as population, pollution, scarcity,
alienation, and violence, civilization will
not survive. Every one of these prob
lems affects the entire globe and cannot
be solved by any one nation within its
own territory.
If, for instance, the United States
were to stabilize its population at a
reasonable level, while the rest of the
world continued to expand in numbers,
then the chaos, anarchy, and starvation
beyond our borders would upset the
smooth functioning of world trade or
which our own exalted standard of
living depends. The economic strains
upon us would topple us into chaos as
well.
Similarly, pollution of the air and
ocean at any one point on earth con
tributes to that pollution everywhere.
We can in no way isolate our air and
water from that of the rest of the world.
We cannot isolate our section of the
ozone layer. We cannot be sure epi
demics elsewhere will not spread to us,
or radioactive contamination either.
Our problems are global in nature,
and they can only be dealt with global
Consequently, in a process that has
already begun, international organiza
tions will multiply and grow more
powerful as they face those various
problems. However much the world
may continue to give lip service to an
outmoded, unworkable, deadly nation
alism, the twenty-first century may see
us effectively, if unacknowledgedly,
under a world government, and local
differences in culture, society, or econo
my won't alter that fact.
Education will have to adjust to such
a world. History, for instance, will have
to be human history, with the accent on
social, cultural, and economic
while much of the hero/villain business
of war and politics will be deempha
sized. It would, after all, be ridiculous
to perpetuate hatred in a world in which
there is no alternative to cooperation.
Then, too, while the local languages
will be used in teaching students, it
would be only reasonable to suppose
that some lingua franca will have devel
oped for a world grown small and
interconnected. There need be no rea
son to try to suppress language - for
cultural variety is a great good and
contributes to the sparkle and excite
ment of the species - but to be multi
lingual is not so unusual. Why, then,
should not everyone speak at least two
languages, his or her own, and "Plane
tary."
Would it not be safer to have ma
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chine education in so global a society? and enters the "real world."
Could we expect human beings to be This view damages both young and
entirely free of the prejudices of an old. Children quickly learn that grown
earlier and nonglobal day? And even if ups don't have to go to school. If there
machines were programmed by.human is any inconvenience to school, it is
beings not devoid of prejudice, the mere attributed by children to their crime of
fact that machines could modify their being young. They come to realize that
programs in accordance with the needs one great reward of growing up is to
and abilities of students might mean become free of the school-prison. Their
that they would drift toward globality. goal becomes not that of being edu
For instance, it seems to me very cated, but that of getting out.
likely (though my own chauvinistic wish Similarly, adults are sure to associate
may be father to the thought) that education with childhood, something
Planetary would be closer to English they have fortunately survived and es
than to any other language, since caped from. The freedom of adulthood
English is already the first or second would be sullied if they were to go back
language of more people on earth than to the life-habits associated with the
any other, with the possible exception education of children. As a result, many
of the multidialect, and geographically adults, whether consciously or uncon
isolated, Chinese language. sciously, find it beneath their adult
Even if this is so, however, Planetary dignity to do anything as childish as
will undoubtedly absorb enough of read a book, think a.thought, or get an
other-language vocabulary and grammar idea. Adults are rarely embarrassed at
to become a foreign language to those having forgotten what little algebra or
who speak English as a native tongue. geography they once learned, just as
Teaching machines may be so pro they are rarely embarrassed at no longer
grammed, and so self-modified, as to wearing diapers.
encourage the drift of Planetary away People, as they grow old under such
from English, in order that it be, as circumstances, generally cannot change
much as possible, a new language with views or attitudes to conform with
out too-obvious antecedents. On the changing conditions and environments.
other hand, they may be programmed They have forgotten how to learn and
to resist the too-extreme breakup of must rely entirely on what scraps of
Planetary into mutually incomprehensi dimly remembered catchphrases they
ble dialects (as once happened to Latin picked up as teen-agers. There is, in
inWestern Europe). consequence, a
hardening conservatism,
a growing intolerance of whatever is
new, and a certain mindless refusal to
Amnother important revolution that adjust even where that would be to their
education may undergo in the twenty benefit. (There are, of course, individual
first century is simply this: It will no exceptions to this.)
longer be child oriented. The relatively young, who have just
It is natural to suppose that it is escaped from school, or who are in the
children only who must be educated. process of escaping, tend to depise the
trends, They are born with no more than a previous generation for its conservatism
handful of biological instincts and must and obscurantism, and even a very few
learn everything that makes them cul years is enough to produce a noticeable
turally and socially human. difference. That is why we had the
Once they have learned a certain catchphrase of the 1960s: "Don't trust
minimum of what is required ? to anyone over 30."
? their
speak, to read, to earn a living The distrust of the young for the old
education is considered complete. Of and their acceptance of the stereotype
course, certain aspects of education of age as inseparable from dullness,
continue, for an adult is bound to learn backwardness, stodginess, and non
new matters in fields of interest, or to creativity helps produce and confirm
become more proficient in the social the truth of that very stereotype. To the
graces, or to adapt to new cities, new degree that the young accept that
conditions, new situations. Such adult stereotype, they shrink into it as they
continuation, however, is left to it age and the whole becomes a vicious
self ? a matter for each individual to cycle of self-fulfillment.
take care of. Institutionalized education This stereotype of age as an unprofit
is left to the young. able excrescence on the body social is
As a result, we think of education as not exactly new, but, as it continues, it
closed-ended. One has an education; one is becoming more dangerous and, by the
is educated; one is done with education twenty-first century, it may be deadly.
SEPTEMBER 1976 101
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 The reason for this is that the age It could be a rise in the death rate accompaniment of immaturity. For all
profile of our society is changing. through starvation, disease, social strife, people, education must be made to
Through most of humankind's stay on and the like. Checking the population seem a requirement of human life as
the planet, a high birthrate and a high rise in this fashion would, of course, long
as that endures.
death rate have sufficed to keep the produce enough misery and anarchy to Why not? That for which a living and
shake the lofty and formidable - but healthy organism is adapted is easy to
?
rickety underpinnings of our complex do, and there is no reluctance attached
industrial society. It would shatter the to it. It is no pain for a cell to divide,
technological structure that alone keeps for a tree to put forth leaves, for a horse
"Education must not the earth's population fed, clothed, and to run, a seal to swim, a hawk to fly.
secure (however inadequately). With Where ah animal is sufficiently advanced
any longer be confined to
that structure destroyed, there will be to follow an apparent display of emo
the young. The young must no twenty-first century worth discus tion, it is almost inevitable to interpret
not look forward to its its behavior as indicating
sing. outright
completion; the old must The alternative is to lower the birth pleasure in the utilization of its body
not look back on it as an rate the world over. There are formida for the purposes to which it is adapted.
of im ble obstacles to this, but as catastrophe For what, then, is the human body
accompaniment
comes closer, and as a lowered birthrate
maturity." adapted? Consider the colossal human
is more and more seen as the
clearly brain, making up 2% of the human body
only route to survival, a panicky human and weighing three pounds altogether.
kind will take more and more drastic No other organism, with the exception
measures
average age of human beings low. (The to insure it, and then, perhaps, of the dolphin, has a brain that is at
average age would have been lower still we will win through with only a minor once so large and is combined with so
? that
were it not that infant mortality con catastrophe is, one from which comparatively small a body. For what is
tributed a disproportionate share to the civilization can recover. this brain adapted but for all the pro
death rate.) In that case, though, a drastically cesses we call reason,
thought, insight,
Since the mid-nineteenth century, lowered birthrate the world over will intuition, creativity?
however, the death rate has been drop insure the continued increase of the Would it not seem natural to suppose
ping, thanks to the advance of modern average age of humankind. There will be that there must be pleasure for the
medicine. The drop in infant mortality a steady increase in the proportion of human being in the very act of thinking,
and the slower sag in birthrate have not oldsters who will have to be supported since the brain is so well adapted for it,
been able to offset the effect on the age by a steadily decreasing number of and since its underutilization gives rise
profile of an extended life span. In youngsters. This change will be further to that very painful condition we call
nations where the effects have been exacerbated by the fact that a con boredom?
most marked, the average age of the tinuing civilization will insure further When a child learns to talk, he talks
has been increasing relent advances in medicine, so that there will
population constantly, he asks questions, he pries
lessly. be an increasingly successful treatment and probes, and is endlessly curious. He
In the United States, the steadily of the degenerative diseases that now
clearly loves the thinking ability he
strike the aging with such dreadful ?
increasing percentage of the population develops and then he goes to school
? and a further
made up by those over 65 has now consistency drop in and has curiosity shot out from under
made the oldsters a formidable voting death rate that the falling birthrate will him.
What's more, we are have to match. School isn't but edu
power. becoming, fun, might,not
increasingly, a nation with its finances To be sure, the aged will be healthier cation machine
?
by personalized,
?
organized about pensions, Medicaid, and and stronger as medicine learns to in
adaptable, versatile prove to be fun?
social which are en hibit and/or ameliorate If it were, might it not be the kind of
arthritis, cancer,
security benefits,
joyed by so many and looked forward circulatory disorders, kidney disease, fun that people would hate to give up?
to by so many more. As some have and others. To that extent, the oldsters If so, then education could continue
pointed out, there are ever more and will be less of a physical drain on into advanced age. Oldsters aren't likely
more unproductive oldsters being sup society than they would be under pres to give up golf or tennis (or sex, for
ported by the labors of a smaller and ent conditions. On the other hand, if that matter) just because they were
smaller reservoir of productive young the stereotype of the aging as mentally better at it when they were younger.
sters. rigid and creatively incompetent con Why, then, should they give up educa
And what if this tendency continues? tinues to be converted into actuality, all tion, if that proves to be a continuing
Consider: of society will calcify. Humankind will pleasure?
The total population of the world avoid the death-by-bang of the popula In fact, given a long, vigorous, and
stands now at four billion and it is tion explosion to suffer the death-by healthy life, and one in which it is no
increasing at the rate of 2% a year. By whimper of massive old age. disgrace for a mature person to "go to

2010, if this growth continues un school," why should there not be regu
checked, the world population will be lar switches in fields of endeavor? At
eight billion; by 2045 it will be 16 w nless education does something to age 60, why might not someone sudden

billion, and so on. destroy the stereotype

....
ly decide to study Russian, or take up
No one really expects the population Education must not any longer be mathematics or physics, or venture into
rise to continue unchecked for very confined to the young^The young must chess or archaeology or bricklaying?
many decades, however. The only ques not look forward to its completion; the What could better serve to keep a
tion is,What will check it? old must not look back on it as an person's mind active and happy and

102 PHI DELTA KAPPAN

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alive and creative than to send it surging educational system that consists entirely enough people will opt for the socially
in new directions? and solely of ?lectives? important activities to keep the world
Computers, programmed with ever Why not, if we take into account the going?
greater versatility and themselves in likely nature of technological ad And perhaps it will turn out that the
?
creasingly capable of learning by inter vance assuming civilization survives? activity which is of greatest importance
?
action with human beings, could be An increasing rate of computerization is education the designing, of com

ready to help further those new inter and automation of the industrial struc puter programs in new and esoteric

ests, and in this way, too, teaching ture of society should diminish the kind directions ? and of greater subtlety in
machines could help save our society. of dull and mindless scut-work that now the older disciplines. There could be a
occupies so a proportion of the steady, synergistic interaction of man
large
efforts of humanity. One might imagine and machine, each learning from the

I he key to this vision of education a world of robots and computers that other, and each advancing with the help
is, of course, that people enjoy learning farm and mine and tend machinery; of the other. The distinction between
if they learn what they want to learn. leaving for human beings precisely the the two varieties of intelligence may
This is not a very profound observation, type of creative endeavor for which grow dimmer and the discovery and
actually. A child who finds every school their brains are suited. refinement of knowledge, and the beat
subject boring and incomprehensible, Every child not markedly brain ing back of the vast cloud of ignorance,
seems of shows the of may be carried on at a faster rate
and who incapable learning, damaged capacity learning by

may yet bend his every faculty to an to walk, to speak, to adjust himself to both together than would be possible by
understanding of the rules of baseball, life in a million ways even before he either alone.

and may succeed in memorizing, with enters the first grade. It is clear, there
fiendish intensity, unrelated statistics fore, that the potential for creativity is
that a mathematics professor might have present in everyone, provided only that I n such a Utopian world as I describe
? which
trouble with. we make learning pleasant, and stimu (assuming it can be attained is,
Then why not allow a child to learn late (not penalize, as we usually do of course, doubtful) there is the danger
what he wants to learn? If he wants to today) any demonstration of that that everything will run so smoothly
learn baseball, let the machine teach and safely and securely as to remove all
creativity.
him the academic aspects of baseball, each follow his own particular
Let interest, and produce a society that will
which he can then apply in the field. He drummer, and if some decide to sink slowly and somnolently sink into the
may, as a result, want of his own accord into what we would think of as ignoble slumber of desuetude.
to learn to read better in order to read sloth, or to indulge in what we would Yet that need not be so, for out
more about and want to learn now consider trivia, may later in there in space we can find a new and
baseball, they
arithmetic in order to calculate baseball life grow weary and
try, instead, some more distant horizon than any we have

averages. Eventually, he may find he thing that our present prejudices

con ever encountered before; a greater and
? a larger
likes mathematics more than baseball. sider more worthy scientific research, more dangerous frontier; and
Remove constraint and he may well and command, literature, arts, more habitat; an outspread
politics unexpected
move in a direction toward which force entertainment, and, of course, educa ing volume with more fearful unknowns
would never budge him. tion. And some may move in that and more exciting possibilities than any
But can the world continue if every direction from the start (and, perhaps, thing we can now imagine.
one has the option of choosing what he abandon it later). Might it not be likely But that is a subject for another
is to learn? Can society survive with an that, on a strictly voluntary basis, article. ... D

D00NESBURY by Garry Trudeau

UJEtCOMB, FRtBNPS, 3? FfZ?& AND FGEAW,
TO COA/SC/OUSA/SSS V?-A. ANO PONT GET INTO
u/ouJ,Mixe, vetee vzry PlcTASe SIT POU)N, OR AN ANKtery BA6> stav
LUCKY TO ScZT INTO STfiNP, OR KNBtZL- ON OR UEAVe:- PO UiHAT
\ PROFESSOR CHA&UF * / TH^r FLOOR the:
* / com es
I GRBEN'S COURSE. ?s#\ most mrcmay
? THEY SAY IT'S JUST FOR YOU. THBYACS?
z fl???TTHer most (S?gL ?Sk&s *
0eAUT(Fuc~ course WV* CLASS W*^ SAY IT'?
I? & )iy PfSMisseo.
Pt ROUND..
UNSTRUCTURBO.
*f^M^ y
17 vf /
! Y
#W

Cartoon: ? 1971 G. B. Trudeau/Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate SEPTEMBER 1976 103

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