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Stories from the Verse
In Verse Proportion
Chapter 91: Brown 223
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Kondor 204
Poring over his translation program, Derek abruptly exclaimed, “I’ve been thinking about this all wrong.”
Vashti apparently assumed he was addressing her, and responded, “How so?”
Shaking himself and turning his attention to her, he decided to explain.
“I’ve thought that if these people were going to learn, I was going to have to teach them. But their ancestors almost certainly built educational programs into the computer, so that their descendants could be educated--the indigs just didn’t bother to run them. But there are computer monitors all over the ship, and if they started playing something the indigs would almost certainly be curious and start watching. I just have to get the computer to feed Sesame Street to all its screens.”
Vashti looked confused. “How will having the computer show the street where the oil seed plants grow help teach them?”
Derek laughed. “No, Sesame Street was a television show for kids when I was little. It taught letters and numbers, shapes and colors, and to some degree basic science and etiquette and how to get along with people. It was in essence what we would have called preschool education. I can’t help thinking that these people must have had some basic educational programming that was designed to be engaging for preschoolers, that got them started on learning. If I can get that to run everywhere in the ship, I can start their education without having to talk to them at all.”
“Oh.” Vashti appeared to ponder for a moment. “How do you do that?”
“Doing it is easy,” Derek answered. “It’s finding that program that’s the tough part.” He pondered for a moment. “I’ll bet that’s something I can get my laptop to do. Let me work on it.”
As he turned his attention to the laptop, Vashti asked, “Does this mean you don’t need the translator?”
He paused a moment, and then said, “No--I’m probably going to need to be able to talk to them eventually, if not directly then through the computer. I’ve still got to crack the problem with translation. But I don’t have to become the teacher of the multitudes. I only have to get the translation program in place so I can talk with them; the computer can teach them.”
Vashti nodded, and Derek returned to his immersion in his work.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #448: Inventive Versers. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
