I think you may be overestimating the consistency in the quality of college courses.
Not to mention that community/junior college in many states has a minimum requirement of only a master’s degree (not necessarily in the subject area) to teach.
Or that many specialized courses are taught by non-degree holders (of any kind) that merely had the expertise required.
e.g. There is a very popular aerospace mechanics course at our local college taught by a friend of mine in this exact situation. A coworker of his, who he considers to be his equal or superior in the material, took the course. The “student” needed the large number of credits toward his associates. The “instructor” had no qualms about admitted that the coworker “student” literally could have taught the course himself had the “instructor” not had an additional year of seniority with the company. (Never mind that the “student” needed the credits/degree for advancement, more than the short-term financial gain of teaching the course.
Or that apparently many university courses end up essentially taught by masters TAs.
Etc. Etc.
I’d just say there may, indeed, be some exceptions.
Not really. I was considering a math major and so had to take a computer science course. The pace was very slow and most of the students had no prior experience. I technically didn’t either but a lot of my friends enjoy programming so I have been exposed. After the first few days I just started writing programs during class, looking up info online when needed. I did decide to become a Computer Science major though because it was so interesting. So I guess there is that.
I’ve known undergraduate TA’s in completely different departments with no experience in a subject to teach a class for a semester. This is standard procedure at major universities, even if the course in question is not BS.
I don’t know, when I had to essentially repeat Psychology in Education due to the second school’s course being named Educational Psychology, the second go-round was dumbed down and a bit redundant. The first course had been dual listed as both undergrad/grad, so…
Wait wait. Not 95%. More like 75%. There -were- a few teachers that actually taught me a lot, unlike the rest of the faculty, who got their degree out of a Cracker Jack box…
I’ve taught math before, including more rigorous versions of classes taught at my university. I’m an undergrad. Exceptions abound. (This has happened for precalculus, calculus, and introductory abstract algebra.)
I was once required to take a computer applications course (read: Microsoft Office), something for which I provide help desk support every day. Fortunately, the asst. prof. and I were friends from a professional organization. The first day he handed me the syllabus and said “Go away! I don’t want you in here every day debating the best way to do things!” The only other time I showed up was for ten minutes about two-thirds of the way through, to hand in my project.
I’m seeing a lot of people who I think are confusing “know enough about this subject” with “could teach this class well”.
Being a GOOD teacher requires a lot more than just being able to get an A+++, like knowing how to break down a textbook, what questions are good to put on tests, etc, and having the fortitude to deal effectively with students who aren’t doing well, or who are resistant to being taught.
It’s hard not to read contempt for the teaching profession into some of what you folks are saying, and a desire to demonstrate your own smarts for the informal but constant Internet IQ measuring contest.
Also, if you think or know you could do a better job than “some” teachers, well, congrats. I’m sure I could perform surgery better than a drunken surgeon who hated his job and barely ever put in any effort too! But that does NOT make me a surgeon.
Yeah, I was about to say. You do not need a doctorate to teach most college courses, but you need a teaching certification or SOME sort of training at the very least. Teaching is hard, regardless of the course material :\
To be fair, nobody said anything about teaching well – just teaching. Taken in context of the original post to which these are replies, I’m really not seeing much contempt for the teaching profession, especially since the original post is so explicitly wrong. I don’t know about other fields, but anyone in a technical area knows that there is very little correlation between having a doctorate and having the ability to teach well.
The ability to teach well is an important trait that largely goes unrecognized in society, but I don’t really see much in these replies to indicate they feel otherwise. I feel like it’s better to give people the benefit of the doubt and not make inferences about strangers based on the attitudes of the ignorant majority of society, as it isn’t fair to anyone who falls outside of that majority.
If you don’t see how people saying “I COULD HAVE TAUGHT THAT CLASS, AND I’M JUST AN UNDERGRAD” isn’t showing contempt for the teaching profession, I don’t know how to help you.
I’m also in a technical field. I don’t have a specific teaching certificate, but I have taken tons of classes, and I have years of experience. So, no, certificates aren’t the be-all, end-all. And yes, the original comment made that its explicit criterion. But let’s not pretend that what the certificate represents — training, if not experience, in your field! — isn’t important.
@Li – I freely admit I have contempt for the teaching profession, IN MY COUNTRY, based on my own personal experiences. My good teachers have been few, I could count them with two hands, and the majority of those were part timers without formal training in pedagogy.
Before I get a bunch of replies from Amerocentric people talking about how hard it is to teach, I need to stress that we are not talking about the same system.
I find it interesting that you say you’ve had mostly terrible teachers AND that the teaching profession is therefore unworthy of respect AND that teaching is easy. (Which you imply, when you say “Before I get a bunch of replies from Amerocentric people talking about how hard it is to teach…”)
Why do I find it interesting? Because I think those statements are all kind of contradictory. If teaching were easy, wouldn’t you have had mostly good teachers…?
Seriously. “Amerocentric”? Do you think I am under some delusion that our school system in the USA isn’t deeply troubled? Because I’m not. But that the school system is screwed up and teachers get no money and schools get no money and are closing all the time… does NOT mean that teaching ISN’T HARD.
Especially not teaching well, which of course is explicitly what I said, repeatedly. Again, if you can perform surgery better than the bitter drunken surgeon who hates his job, that doesn’t mean surgery is easy or that you are a GOOD surgeon. It just means that particular surgeon was terrible at his job!
Amerocentrism doesn’t have anything to do with how well or badly the U.S.A.’s educational system works. It has to do with judging centered from an American point of view, which is exactly what you’re doing when you mention teachers and schools getting no money, or if teaching were easy everyone would teach well. Here education is officially the single largest federal spending contributor and has been so for most of the last decade, and yet schools keep performing worse and worse. We’ve reached the point where new college students can’t spell or perform basic algebra.
I might have had mostly good teachers if the educational workers union here didn’t make it effectively impossible to fire anyone for any reason. We’ve had teachers molesting students that get swapped around like they were catholic priests. We don’t have performance evaluations or standardized testing (until recently) because the teacher’s union blocked every attempt to introduce reforms for two decades. The head of the union was recently arrested for corruption and embezzlement.
You wanna know how you can have sucky teachers even if teaching isn’t that hard? By removing any sort of stimulus to performing well or consequence to doing a shitty job. I had so many teachers that didn’t give a shit it wasn’t even funny anymore. And by not giving a shit I mean drawing stuff on a blackboard then sitting down to read a newspaper or have coffee, or ordering elementary students to make 5 pages of multiplication tables in silence while they slept away a hangover on their desks.
I… Specifically said that America’s system is in need of help, NOT that all systems are, so… no. Still not being Amerocentric.
And while I am sorry you’ve had such terrible experiences, I think you are statistically wrong about the proximate cause. Just “holding teachers more responsible” (as we DO do here) and slamming unions will not fix these problems. It’s not a magic bullet.
You still haven’t remotely proven that teaching is easy, either — just that you’ve had shitty teachers, which I’ve already acknowledged several times is a thing that happens, but which does not make being a GOOD teacher easy.
You said I implied it was easy, I never said so. I said “We’re not talking about the same system”, which is what I clarified when I talked about lax standards and teachers unions. I don’t see why I have to prove something you attributed to me but I never actually said.
What you don’t get, and what I referred to when I talked about Amerocentrism is that while in the U.S. the teachers unions are usually the underdog, in Mexico they are a power lobby, with hundreds of thousands of members that can freeze a vital sector of the economy because it is a federal level union.
Not all problems with the educational system would be fixed by getting rid of the union, it has effectively blocked reformed and allowed the situation to spiral out of control to where Mexican education is right now. That and the terrible teachers generate contempt for the teaching profession in general where I live (Ask any parent who had to endure a 7 month teacher strike).
It has NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW EASY OR HARD IT IS TO TEACH. And that’s why I do think you’re being Amerocentric. In America it is common to assume respect for a job correlates with how easy or hard it is, not just results. This is not so in countries where certain professions are politicized. Being a soldier for example is very hard, and yet the profession had widespread contempt for decades as result of the 1968 student massacre.
I am quite aware that teaching well is more than just reading from a single book, getting your students to successfully parrot it back, then invent a test the day before that to have teaching evidence. I do remember at least that much from my educational psychology and special needs education classes (I’m a general psychology major).
But that’s not what I was talking about. Most teachers I had and where I live follow the proceedure I talked about above. Right down to my BD teachers. I’m doing a masters right now and a few of them still work that way (thankfully less of them).
When I say I have contempt for teachers in my country, I mean exactly that. In my country. Under the circumstances in my country. With the level of commitment and competency teachers have in my country. That doesn’t mean teachers everywhere, or that there aren’t individual teachers that do a great job even here, I mentioned them. If you wanna talk about that some more I’d be happy to give you an email adress.
“In America it is common to assume respect for a job correlates with how easy or hard it is, not just results.”
Okay… but in America there is shit respect for teachers. So I’m not sure what you are trying to say, except that I assume it relates to justifying your lack of respect, so I’ll guess you’re saying, “In America you want to say teachers should get respect because their job is hard, without regard for the shitty results they get, but in my country I can’t respect a profession that has so many terrible teachers in it.”
I still don’t think the previous is a particularly American sentiment, though, because if ANYTHING we tend to award respect based on salary size (assuming especially that a company’s CEO must be more worthy of admiration and respect than the people underneath him, even though a CEO has little impact on a company’s success and often gets away without any consequences when a company fails under his watch).
And we definitely blame teachers not just for occasions of poor performance but for things that could be called the “results” of our educational system but which are demonstrably not their fault.
I still want to also make a biiiiiig distinction between expecting respect for the teaching PROFESSION and expecting respect for individual teachers who suck. I never have and never will ask you to respect someone who is bad at their job. All I keep saying is that the existence of BAD teachers doesn’t make teaching easy.
So I’m still gonna have to reject your “Amerocentric” assertion. Of course I have the most experience with my own country’s educational issues, but from the way you speak you have confused the most progressive minority of American opinions for American attitudes as a whole. I assure you that hatred of teacher unions (which we have all but abolished) and “tenured” professors (those who cannot easily be fired) run both wide and deep in the USA.
You also clearly think I am incapable of imagining a scenario where teachers are not “the underdog”; I’m not. I’ve still never talked about how MANY individual teachers are good or bad or deserving of respect. YOU may not be talking about whether or not teaching is easy, but it has been MY explicit point this entire time, so you can’t argue with me without reasonably expecting the ease to be a topic of conversation 😉
Again, I’m not at all asking you to respect people who have done nothing to deserve it. My only point, ever, was that being a good teacher is not easy, so people with no experience teaching should not be so quick to assert that they could do the job.
And yes, I think this remains as true in a country where (say) most teachers are terrible as in a country where most are good.
I would totally have taken more english in college if Bumblebee, of any color, had been the teacher.
Of course I don’t know how that would have worked since my teacher wouldn’t have been able to speak english.
Well you insert the penis into the vagina. or the butt. or anywhere you feel comfortable really, but talk it out with your partner first. Joyce, I need you to pay more attention.
>implying any sort of insertion needs to be involved
>implying making heterosexual relations “lesson one” isn’t heteronormative at all
>implying gender studies is anything at all related to sex ed
Roz is heterosexual though…I mean, I think she’d be most comfortable talking about this first before going into other, non heteronormative. You’re implying that Roz is more accepting, which she may be, but I have no difinitive proof. Roz is kinda young, she probably does not know much. Also I’m joking and I think the words insert, butts and penis are very funny.
We haven’t actually, he was just distracted by an active cheerleader. Billie is merely a former cheerleader, lower on the cheerleader attractiveness scale.
Roz teaching a gender studies class. I feel there would be a lot of discussion of the finer things in that subject. *nudge-nudge, say-no-more say-no-more*
“Yes…I’ve met you. Who I haven’t met is that bangin’ hot piece of latina that you said you would try to hook me up with, last we shared a stream of communication within the confines of this webcomic.”
Yeah, when I first joined Tumblr, I thought the tags worked like they do on Livejournal– they just search for matches on THAT blog. Bzzzt! Tumblr searches tags from ALL blogs.
Well who knows, maybe it will provoke discussion that will give the entire class a chance to learn out of curriculum. Or just piss off the rest of your classmates for stallion the lecture.
Yes, Roz. You can certainly teach this class as well as someone who has years of study in the subject and experience teaching to others. I’m sure you won’t get into arguments with anyone who has differing views and experiences at all.
Other people’s interpretations and thoughts on the subject? Such as depictions of gender in books, films, etc?
Like why Oz: the Great and Powerful was kind of offensive, what with it taking a franchise with primarily female protagonists and making them fawn over a serial womanising male lead. In addition to reducing the Wicked Witch of the West’s excuse for villainy to “he slept with me then dumped me, so I’ll disfigure myself in revenge, HAHA!”.
Okay, due to popular demand, I shall tell the story of my abbreviated adventure in teaching. Just to warn you, I’ve forgotten a lot of the details.
Quick backstory: I had been told I was exceptionally smart for years and let it go to my head. I goofed off in class, never studied for tests or took notes, sometimes skipped on assignments, and generally didn’t perform to the best of my ability because I believed I didn’t need to. In short, I was the kind of person that needed to be taken down a peg or two.
I don’t remember the class or even the year, though I do believe it was in high school. There was a lot of talking in class, including some from me. The teacher either asked if I thought I could teach the class, or asked for a volunteer to teach. Not being quite as smart as I thought I was, I accepted, and traded places with the teacher.
I actually did know the subject matter at hand, whatever it was, pretty well, so I knew where to continue with the lecture. Less than a minute into it, though, the teacher starts talking. Loudly. And keeps doing it every time I try to continue talking. I think it took about 5 minutes before I finally got the hint, and sat back down.
I don’t think a single person talked in that class for the rest of the year.
Who doesn’t care? I think gender studies and human sexuality should be mandatory curriculum in high school.
Human sexuality was a well known mad hard course at my campus. “How does circumcision effect the pleasure of both partners? Compare at least 3 positions in this weeks 2 page essay.”
We had a class like that, we nicknamed it Dirty Thirty. It sounded super sexy and fun and it replaced a hard science class if you took it (which was awesome if you were terrible at biology). Then you took it. And it ruined sex. FOR MONTHS.
I still really dislike Roz, I don’t know why but it feels like she’d be the person who if they saw you with a trophy, would insult your trophy, make a bigger trophy, and then claim that she’s above said trophy….
I know it’s wrong to want to smack a character (It’s rude to the creator), but what Roz needs is a good whallop right to the backside of her over-inflated cranium.
How is it rude to the character’s creator if you want to smack said character? It just means that the creator has made a character that evokes emotion from you. It’d be rude if you wanted to smack the creator because of the character, but not the other way around.
Not to get too explicit, but don’t go full flame mode on one of Dave’s characters or the comment will disappear, and it will suddenly become very hard to read the comics from your ip address. Just sayin’, the dude moderates these comments.
Wait, are you serious? We bag on his characters all the time. Danny in particular has this giant bulls’ eye on his back due to his general obliviousness. And yet the comments survive.
Unless by “full flame mode” you meant “cursing up a storm” or “being grossly offensive” or “being mind-numblingly incoherent” or something, in which case it’s a different issue. But being critical of the characters themselves, particularly if it’s for sensible reasons that actually occurred in the comic, is not going to get you banned.
Wait, why is Roz being mean to Joe? Last I saw, they were on good terms. (Where “good” means “let’s bump bits again sometime”.) It’s not like Joe’s excuse isn’t perfectly valid.
Wait, since when do you actually use textbooks in a college class? As I was taught you were expected to use the books *outside* of class, but in the class, get your head up and listen to the teacher. If there was something you were supposed to read, you had damn well better be done with it before you come to class.
Yeah, my college experience wasn’t that long but I don’t remember ever needed the textbooks in class. If they wanted us to read something they either told us to do it on our own time or gave us handouts to read.
Some profs, in the interest of “saving paper” (or “not dealing with getting copies of shit you already have”) will refer to the textbook for passages, images, tables, &c.
Ayup, I have had professors who just read from the textbook, made my wonder what they are paying him for. However, in one or two cases, they wrote the textbook, so I guess in that case it would be ok.
Roz has had sex with one man the entire series so far. They were both consenting and used protection and even discussed things beforehand. Hardly the makings of a slut.
I’m looking forward to seeing more of Roz. She seems to me to be generally a clever bored person who enjoys causing consternation, but I hope–because I generally hope this in the case of clever-but-bored characters who care not a whit for the system–that she one day experiences that the debate she’s hoping to spark is already ongoing. She’s already said she wants to make a big splash, not a small, polite splash, but I wonder how she treats the resulting ripples, so to speak.
I agree: I see her as having that annoying `full of yourself’ attitude that young clever people too often have when most of the people they’ve grown up with weren’t as clever as them. She thinks the issues she’s campaigning about are new, important, radical, revolutionary, when actually they’re mostly fairly obvious, and sometimes totally misguided. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens when she discovers that she’s a lot less exceptional in college than she was in high school.
Roz is, was, and always will be a smart ass, as far as I recall.
Yes, she is clever, cute, and smart. But she is also young, inexperienced, and full of herself. Lots just like her on any campus. She may or may not learn. But one thing I think she will learn, don’t cross Leslie. Leslie is nice but she attacks giant robots.
Ironically on divorced spectrum largely from what I can tell. Y’know what? Since this section is all destructive relationships, what the heck, I ship them. =P
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So, Janeane Garofalo is 18 in this universe?
Works for me. ^_^
I’m trying to picture an 18 year old Janeane Garofalo in my head. I imagine she’d look something like Billie.
I have a hard time thinking of Janeane Garofalo as a former cheerleader.
I’m having a hard time figuring out who Janeane Garofalo is and what’s with the references to her.
She’s an who looks a lot like the unnamed girl next to Roz in Panel 3.
Err, that’s not how you make a link. Oops. Take two:
She’s an actress who looks a lot like the unnamed girl next to Roz in Panel 3.
Ah, cameo appearance. Gracias.
Charlie, Roz is actually a character from Shortpacked!, but yes, she looks a bit like Janeane Garofalo.
Oops. Didn’t read that correctly. No idea who the second woman is, then, and yes, she looks much more like Jeanane Garofalo than Roz…
a former Head cheerleader
To be fair, I’ve been in classes I could teach myself. Mostly english.
Anyone who says this in college that doesn’t already hold a doctorate in the field is wrong. No exceptions.
I think you may be overestimating the consistency in the quality of college courses.
Not to mention that community/junior college in many states has a minimum requirement of only a master’s degree (not necessarily in the subject area) to teach.
Or that many specialized courses are taught by non-degree holders (of any kind) that merely had the expertise required.
e.g. There is a very popular aerospace mechanics course at our local college taught by a friend of mine in this exact situation. A coworker of his, who he considers to be his equal or superior in the material, took the course. The “student” needed the large number of credits toward his associates. The “instructor” had no qualms about admitted that the coworker “student” literally could have taught the course himself had the “instructor” not had an additional year of seniority with the company. (Never mind that the “student” needed the credits/degree for advancement, more than the short-term financial gain of teaching the course.
Or that apparently many university courses end up essentially taught by masters TAs.
Etc. Etc.
I’d just say there may, indeed, be some exceptions.
Not really. I was considering a math major and so had to take a computer science course. The pace was very slow and most of the students had no prior experience. I technically didn’t either but a lot of my friends enjoy programming so I have been exposed. After the first few days I just started writing programs during class, looking up info online when needed. I did decide to become a Computer Science major though because it was so interesting. So I guess there is that.
I’ve known undergraduate TA’s in completely different departments with no experience in a subject to teach a class for a semester. This is standard procedure at major universities, even if the course in question is not BS.
I don’t know, when I had to essentially repeat Psychology in Education due to the second school’s course being named Educational Psychology, the second go-round was dumbed down and a bit redundant. The first course had been dual listed as both undergrad/grad, so…
Exception: I’m Mexican, and I’m not talking about literature or linguistics, but second language proficiency.
Not true. I’ve had a few that I _definitely_ could’ve taught myself.
I knew more English than 95% of my teachers in College.
Then again, I’m in Mexico and half-American, while they weren’t, so… 😛
Wait wait. Not 95%. More like 75%. There -were- a few teachers that actually taught me a lot, unlike the rest of the faculty, who got their degree out of a Cracker Jack box…
I’ve taught math before, including more rigorous versions of classes taught at my university. I’m an undergrad. Exceptions abound. (This has happened for precalculus, calculus, and introductory abstract algebra.)
I was once required to take a computer applications course (read: Microsoft Office), something for which I provide help desk support every day. Fortunately, the asst. prof. and I were friends from a professional organization. The first day he handed me the syllabus and said “Go away! I don’t want you in here every day debating the best way to do things!” The only other time I showed up was for ten minutes about two-thirds of the way through, to hand in my project.
I’m seeing a lot of people who I think are confusing “know enough about this subject” with “could teach this class well”.
Being a GOOD teacher requires a lot more than just being able to get an A+++, like knowing how to break down a textbook, what questions are good to put on tests, etc, and having the fortitude to deal effectively with students who aren’t doing well, or who are resistant to being taught.
It’s hard not to read contempt for the teaching profession into some of what you folks are saying, and a desire to demonstrate your own smarts for the informal but constant Internet IQ measuring contest.
Also, if you think or know you could do a better job than “some” teachers, well, congrats. I’m sure I could perform surgery better than a drunken surgeon who hated his job and barely ever put in any effort too! But that does NOT make me a surgeon.
Thank you, Li.
Yeah, I was about to say. You do not need a doctorate to teach most college courses, but you need a teaching certification or SOME sort of training at the very least. Teaching is hard, regardless of the course material :\
To be fair, nobody said anything about teaching well – just teaching. Taken in context of the original post to which these are replies, I’m really not seeing much contempt for the teaching profession, especially since the original post is so explicitly wrong. I don’t know about other fields, but anyone in a technical area knows that there is very little correlation between having a doctorate and having the ability to teach well.
The ability to teach well is an important trait that largely goes unrecognized in society, but I don’t really see much in these replies to indicate they feel otherwise. I feel like it’s better to give people the benefit of the doubt and not make inferences about strangers based on the attitudes of the ignorant majority of society, as it isn’t fair to anyone who falls outside of that majority.
If you don’t see how people saying “I COULD HAVE TAUGHT THAT CLASS, AND I’M JUST AN UNDERGRAD” isn’t showing contempt for the teaching profession, I don’t know how to help you.
I’m also in a technical field. I don’t have a specific teaching certificate, but I have taken tons of classes, and I have years of experience. So, no, certificates aren’t the be-all, end-all. And yes, the original comment made that its explicit criterion. But let’s not pretend that what the certificate represents — training, if not experience, in your field! — isn’t important.
@Li – I freely admit I have contempt for the teaching profession, IN MY COUNTRY, based on my own personal experiences. My good teachers have been few, I could count them with two hands, and the majority of those were part timers without formal training in pedagogy.
Before I get a bunch of replies from Amerocentric people talking about how hard it is to teach, I need to stress that we are not talking about the same system.
I find it interesting that you say you’ve had mostly terrible teachers AND that the teaching profession is therefore unworthy of respect AND that teaching is easy. (Which you imply, when you say “Before I get a bunch of replies from Amerocentric people talking about how hard it is to teach…”)
Why do I find it interesting? Because I think those statements are all kind of contradictory. If teaching were easy, wouldn’t you have had mostly good teachers…?
Seriously. “Amerocentric”? Do you think I am under some delusion that our school system in the USA isn’t deeply troubled? Because I’m not. But that the school system is screwed up and teachers get no money and schools get no money and are closing all the time… does NOT mean that teaching ISN’T HARD.
Especially not teaching well, which of course is explicitly what I said, repeatedly. Again, if you can perform surgery better than the bitter drunken surgeon who hates his job, that doesn’t mean surgery is easy or that you are a GOOD surgeon. It just means that particular surgeon was terrible at his job!
Amerocentrism doesn’t have anything to do with how well or badly the U.S.A.’s educational system works. It has to do with judging centered from an American point of view, which is exactly what you’re doing when you mention teachers and schools getting no money, or if teaching were easy everyone would teach well. Here education is officially the single largest federal spending contributor and has been so for most of the last decade, and yet schools keep performing worse and worse. We’ve reached the point where new college students can’t spell or perform basic algebra.
I might have had mostly good teachers if the educational workers union here didn’t make it effectively impossible to fire anyone for any reason. We’ve had teachers molesting students that get swapped around like they were catholic priests. We don’t have performance evaluations or standardized testing (until recently) because the teacher’s union blocked every attempt to introduce reforms for two decades. The head of the union was recently arrested for corruption and embezzlement.
You wanna know how you can have sucky teachers even if teaching isn’t that hard? By removing any sort of stimulus to performing well or consequence to doing a shitty job. I had so many teachers that didn’t give a shit it wasn’t even funny anymore. And by not giving a shit I mean drawing stuff on a blackboard then sitting down to read a newspaper or have coffee, or ordering elementary students to make 5 pages of multiplication tables in silence while they slept away a hangover on their desks.
Does this happen in the U.S. too?
I… Specifically said that America’s system is in need of help, NOT that all systems are, so… no. Still not being Amerocentric.
And while I am sorry you’ve had such terrible experiences, I think you are statistically wrong about the proximate cause. Just “holding teachers more responsible” (as we DO do here) and slamming unions will not fix these problems. It’s not a magic bullet.
You still haven’t remotely proven that teaching is easy, either — just that you’ve had shitty teachers, which I’ve already acknowledged several times is a thing that happens, but which does not make being a GOOD teacher easy.
You said I implied it was easy, I never said so. I said “We’re not talking about the same system”, which is what I clarified when I talked about lax standards and teachers unions. I don’t see why I have to prove something you attributed to me but I never actually said.
What you don’t get, and what I referred to when I talked about Amerocentrism is that while in the U.S. the teachers unions are usually the underdog, in Mexico they are a power lobby, with hundreds of thousands of members that can freeze a vital sector of the economy because it is a federal level union.
Not all problems with the educational system would be fixed by getting rid of the union, it has effectively blocked reformed and allowed the situation to spiral out of control to where Mexican education is right now. That and the terrible teachers generate contempt for the teaching profession in general where I live (Ask any parent who had to endure a 7 month teacher strike).
It has NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW EASY OR HARD IT IS TO TEACH. And that’s why I do think you’re being Amerocentric. In America it is common to assume respect for a job correlates with how easy or hard it is, not just results. This is not so in countries where certain professions are politicized. Being a soldier for example is very hard, and yet the profession had widespread contempt for decades as result of the 1968 student massacre.
I am quite aware that teaching well is more than just reading from a single book, getting your students to successfully parrot it back, then invent a test the day before that to have teaching evidence. I do remember at least that much from my educational psychology and special needs education classes (I’m a general psychology major).
But that’s not what I was talking about. Most teachers I had and where I live follow the proceedure I talked about above. Right down to my BD teachers. I’m doing a masters right now and a few of them still work that way (thankfully less of them).
When I say I have contempt for teachers in my country, I mean exactly that. In my country. Under the circumstances in my country. With the level of commitment and competency teachers have in my country. That doesn’t mean teachers everywhere, or that there aren’t individual teachers that do a great job even here, I mentioned them. If you wanna talk about that some more I’d be happy to give you an email adress.
“In America it is common to assume respect for a job correlates with how easy or hard it is, not just results.”
Okay… but in America there is shit respect for teachers. So I’m not sure what you are trying to say, except that I assume it relates to justifying your lack of respect, so I’ll guess you’re saying, “In America you want to say teachers should get respect because their job is hard, without regard for the shitty results they get, but in my country I can’t respect a profession that has so many terrible teachers in it.”
I still don’t think the previous is a particularly American sentiment, though, because if ANYTHING we tend to award respect based on salary size (assuming especially that a company’s CEO must be more worthy of admiration and respect than the people underneath him, even though a CEO has little impact on a company’s success and often gets away without any consequences when a company fails under his watch).
And we definitely blame teachers not just for occasions of poor performance but for things that could be called the “results” of our educational system but which are demonstrably not their fault.
I still want to also make a biiiiiig distinction between expecting respect for the teaching PROFESSION and expecting respect for individual teachers who suck. I never have and never will ask you to respect someone who is bad at their job. All I keep saying is that the existence of BAD teachers doesn’t make teaching easy.
So I’m still gonna have to reject your “Amerocentric” assertion. Of course I have the most experience with my own country’s educational issues, but from the way you speak you have confused the most progressive minority of American opinions for American attitudes as a whole. I assure you that hatred of teacher unions (which we have all but abolished) and “tenured” professors (those who cannot easily be fired) run both wide and deep in the USA.
You also clearly think I am incapable of imagining a scenario where teachers are not “the underdog”; I’m not. I’ve still never talked about how MANY individual teachers are good or bad or deserving of respect. YOU may not be talking about whether or not teaching is easy, but it has been MY explicit point this entire time, so you can’t argue with me without reasonably expecting the ease to be a topic of conversation 😉
Again, I’m not at all asking you to respect people who have done nothing to deserve it. My only point, ever, was that being a good teacher is not easy, so people with no experience teaching should not be so quick to assert that they could do the job.
And yes, I think this remains as true in a country where (say) most teachers are terrible as in a country where most are good.
/shrug
I’ve been in classes I could teach as well as the professor. But that says more about them than me.
<–psssst. College English teacher.
I would totally have taken more english in college if Bumblebee, of any color, had been the teacher.
Of course I don’t know how that would have worked since my teacher wouldn’t have been able to speak english.
now, now – that depends on the continutiy your currently in. his ability would switch between semesters 😉
Oooh, Roz/Leslie drama…
Let me guess; “Well, Roz, if you’re so smart, let’s see YOU give a lecture on gender studies! What could possibly go wrong?!”
Well you insert the penis into the vagina. or the butt. or anywhere you feel comfortable really, but talk it out with your partner first. Joyce, I need you to pay more attention.
Of course there has to be a penis involved. How heteronormative of you.
No actual offense taken, but if this were a gender studies class… ho-boy. =P
Well this is lesson 1. We will move into other things that can be inserted into butts, vaginas and penises in further lessons.
>implying any sort of insertion needs to be involved
>implying making heterosexual relations “lesson one” isn’t heteronormative at all
>implying gender studies is anything at all related to sex ed
You realise the joke is if ROZ was teaching the class, right?
Roz is heterosexual though…I mean, I think she’d be most comfortable talking about this first before going into other, non heteronormative. You’re implying that Roz is more accepting, which she may be, but I have no difinitive proof. Roz is kinda young, she probably does not know much. Also I’m joking and I think the words insert, butts and penis are very funny.
Quick, be needlessly hostile! That’ll teach them!
I love you.
If Sterling is any indication it’s about learning to be self-righteous.
>baawing.
I think you have this place confused for Shit Reddit Says, Sterling.
Go post there.
c’mon y’all. Don’t gang up on Sterling. He/She had good intentions probably. Go easy on them.
And the road to hell is paved with what?
Congress intending to do something.
10 minutes later the campus is on fire and overrun with wolverines.
It’s over run with wolverines on fire.
Nah, Cyclops is on fire. Wolverines getting free candy from his pockets.
BUT THEN WHAT ABOUT JEAN!?
She’s busy having a telepathy fight with Mike.
Psychic fight. It must be scary in Mikes head.
She’s dead. Again…
unfair. she’s only died twice 😉
She’s the reason he’s on fire. Phoenix, remember?
She’s in a theoretical science class trying to both prove and disprove Schroedinger.
Wouldn’t that be Schroedinger’s Shadowcat?
“As you can see, she is both inside and outside the box at the same time.”
She’s banging Gambit on the side again. In retrospect, she was a three timing bongo. Get it together lady!
wait, is that canon?
I want to say “no” but with the amount of nonsensical shit that’s happened in Marvel this past decade…
not as far as I’m aware, but i haven’t read any marvel in a month and, well, this IS marvel – one month without stupidity is a hard task for them ¬,¬
Suddenly, I feel empty without a Billie/Ruth strip….
I’m sure Joe will be happy to fill the void they left.
Ba-dum-tish!
We’ve already seen that Joe isn’t interested in Billie’s void.
We haven’t actually, he was just distracted by an active cheerleader. Billie is merely a former cheerleader, lower on the cheerleader attractiveness scale.
Roz teaching a gender studies class. I feel there would be a lot of discussion of the finer things in that subject. *nudge-nudge, say-no-more say-no-more*
She would also be quite knowledgeable when it comes to camera-work.
Some people may learn a few new positions, alright.
Are we talking about perspectives or shaky-cam or cut-aways?
I had to evacuate too but I didn’t have any TP.
Hey, go away Joe. You’re not Billie and Ruth.
( I kid, Joe is great. )
Oh Roz, you know how to get under Leslie’s skin in any universe.
Yaaaaaay, I miss Leslie.
Oooooh, friction between Roz and Leslie, excellent. I really wanna see where this goes.
I’m hoping this leads to a Robin reappearance. I’d like to see if she’s actually a family values conservative or doing it more for the votes.
Plus, k’know, extra lesbian-ness.
well, if her personality is anything like the regular walkyverse, absolutly votes XD
“Yes…I’ve met you. Who I haven’t met is that bangin’ hot piece of latina that you said you would try to hook me up with, last we shared a stream of communication within the confines of this webcomic.”
So, last week then? XD
And here’s me thinking that Roz is much nicer than her sis in this universe.
I’m just hopin’ Roz holds up her end of the bargain we saw her form well over a year ago about hookin’ Ms. Bean up with some Congresswoman Desanto.
Willis, I just wanna thank you for putting DoA on the Comic Chameleon app. It’s really handy. Also, yay Leslie!
possible goth chick next to Roz doesn’t get a name?
Raven. Shandrea. Bubublea.
Gotta be a kickstarter cameo.
Apparently it’s our own Jen Aside?
Yeah, at this point, she’s pretty much a recurring character, both in SP! and DoA. Not sure if this is her first appearance in the latter, though.
Her name is Beverly Aruvula. That’s the name I used to mix up for the person that sang “Torn”. Natalie something.
Haha, I’m here again XD [can I get a large of that panel pls??]
Man, I posted it to Tumblr as a preview panel months ago, but Tumblr is shittastic at being searchable.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/?attachment_id=3979
Yeah, when I first joined Tumblr, I thought the tags worked like they do on Livejournal– they just search for matches on THAT blog. Bzzzt! Tumblr searches tags from ALL blogs.
At least Tumblr has the [url].tumblr.com/tagged/[tag] mechanic to search for tags on specific blogs, though.
Didn’t know about that. Thanks!
oh yeah Tumblr, I don’t read that mess =C
Thanks! ^o^
“Roz, I’ll let you off just this once, but only if you give me your sister’s number…”
At least Joe remembered to wear clothes this time>
How boring of him. YOU’RE SLIPPING JOE.
“Why do I have a sudden urge to shout that I’m finally three for three?”
(It works because of Joe avatar)
Is it before 8am?
Being bongoy to the professor…yepp, excellent way to fail the course.
Well who knows, maybe it will provoke discussion that will give the entire class a chance to learn out of curriculum. Or just piss off the rest of your classmates for stallion the lecture.
And then she fails you.
For stallion the lecture? Tsk, how androcentric. What about mares? 😀
Equestrians? How mamaliocentric.
What about cephalopods?
How biocentric. What about gaseous planetoids?
How gaseocentric. What about antimatter non-objects?
How physiocentric. How about metaphysical conceptualizations?
How Chaotic. What about Mathematical Formulas?
Yes, Roz. You can certainly teach this class as well as someone who has years of study in the subject and experience teaching to others. I’m sure you won’t get into arguments with anyone who has differing views and experiences at all.
That sounds like several college courses I had. Not taught by students.
Why would you need to bring the textbook to class?
Other people’s interpretations and thoughts on the subject? Such as depictions of gender in books, films, etc?
Like why Oz: the Great and Powerful was kind of offensive, what with it taking a franchise with primarily female protagonists and making them fawn over a serial womanising male lead. In addition to reducing the Wicked Witch of the West’s excuse for villainy to “he slept with me then dumped me, so I’ll disfigure myself in revenge, HAHA!”.
Dammit, Now I have a craving for a pulled pork sandwich…
Here’s a hint. Any time a teacher says something along the line of “Do you think that you could teach this class?” the answer is no.
Take it from someone who actually tried.
*makes popcorn*
*sts exectantly*
go on…
Tell us more!
Okay, due to popular demand, I shall tell the story of my abbreviated adventure in teaching. Just to warn you, I’ve forgotten a lot of the details.
Quick backstory: I had been told I was exceptionally smart for years and let it go to my head. I goofed off in class, never studied for tests or took notes, sometimes skipped on assignments, and generally didn’t perform to the best of my ability because I believed I didn’t need to. In short, I was the kind of person that needed to be taken down a peg or two.
I don’t remember the class or even the year, though I do believe it was in high school. There was a lot of talking in class, including some from me. The teacher either asked if I thought I could teach the class, or asked for a volunteer to teach. Not being quite as smart as I thought I was, I accepted, and traded places with the teacher.
I actually did know the subject matter at hand, whatever it was, pretty well, so I knew where to continue with the lecture. Less than a minute into it, though, the teacher starts talking. Loudly. And keeps doing it every time I try to continue talking. I think it took about 5 minutes before I finally got the hint, and sat back down.
I don’t think a single person talked in that class for the rest of the year.
Dude. Your teacher. I’m remembering that. XD
ITT: people not understanding that gender studies =/= sex ed
Ah, but you’re working on the assumption that people CARE that gender studies is not the same as sex ed.
Or that Roz would not immediately turn it into being about sex.
Those are mighty big assumptions.
Who doesn’t care? I think gender studies and human sexuality should be mandatory curriculum in high school.
Human sexuality was a well known mad hard course at my campus. “How does circumcision effect the pleasure of both partners? Compare at least 3 positions in this weeks 2 page essay.”
Good luck Roz.
Facts are irrelevant when it comes to joking about a situation.
We had a class like that, we nicknamed it Dirty Thirty. It sounded super sexy and fun and it replaced a hard science class if you took it (which was awesome if you were terrible at biology). Then you took it. And it ruined sex. FOR MONTHS.
It isn’t?! GODDAMMIT! ::leaves the class::
Still not caring, Sterling.
“I like your confidence! Come back in one week. You may not make up your work.”
Roz has never been mean before so I wonder what she’s getting at.
Ooh, this is gonna be good!
I still really dislike Roz, I don’t know why but it feels like she’d be the person who if they saw you with a trophy, would insult your trophy, make a bigger trophy, and then claim that she’s above said trophy….
Wow I don’ t know where that came from.
understanding or Roz’s character?
20 bucks on leslie.
I know it’s wrong to want to smack a character (It’s rude to the creator), but what Roz needs is a good whallop right to the backside of her over-inflated cranium.
How is it rude to the character’s creator if you want to smack said character? It just means that the creator has made a character that evokes emotion from you. It’d be rude if you wanted to smack the creator because of the character, but not the other way around.
Not to get too explicit, but don’t go full flame mode on one of Dave’s characters or the comment will disappear, and it will suddenly become very hard to read the comics from your ip address. Just sayin’, the dude moderates these comments.
Wait, are you serious? We bag on his characters all the time. Danny in particular has this giant bulls’ eye on his back due to his general obliviousness. And yet the comments survive.
Unless by “full flame mode” you meant “cursing up a storm” or “being grossly offensive” or “being mind-numblingly incoherent” or something, in which case it’s a different issue. But being critical of the characters themselves, particularly if it’s for sensible reasons that actually occurred in the comic, is not going to get you banned.
I’m pretty sure this applies specifically to wishing death or harm upon a character.
About the poll…
Dina looks a great character and we love her in each panel in this webcomic.
But only scretchs? :o)
Deserve a whole crossover with Dinobot
<__>
http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/080/1/e/dinobot___hope___poster_v2_0_by_itswalky-d3c5rxs.jpg
Now we can think if Dina created this poster (instead Robin?)
bongo, you did not just give Leslie attitude.
Roz be going DOWN.
Damn, Roz. Why take the class if you’re just gonna act like you have nothing at all to learn from it?
(yes, obvious answer is easy grade but still)
Roz, don’t tattle on Joe. Even second graders know that sneer he’s get beaches.
God I hate you Roz.
Wait, why is Roz being mean to Joe? Last I saw, they were on good terms. (Where “good” means “let’s bump bits again sometime”.) It’s not like Joe’s excuse isn’t perfectly valid.
I don’t think she’s being mean to Joe so much as she’s being dismissive about the subject matter.
Count down to Roz being schooled in 10…9…8….
I’ve been to a Gender studies 101 class. If you had spent a month on the right side of tumblr you could probably teach it.
tumblr has a ‘right’ side?
I think Bri meant the correct side, which happens to be the left side in this case. “Left” and “right” are horrible words.
And I think that was StClair’s joke: that there is no “right” side to tumblr, just a bunch of people acting like Roz at everyone else.
Wow, it’s been so long that I forgot Leslie was their professor!
Wait, since when do you actually use textbooks in a college class? As I was taught you were expected to use the books *outside* of class, but in the class, get your head up and listen to the teacher. If there was something you were supposed to read, you had damn well better be done with it before you come to class.
Yeah, my college experience wasn’t that long but I don’t remember ever needed the textbooks in class. If they wanted us to read something they either told us to do it on our own time or gave us handouts to read.
Some profs, in the interest of “saving paper” (or “not dealing with getting copies of shit you already have”) will refer to the textbook for passages, images, tables, &c.
Some classes do use the textbook in class, believe it or not. Not as many as in high school, it’s true, but it does happen.
Ayup, I have had professors who just read from the textbook, made my wonder what they are paying him for. However, in one or two cases, they wrote the textbook, so I guess in that case it would be ok.
Roz could teach the class? They’re taking a class in sluttery now?
Roz has had sex with one man the entire series so far. They were both consenting and used protection and even discussed things beforehand. Hardly the makings of a slut.
implying sluts don’t consent, use protection, or discuss things…?
roz you annoying, accurate little freshman shit
I’m looking forward to seeing more of Roz. She seems to me to be generally a clever bored person who enjoys causing consternation, but I hope–because I generally hope this in the case of clever-but-bored characters who care not a whit for the system–that she one day experiences that the debate she’s hoping to spark is already ongoing. She’s already said she wants to make a big splash, not a small, polite splash, but I wonder how she treats the resulting ripples, so to speak.
I agree: I see her as having that annoying `full of yourself’ attitude that young clever people too often have when most of the people they’ve grown up with weren’t as clever as them. She thinks the issues she’s campaigning about are new, important, radical, revolutionary, when actually they’re mostly fairly obvious, and sometimes totally misguided. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens when she discovers that she’s a lot less exceptional in college than she was in high school.
Gosh Willis, why not just put up a sign saying “You are supposed to dislike Roz”
It’d be more subtle.
I have to ask, did you deliberately select that avatar? Or did you just make a blood sacrifice to the Random Avatar Gods?
Roz is, was, and always will be a smart ass, as far as I recall.
Yes, she is clever, cute, and smart. But she is also young, inexperienced, and full of herself. Lots just like her on any campus. She may or may not learn. But one thing I think she will learn, don’t cross Leslie. Leslie is nice but she attacks giant robots.
+1
Are we all just avoiding the elephant in the room, or does one of us have to be the one to say it?
Alright then… Joe’s notebook. It’s pink!
I’m beginning to dislike Roz the way I dislike Mary, and for much the same reason.
They are both arrogant, self-satisfied moralists?
Yeah I can see it.
Ironically on divorced spectrum largely from what I can tell. Y’know what? Since this section is all destructive relationships, what the heck, I ship them. =P
I’m guessing prank-pulled pork sandwiches have whoopie cushions in them for when you bite down