What Kind of Teachers did Margie and Tommy Have?

Margie and Tommy have Mechanical Teachers — large, robotic teaching machines installed directly in their homes, in their bedrooms.

The mechanical teacher is described as:

• Large and black with a big screen on which lessons were shown
• It calculates student performance, gives tests, and grades them
• It teaches all subjects — Geography, History, Arithmetic
• It operates at a fixed time every day — the same time, without exception
• It is programmed to give exactly the right level of questions for each pupil

Margie hated her mechanical teacher intensely for several reasons:

1. It gave her test after test in Geography and she was failing consistently
2. It was impersonal and inflexible — it didn't notice her struggles, didn't slow down, couldn't comfort her
3. It operated at the same fixed time every day — even if she was tired or unwell
4. Her performance was automatically submitted to her parents — no privacy

When Margie and Tommy find an old book from centuries ago that describes human teachers, Margie is fascinated.

A human teacher was a real person who:

• Taught children in a school building with other children present
• Adjusted their teaching based on student responses
• Could have a bad day, could be kind, could make mistakes

The story ends with Margie thinking wistfully about what real school was like — laughing, learning together, and having a teacher who was a living person.