What is the meaning ?

Question

"teachers are like the machines that take quarters for bouncy balls" what does this mean?

Deadrat · Accepted Answer

I renew my plea for context.

This quote is from the interior dialog of Ally, the girl who's the dyslexic protagonist in Lynda Mullaly Hunt's book Fish in a Tree. She has just been asked to write a page-long essay about herself so that her new teacher can get to know her. Ally doesn't want to do the assignment, and she thinks, "I know that [the reason for the assignment], and it’s exactly why I don’t want to do it. Teachers are like the machines that take quarters for bouncy *****. You know what you’re going to get. Yet, you don’t know, too."

Ally is ambivalent. She thinks that teachers are like vending machines for toys -- mechanical and unsurprising: you know what you're going to get out of the machine when you put your money in. But then she thinks that might not be entirely true.

Anonymous · Answer

I am a student, and I was also confused with this quote from the book, "Fish In A Tree." But my question was, "What do you think Ally means by, "Teachers are like machines that take quarters for bouncy *****. You know what you're going to get. Yet, you don't know too?"

This means that: Teachers are the ones giving the question which is the machine, and we are the ones givi

This means that: Teachers are the ones giving the question which is the machine, and we are the ones giving the answer which is the quarter. We know what the teachers are going to say to our answer, but at the same time, we don't.

I am not fully sure if this is correct, but this is what I got. I hope that this is correct and that it helps for you "Anonymous."

P.S. Anonymous what I wrote over here is for you. This is what you wrote: anonymous" - teachers are like the machines that take quarters for bouncy *****" what does this mean?

So, to help you, I answered it for you. I hope that helps you! And everyone else who is confused with this.

Anonymous · Answer

I know this is a dead thread, but I went and read the chapter that is from, and it means that the writer is not very good. She did not mean that the teachers are like the machines. She meant that the teachers are like the ***** you get from those machines. When you get a new teacher, you know what you are going to get inasmuch as teachers are all the same in many ways, but you don't know what this particular one will be like any more than you know what color ball the machine will drop. An inapt simile badly expressed.

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