The Fun They Had vs a Beautiful Mind
The topic that I chose to do my comparison essay is how the article “The Fun They Had” and the movie “The Beautiful mind” view school. What is school? School is an institution where students are educated and gain knowledge to succeed in future. Both the article and the movie view school negatively. As years go by and students continue to go on to higher grades, they tend to lose their individuality and their ability to be creative and imaginative. School effects by dulling the minds of the students and making them follow a specific rubric instead of letting them take risks and come up with something unique.
But who creates these rubrics? The education system. Students have no choice but to follow the rubric and if they don’t, they get a low mark. Students also get low mark because sometimes they are made to take courses that do appeal or excite them. They only take these courses because in the system it will achieve a great future.
But is it the student’s fault if they for not trying?
Students sometimes do not do their homework or other assignments given by the teachers because they automatically assume it to be hard because they don’t understand anything in class. Instead of making such assumptions, students should try their very best, if not seek a teacher for help. The first subtopic is how school affects the life of a student. Nowaday’s student’s life can be affected by different by media, society and all sorts of things but school will be the last thing on our minds.
As times passes, students go into higher grades, thus becoming harder and more stressful. It gets harder because school gives the student no options but to follow a specific rule or rubric or an outline for either writing an essay or being a math class because you need a credit for it. These rubrics that they have to follow, reduces their creativity skills because they got to follow the rubrics if not they lose marks.
As John Nash says, “Classes will dull your mind, destroy the potential for authentic creativity”. That’s true because essays now days don’t let students express their imagination, but instead more of following the rubric. Schools are like jails and the prisoners are the students were they are told what to do no matter how much they hate or like it. In “The Fun They Had”, Margie hate school because, the teacher had been giving her test after test in geography gradually doing worse and worse on it as geography isn’t her strongest subject. This is a huge example to back my topic because she hates geography as Isaac Asimove mentions “Margie was disappointed. She had been hoping they would take away the teacher away altogether”. It is because she forced to stay in that class and pass, is the main reason why she is doing badly. And who makes these rubrics for the essays, teachers. All the essays, homework, tests depend on the teachers. If the teacher is willing to give the students there own ability of writing their own essay where they have to use their imagination and really use their creativity.
Depending on how teacher is teaching the class, the school will affect students differently. A teacher who involves the class to think more outside the box than just teaching and handing out homework are the one who deserve chance to teach. During “A Beautiful Mind”, when he was teaching the class, he looks the textbooks and just dumps the book into the garbage. And writes an equation on the board and tells his class, “This class will be a waste of your – and what is infinitely worse – my time.” He is trying to convey that textbook gives you boundaries of what you are going to learn. Instead of reading textbooks, he is trying to say is head to the library to seek and learn new things. That is why, when he was in Princeton University, he always in the library or outside instead of being in class.
Another example, is in “The Fun They Had”, is a man teacher is a lot better than having a robotic computer teaching you because having a robotic teacher is like a teacher who tells students things and gave homework and asked them questions. But for a human teacher, it varies, some teacher can be like the robotic teacher but some aren’t. It’s not only because of school that makes the student not do well, it is the student himself/ herself to choose to learn or not. If the teachers are trying to help the students but the students deny the help, it’s not the teachers or the school’s fault. Students need to do their 100 % when it comes to education. If a biology student got put into math class because it’s compulsory for example, he or she strive their hardest to learn even though they struggle.
It is compulsory because the student in the future might come up in a situation requiring basic math. In “The Fun They Had”, Margie hates her school especially geography since she is getting worse and worse at it. And we can mention that because when the teacher asks Margie for the homework and she gives sigh. The sigh tells us that she is fed up of being taught by a mechanical teacher, and wishes that a human teacher who understands her feelings could be there for her.
But the mechanical teacher is doing the best it could to help by giving her test after test so she could improve her mark. Margie doesn’t take advantage of this and keeps doing worse and worse. In “A Beautiful Mind”, John Nash says, “This class will be a waste of your – and what is infinitely worse – my time.” Because he believes that the students in his class is nothing more than a complete waste of time. He puts an equation on the board and asks the students to solve it. Depending on the student, if they spent their time researching to solve the problem, they would get the experience of being an MIT.
