This cartoon appeared in last Sunday's New York Times in the Sunday Review section. Since it is impossible to read, I will give you a frame by frame description. The first frame shows two students in front of a court building. One is obviously a nerd in a shirt buttoned all the way to his neck and wearing black framed glasses. In his right hand is an apple. In his left, a stack of text books. The other student is in tears while holding up a poster of a brontosaurus and a tyrannosaurus riding in Noah's Ark. The caption says, "In a rare victory for reality, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that teachers can call creationism 'superstitious nonsense,' paving the way for even more reality-based education."
The second frame shows a teacher at a blackboard pointing out the different layers of Earth's atmosphere. In the bubbles she says, "That's right kids, evolution is real! The sky is also blue and above it is space, not heaven."
The third frame shows a teacher seated in front of an attentive group of grade schoolers. He tells them, "Climate change is really happening, and if anyone tries to tell you differently, yell 'No!' Run away, and tell a grown-up."
The fourth frame shows a high school Econ I class with the teacher saying, "Supply side economics doesn't work. It's chiefly a way for the wealthy to hoard even more money."
The next frame shows a junior high kid named Billy with his head down while his teacher corrects the equation (2+2=Obama's a socialist). She says, "There are two things wrong with that equation, Billy."
The sixth frame shows a teacher holding a story book about The Gipper as she explains to her students, "Even Reagan raised taxes to reduce deficits! He also called ketchup a vegetable, but you'll learn about that after lunch."
My favorite frame is the last one. An art teacher is criticizing a horrible drawing by the tearful little girl. "Your perspective's all off, and I doubt your mommy really looks like that." The kid responds, "WAAAH! That hurts my feelings." "Sorry kid," the teacher responds, "facts beat feelings."
If I was still in the classroom, I would blow that cartoon up and put it prominently on my bulletin board where I could refer to it before every class and every parent/teacher conference. It would supply the ballast necessary to make it through the day.
3 comments:
Needed this today!
Glad to be of service. By the way, I need your wonderfully liberal FB posts on a daily basis.
This comic reminds me of a line from J.D. Salinger. "You know that apple Adam ate in the Garden of Eden, referred to in the Bible?' he asked. 'You know what was in that apple? Logic. Logic and intellectual stuff. That was all that was in it. So—this is my point—what you have to do is vomit it up if you want to see things as they really are....'
The trouble is,' Teddy said, 'most people don't want to see things the way they are. They don't even want to stop getting born and dying all the time, instead of stopping and staying with God, where it's really nice.' He reflected. 'I never saw such a bunch of apple-eaters,' he said. He shook his head."
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