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Monday, September 01, 2008

Those damned answers

What's Mallard raving about today?

Teachers.

It has been fairly noted in the comments that it is becoming increasingly impossible to distinguish what the hell Mallard is complaining about when it comes to education. Not that Mallard has ever demonstrated coherence when raving, but in this case it's particularly schizoid.

He hates education standards today, but he's equally spiteful regarding education from 30 or 40 years ago.

I believe Mallard yearns for a good old-fashioned Prairie education, in which children copy Scripture passages onto slate boards and use an abacus to learn math before ceasing their education entirely at age 10 and going to work in the fields to help Pa.

This is how he plans to prepare American Youth for the challenges of the 21st Century.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

At least this time he hasn't gotten to the point where fictional people start fictional protests against him. Yet.

Anonymous said...

in school one of my teachers talked about how if an exercise or test was harder to write(like a test with multiple questions written out with predictable answers) it would take a shorter time to grade,

but something that took a shorter time to grade( like asking the class to write an essay on something) takes longer to grade, because it takes more to decide what grade it gets.

the tinz sure hates education and the people who work in education

Anonymous said...

The problem is that Tinz is one of many people who tend to oversimplify things when they criticize. He forgets that involvement of parents, amount of resources available to the school, location, culture, backgrounds, as well as the format of the educational system in addition to the teachers are all fundamental parts of the educational system.Any one of them can make a school good or bad, and that's not even factoring in the abilities of the student.

Kaitlyn said...

Like I said yesterday, from the student's perspective, these are important.

As a first assignment of the year, it lets you know what the teacher expects without the pressure of killing your GPA and therefor your scholarship and now you'll have to work as a conservative cartoonist...

There is a wrong answer in these type of the assignment, and Tinz just illustrated it, potentially making this funny, as he undercuts the stated "joke".

On a really weird note, I'm taking an honors science course this semester, and since there's like 12 of us, we're in the regular class, only we have to write a paper and do a presentation. Length, completion, and, I assume, no plagiarism are all that matter. And being coherent, something this comment most definitely is not.

It was scary at first glance, but then I grew to the idea before he told us it didn't have to be the best paper ever, the doing it was all that mattered.

But this is a college course, so it's everything in Mallard's nightmares and more.

"Interpreting teacher speak"? Most of my teachers in college have been quite open, especially in the quite small honors courses or if they're still students themselves.

ajm said...

Multiple-choice/true-false tests are the easiest to grade, with optical scanners checking those penciled-in ovals. Judging "creativity" is nigh impossible for any teacher to do in a few seconds.

What is it about encouraging creativity that scares the living hell out of Tinsley?

Unknown said...

Why did he use a picture of David Van Driessen?

Anonymous said...

"What is it about encouraging creativity that scares the living hell out of Tinsley?"

He fears something he obviously can't understand. He's a Republican, you see.

rewinn said...

We understand that this "joke" is nonsense; it can not possibly be easier to grade creative work than it is to grade a simple right-or-wrong answer. Therefore we must look deeper for the message.

* "I hate teachers" is obvious but, I think, too shallow. On the evidence, Tinsley probably kissed up to authority figures.

* "It's the teachers" fault you did badly in school" is reassuring to his fan base but, I suggest, only part of the answer.

* "RAGE!" is, IMO, the most likely basic theme.

Rage is an important element for fascists (...and I use that term in its technical sense, pace Mussolini ...) since it allows them to feel oppressed and powerful at the same time. As oppressed people, they feel the right to strike out at their enemies; as powerful people they are encouraged to strike out, confident they will, against all the evidence, be effectual.

Ultimately, most of Tinsley's work exists to feed the irresistible Teutonic (or whatever) RAGE!

Kaitlyn said...

Rewinn - interesting. I'd say it's a desire for money, coupled with rage, but in addition to your rage, rage that Mallard Fillmore is not as popular as Garfield.

Ajm - You're right. I'd hate grading papers. I mean, I guess there are right or wrong answers in all assignments, but they can't be easy to suss out.

I bet Tinz had an assignment where the teacher said something similar, and he got a failing grade, because he's conservative, and not because he did a bad job.

rewinn said...

Kaitlyn - everyone knows Garfiled is more "popular" than Mallard because the liberal cartoon page editors keep pushing Jim Davis on us. Peanuts and Doonesbury too! Why it's enough to make a duck daffy with rage!

Hm.

Daffy.

Duck.

Impotent rage at smarter, more popular cartoons.

Now we know what Mallard sounds like when he talks!

Gold-Digging Nanny said...

I bet Tinz had an assignment where the teacher said something similar, and he got a failing grade, because he's conservative, and not because he did a bad job.

You're kidding, right, Kaitlyn? Day after day Tinz gives us evidence of his writing and reasoning ability (and, I might add, the fact that he's none too creative) -- and you think it's possible he wrote a paper and didn't do a bad job?

Kaitlyn said...

gold-digging nanny - yeah, I was kidding.

In that situation, he would assume he got the F because of his conservative views, when everyone with 2 brain cells to rub together would know it was because the paper sucked.

I have no doubt in Tinz's ability to make me feel smart in every situation.

GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Believe me: grading papers is painful. I'm constantly second-guessing myself. It would be infinitely easier if there were easy right/wrong answers. But to paraphrase Morbo, composition does not work that way! I'm wondering what bizarre idea Tinsley has of how one should judge papers. Actually, no I don't; I know that he's never actually thought about it, or much of anything. He's just a kneejerk dickhead.

Anonymous said...

There wasn't the usual following line I've always had.

"No right or wrong answers..."

was also balanced out by "but you should demonstrate an understanding of the subject matter and make your argument clearly and intelligently." There was also a structure we had to follow, which involved thesis statements, something that guarenteed papers were effort to create in the first place.