(no subject)

[icepixie]

Brainwave! Bill Watterson's 1990 Kenyon commencement speech is actually exactly what I need for my education unit! Hooray!

If anyone can think of more texts like that, which present education as more than just sitting in a classroom, I would love to hear them. Those of you who suggested Feynman, so far that looks promising, although I haven't read much yet.

Actually...can anyone think of think of Calvin and Hobbes strips specific to the ideas of education and school? I know there are some, but I don't know the comic well enough to immediately point to any. I should find an archive or a book of them...

Comments

[icepixie]

(Please don't tell me you're too young to have remembered Calvin when it was current?)

I think I was ten when Watterson stopped writing it, but I never paid a lot of attention to it. I enjoy it when I see it, but I've never gone through the books at length or anything.

Thanks for the files! I think "These assignments don't teach you how to write" and "When did the Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock" are going to be the most useful for my purposes. And I did find some archives online just now, but I thought I'd ask for suggestions from those who know the strip better than I do as well, in case I miss something wonderful. :)

[alto2.livejournal.com]

I think I was ten when Watterson stopped writing it

::makes gurgling sound of horror and shock::

I suppose if you were ten, most of C&H would have been over your head anyway. Sigh. It's funny--my grandmother used to clip comics from the paper and send them to me at camp when I was a kid. She kept doing it while I was at college, and she'd send stupid things like "Nancy" (hmm, wonder why--Gran was not always so original!) or Marmaduke. I had to beg her to send C&H, which she resisted. "There are too many words!" "Tough! Why not send me what I want??" She relented, and ended up loving the strip once she was forced to pay attention to it. :)

The "Academia, here I come" strip and the last-minute panic are also writing favorites of mine. Good stuff. The thing about C&H is that there's SO much of it. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't remember them all. When uComics had reruns available for free a few years ago, I was addicted, which is why I have those to offer. The C&H indexes should be helpful, too. I was surprised that I managed to find the strip I was looking for a few weeks ago, even though I only remembered one or two words of the dialogue.

Good luck!

ETA: I just realized that somehow, the last-minute panic strip didn't show up. It's the second in the story-writing sequence. Let's try this again...



ETA2: And this one, though it falls into the "stretch" category!

[icepixie]

::makes gurgling sound of horror and shock::

*smiles sweetly*

I suppose if you were ten, most of C&H would have been over your head anyway.

Pretty much. I've never really been into comic strips, anyway; I think I followed Zits for a year or so early on in high school, but that's been about it.

The "Academia, here I come" strip and the last-minute panic are also writing favorites of mine.

You would not BELIEVE how much appreciation working for an academic journal gives me for that "Academia" strip!

ETA: I just realized that somehow, the last-minute panic strip didn't show up. It's the second in the story-writing sequence. Let's try this again...

Thanks. It actually does show up if you right-click and make the image come up in a new window, then alter the URL (it's got my LJ's address stuck at the front of the URL; I think it's missing a set of quotation marks or something).

[alto2.livejournal.com]

Hmm, there aren't any quotation marks in any of the HTML, so that's not it. Alas, now that you replied to the comment, there's no way to see for sure. However will I sleep tonight? ;)

Hey, just doing a BA in English was enough to make me love the Academia strip. So much BS, so little time...

There are far more comic strips that never did anything for me than those that did. Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, Zits (though I didn't have access to that for too long, so wasn't too attached), the Boondocks, and now Doonesbury. That's about it. The topical ones like BC, Boondocks, and Doonesbury are like their own little historical records. I went through a few of my BC books a couple years ago and found them even funnier now than I did in high school, when I wasn't old/tuned-in enough to really get some of the political stuff. Opus, however, will live forever.

[fiara.livejournal.com]

Opus is amazing. I have a stuffed one that my father bought me as a child. I think it sparked my fascination with penguins.

[alto2.livejournal.com]

There are two, and I managed to get my hands on both. My dad bought me the "regular" Opus, and a colleague gave me her "Shower Phase" Opus when she was clearing out some old stuff, knowing I'd love it. Opus remains a true original, and one of the best things to come out of comics in years. :)