Mr. Fitz doesn't quite get out of the "insider" niche enough for wide appeal, but I get the sense that it has a good following among teachers, and that's the advantage of a webcomic: It doesn't rely on geographic distribution but can pick up a widely scattered audience.
I really liked Mark Pett's Mr. Lowe, which was more polished that Mr. Fitz, but the strip didn't make it in syndication because what works in good niche strips is that they deal with the way things really are rather than what everyone thinks of them.
This one, for instance, tickled me because I have seen the Ms. Jades in action and I know that their principals and fellow faculty members are counting the days, because, while the anecdotal stories about tenure bandied about by anti-union hardliners are mostly bogus, the fact remains that, outside of very small, privately owned businesses, you can't simply fire someone who isn't doing the job the way you would do it.
Especially if their test scores indicate that, by that measure, they're doing an excellent job, as in this early Boondocks:
But when a syndicated strip is set in school, it's usually done either from the kids' point of view -- Big Nate, for instance -- or at least sticks to general themes, as in Frazz, which relies more on Frazz being an approachable, sensible guy than on skewering specific educational issues, which are handled with a broad brush. (For example, burned-out Mrs. Olson is mostly clueless, while Ms. Jade was portrayed as genuinely toxic.)
This isn't peculiar to cartooning about schools. "Willie and Joe" were such faithful insiders that Mauldin's work famously infuriated General Patton, who would have preferred something more along the lines of a Soviet poster of well-groomed, dedicated heroes fearlessly dedicated to saving the nation.
And, for all its mainstream popularity, Beetle Bailey does not -- and I hate to disillusion anyone -- reflect the actual inner workings of either Mauldin's or Patton's army.
Nor is Hagar the Horrible an accurate reflection of Nordic culture and history.
And young Theodore Cleaver should not have attempted to write a book report on "The Three Musketeers" by watching the Ritz Brothers' film version.
And "Waiting For Superman" doesn't have anybody swinging off chandeliers or bursting into song, but I still wouldn't suggest basing a report on that cobbled-together, problematically outsider view of education, either.
Mr. Fitz is for people who have actually been there and actually done that.
This strip, part of a current arc on "field studies," hit me with one of those ha-ha-ouch responses, which is largely what insider comedy tends to do.
When I used the term "guided practice" yesterday, it occurred to me that throwing around educational terms from 20 years ago was probably showing my age.
I worked at a summer camp where the counselors joked that the owner's motto was "Paint it and make it new!" and maybe that was because he had a doctorate in education. Educators love transferring old wine into new skins, and there's nothing like a change in jargon to freshen everything up and make it all sparkly.
(By the way, and inconceivable as this may seem, the fact that "field study" already existed as a term and didn't mean what she wants it to mean is of no possible importance. That's what it means now.)
I started working with teachers under "The New Compact" and would love to rattle off the subsequent reports and resets that followed in the 20 years since, but I honestly don't remember what they were called, much less how they were supposed to work. They come up with a new cunning plan for How It All Is Supposed To Work every five years or so and after awhile they all seem the same.
Perhaps because they pretty much are, except for the jargon shifts.
At least until NCLB, which did make changes largely because it was a law and not a theory.
"No Child Left Behind," was largely based on fraudulent test scores and, perhaps fittingly, has produced more of the same. It was supposed to be re-authorized and somewhat re-structured recently, but (A) we don't do things in Congress anymore and (B) apparently even the Department of Education realizes that a nice paint job can't make this shopworn clunker new. As a result, it remains the law.
Except in the 37 states that have been granted waivers from it, the most recent being West Virginia.
That's 74 percent, and I believe if you subtract 74 from 100, your remainder is not a passing score.
But, then, I dropped out of getting a master's in teaching before I took "Tests and Measurements," so what do I know?
Well, here's what I know: I know that I used to offer tours of the paper, either geared towards media literacy or careers, depending on what the teacher wanted emphasized, and that the demand for tours grew and grew as word got around, but then suddenly declined as the demand for higher test scores and the pressure on budgets increased, mostly the latter.
The tours were free, but, whether they are called "field trips" or "field studies," and regardless of how they reinforce the curriculum, they require a bus and driver, which don't cost much but do cost something.
Ah well. The school year is just ending for my young reporters out in Colorado, and the kids and teachers in the rest of the country -- except where year-round-school is in place -- will be joining them soon.
Time to finish doing final grades and then kick back for two weeks or so before starting to put together lesson plans for 2013-14.
Unless you're teaching summer school, or taking some coursework, or teaching in one of those aforementioned year-round schools, in which case, well, we'll hoist a couple for you.
Comments