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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

That damned Teacher

What's Mallard raving about today?

Teachers, Students.

A waterfowl who hasn't gotten a single fact correct since August 2006 (when I started paying attention) has no right to lecture anyone about History.

19 comments:

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

Ha ha! Teachers are stoopid! Tinsley may be right-wing, but it's strips like this that show that his political ideology isn't really the point: he's just aimlessly, motivelessly hateful. He just happens to have latched on to wingnuttery as the most efficient way to express that hatred.

David B said...

Obviously, given the physical characteristics of the teacher, Tinsley is claiming that old people are stupid.

I expect all the Pluggers fans to start writing letters to their local papers, demanding they drop Mallard Fillmore immediately.

Ducky is Right said...

No, dude, the doctor told you NOT to take your meds with alcohol.

Seriously, where the hell is he getting this shit from?

Also, Simpsons did it!!

VW: sadsio. lol?

exanonymous said...

You know, I tried looking up on google to see if there was a credible survey done that backed up this "teachers are stoopid" assertion, but the fact is this line of comics is still going on his bitterness expressed towards an ex-hippy in some rural bible state from decades ago, and not actual evidence.

ajm said...

I always thought an underlying principle of conservatism was a fundamental respect for authority -- in this case, teachers.

Rootbeer said...

Another accidentally transcendent commentary on modern culture: in an era where you can type practically any subject into a search engine and the first result is a Wikipedia page full of mostly credible information on the subject, what is the point of teaching History as a list dates and events to be memorized by rote?

word veri: gledef. Like hi-def, only blurry because the viewer's had six tumblers of Glenlivet.

dlauthor said...

Maybe that teacher should go do some "research," Tinshley-style. A good eighty proof, I mean ounces, I mean hours a week oughta do it.

rewinn said...

"... in an era where you can type practically any subject into a search engine and the first result is a Wikipedia page full of mostly credible information on the subject, what is the point of teaching History as a list dates and events to be memorized by rote?..."

I was gonna snark on the bad writing of today's I-Hates-Teachers strip, but your comment was completely thoughtful.

Conservatives don't get it. Everything about humanity, including the way we think and learn, is affected by culture including technology. Authoritarian learning is ok-I-guess in primitive societies where Authorities have a monopoly on information, but now that information is being democratized, the important skills to teach are about how to get and use that information.

The teacher's question should have been: "Ok, kids, how fast can you find out when the Civil War was (not just the century, but the actual dates) and what does it mean to your life today?"

And half the middleschool kids with cellphones in class would have a decent answer in about 5 minutes. Which, when you think about it, makes them smarter than we were at their age. And THAT makes them a grave threat to the Aristocracy, since a smart citizenry is better at resisting semi-slavery.

Kip W said...

So I'm guessing his Tweet for today reads "Teachers is stoopid! (ps: What century was it? 18th, right?)"

dlauthor said...

Today's Twitter report: total incompetence (my kid isn't around to help me!) and whiny blame-shifting (I'm using voice-to-text so the bad spelling's not my fault! I went to public school hur hurrr!). And nothing else. I was really expecting more drunken bitter spite and less drunken aimless vapidity. Disappointing.

link to Medium Large said...

Click on my name to go to today's Medium Large webcomic featuring Mallard.

Frank Stone said...

Haw haw! Yeah, teechurz shore is dumb! An' GAWD! Lookit how FAT an' UGLY she is!! She must be one'a them lezbo feminazis Rush is always talkin' about, am I right??

Seriously: This is clearly Brucie's way of taking revenge on all the teachers who gently chided him when HE didn't have the right answers in class.

I'll say it again: Get therapy, Bruce. It won't cost you too much of your booze budget, I guarantee you.

WV: beers: Synchronicity's fun, isn't it?

ajm said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ajm said...

Seriously: This is clearly Brucie's way of taking revenge on all the teachers who gently chided him when HE didn't have the right answers in class.

Or all the teachers who refused to give him an extension on a term paper/all the college administrators who didn't grant him a waiver to take a course he wasn't ready for...

Michael Foley said...

We do have a problem of underpaying our public school teachers, which leads to an unqualified pool of talent, especially in the hard sciences. If you have a science degree and school loans to repay for it, there's a strong disincentive to teach at a public school.

Tinsley, as usual, never addresses the root problem nor offers any solutions. He has a public forum, and he's using it to trash some of the most selfless and under-appreciated public servants we have.

Tinsley! We have some real problems in our country, man -- try to elevate the public discourse above "hur hur! Teachers are dumb."

wv: moderons: News moderators who invite a partisan hack from each political party, and assert that the truth always lies halfway between their positions.

Bill the Splut said...

I'm surprised the strawteacher didn't add "...And which side SHOULD have won the Civil War? Hint: It's not the RACISTS who wanted to free the slaves!"

WV: zedium, tedium so dull that cartoon ZZZs appear over your head--"Class, can any of you give an example of a comic strip that induces zedium?"

Kaitlyn said...

The teachers ones really, really, really piss me off.

My mom works a thankless job for shitty pay in the public schools. She does not teach.

But I have immense respect for those who do and who love any subject and or their students that even if the class is hard, we return.

My high school's chemistry teacher was awesome in a zillion ways, and the class was fun. My sister had him a few years later and enjoyed it so much, she took AP next year with him. (and flunked the the AP test miserably) But she had fun.

No, I don't care if this is relevant. I think on his public education and college bashing days, we should share anecdotes about our favorite teachers.

Also, memorizing dates really sucks - the 3 history classes I've taken at the university (US to civil war, civil war to today, and history of modern middle east) used some dates, but the reasons behind the wars and the actions matter more than when some battle was fought.

Also, I'm re-reading Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz. He is focusing on dates, but when we read it for class (the first history one), we didn't focus on the dates, but the attitudes. He mainly focuses on the battle dates and so-and-so's birthday. He visits Shiloh on the anniversary (and tries to get the time right) of its hideously bloody battle.

Anyway, this would fit right the fuck in with some of the hideous racists Horwitz meets.

But even now I sometimes forget the year the war ended and started because they are irrelevant without the information about WHY it happened when it did.

Anyway, it's so much easier to call teachers lazy and leave it at that.

I did like it in The Simpsons - Edna has grown as a character and one characteristic of the elementary school is that they are BROKE.

Odd thing - in US history in 5th and 8th grade, we barely got to the Civil War by the end of the year. (Which was important in 5th grade, as we missed a day of school for a trip to Shiloh. Yay! Learn what now?) I think we spent a lot of time on the government aspect at the beginning of the country... so we went from the revolution to the Civil War.

What a joy it was in 11th grade to end the history early and then spend time learning useless shit for the state test.

Kaitlyn said...

Even if my mom didn't work for the federal government (!!! that's how special ed assistants are classified for some damn reason), these would still piss me off.

I love learning. I love history.

I enjoy school. Except homework.

I do not revel in my ignorance and go yup, he's too over-edumacated.

Also, just like only *your* group can call each other names, only those of us who went to our school can say, when we do something stupid, "Well, I am the product of a Shelby County School education!"

You insult my district, you better be specific - we spend more on sports, those in charge have their heads up their asses, etc etc.

Ooh - juicy school gossip that none of you will care about but I have to spill it. My mom now works at a high school on the other side of the county. It's a mix of farm boys who have been there before white flight made the town popular. (Because the other suburbs had already been filled... even by rich black people fleeing Memphis. WTF say the racists!)

The school was in the news the first week of school because the administrator in charge of the money embezzled the shit out of it. And probably skipped town to enjoy a vacation.

Now, 32 of the 48 football players have staph infections, thanks to the locker room. especially those farm boys. It's highly contagious right now, and at least one cheerleader has it. The principal won't send the football players home before it causes an epidemic, because it would undoubtedly draw the cameras out again... plus football season is starting!!!!

And practicing in Memphis summer heat with any infection is so much fun, let me tell you.

Hopefully, before the first official game this season the principal will pull his head out of his ass and send the football players home.

I just had to get this out there.

Oh, no one's supposed to know. It's in a high school. The gossip will spread faster than the disease.

Sorry irrelevant, but hopefully more fun than the comic.

Carry on!

MartyRotten said...

It must have been so hard for Tinsley to call it the Civil War and not the "War of Northern Agression" like so many of his whiskey swilling gun toting Klan buddies.