Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for March 12, 2023

At least you made it out alive.

How to see school in more ways than one.

Yup, very typical school day.

It’s his choice to see school in that light!!!

Love the artwork

Watterson commented, “If school makes Calvin feel that way, wait till he gets his first job!”

Many decades ago, I went to a large bluegrass festival north of Burlington, Ontario. There was several thousand people at the fest, maybe something close to 10,000. The main concert field was separated from the camping area by a large water-filled ditch, and every evening at the end of the concert the whole crowd had to leave via three narrow culvert bridges over the ditch. One evening, while I was in the midst of this huge crowd shuffling across one of the bridges, I started to moo. It caught on, and soon the whole huge crowd was mooing. You want to talk about weird…

Yeah wait until you have to work for a living, You will look to those days with rose coloured glasses.

I feel sorry for whoever tries to fit Calvin into a square hole.

When was this originally published? Was school really as bad as all that back then? I know what is has become in 2023, but …

I remember elementary school. :D

Love the imagination…..

Bill just described the last 70 years of my life.

I had lots of fun at school, the teachers did not appreciate it.

the hamster wheel must have been gym class.

Unreal

This reflects my WORK day!

The best one is Calvin as a zombie.

I love the different scenarios/metaphors that describe Calvin’s school day. Sometime work will feel like that too, one darn thing after another.

I am afraid to admit that my mind works this way too.

What do all of these metaphors represent? I’ve read this countless times over the years and I still don’t get it

Calvin is much to creative not to succeed in life! There’ll always be new ideas to keep him going! He just needs to find his niche!

My life for 12 years.

All too relatable

If the energy in Cal’s mind were harnessed as power, there’d never be a shortage.

Calvin as a square peg in a square hole?

I remember my son wanting to quit work after his first day because it “wasn’t fun”. I told him that’s why we call it work and not vacation. He kept that job for two years during high school and hated it so much he got into a great college and is now running his own company which he loves. I still take credit (deservedly or not) for forcing him to stick with that first job.

Shouldn’t the zombie bit be more like “brains…brains…”?

Or is that too ‘Brewster’?

Brilliant.

I read an article recently that since the early 2000s, the average IQ of Americans is starting to decline for the first time ever, especially in 18 to 24 year olds. I have always suspected that the public education system has been “dumbing down” so that an education today is worth a fraction of what it was when I was in school. Now we have proof and this comic strip is a wonderful predicter of that.

Calvin could become a Holden Caulfield

Get used to it Calvin, doesn’t stop at school.

At least in panel 8, Calvin is a square peg in a square hole.

I would have drawn Calvin as a round peg being hammered into a small square hole. I think Calvin has a personality that will never fully conform to what society expects.

At least Calvin is being pounded into the right hole. Could have been the round one.

One of the most searing commentaries on contemporary education ever. And it’s only gotten worse since then.

Some days, I was that fish.

Hey!

Teachers!

Leave those kids alone!

I’m trying to come up with metaphors for each panel, some are easy, like the cattle drive being the bus, the hamster wheel being recess, the railroad possibly being PE, and the fish flopping towards the water being him getting home, but I have NO idea what the zombie thing is supposed to be…

That is exactly how I felt!

Good Ol’ Hobbes… always brings Calvin back to reality – even though HE is not real.

WIZZ WIRP BOINGG!

That is pretty much the experience.

That’s what you have to do if you ever want to live in a little box made of ticky-tacky. (That song just happens to be on while I’m reading this.)

All in all he’s just another peg in the hole. . .

Possibly the best comic strip ever written

I get all the references except the cow one.

We could change things. We could redesign education from the ground up, make compassion and creativity pillars of the institution, find a way to help all children learn effectively.

.

But we won’t, because when we say we want to make the future better for our children, we’re lying. What we really want is to make things comfortable for ourselves, while we take our turn on the other side of the window watching the misery. After all, we had to suffer through school; why should those brats get it any better?!

Kids may think that about school, and then when they get older that’s what they think about work!

School or job, we’ve all been there.

School was a refuge for me. I loved learning things. It was the other kids that were the misery, since I’m on the autism spectrum and had yet to develop any social skills.

I hated school as a kid. I got good grades but still felt it was a waste of time.

These is what a typical school day in Floriduh is turning into……………..

I know an old strip. Here where I live public school’s are out for a week spring recess.

The richness of Watterson’s imagination is deep pocketed.

Just another brick (or peg in a hole here) in the wall. Like the way he captures the thought control here.

It doesn’t end after school!

That could just as easily have been another typical work day!