Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for February 26, 2015

There’s a very simple solution to unreasonably excessive homework and textbooks, Willy — Cheat.

Parents couldn’t afford Willy one of those backpacks on wheels and a telescopic handle? I asked for one of those a few Christmases ago during my junior college days.

At least things were looking up for him.

I sub in middle schools….Their backpacks are ridiculously huge!…..To counter the weight, they walk an 85º angle….The funny one are the small kids..The pack is half of their size and weight….But I don’t think it’s all school books…

That is a lonely view. Hope he can avoid scar tissue.

Switch to audio books, or online.

The childhood of Mitch McConnell.

The birds of prey reference is nuanced beyond my understanding. I used the word ‘nuanced’ to disguise my ignorance.

Now I can’t get “Suddenly, Last Summer” out of my head.

We had fun with this idea in Maria’s Day a couple of school years back:http://www.gocomics.com/marias-day/2013/11/06

Should say from school not to school. If he fell going to school, he would have been there all day (and night).

I agree with Dave. I was going to say, technology may solve this issue eventually. More and more school systems with the means or the charitable grants to do it are issuing laptops and tablets to students, allowing them to download their texts and upload their homework to the teacher.

Three things have made the average load of school books much heavier than in my day:

1. The dumbing down of education. Textbooks have many more pictures and often larger print, so each book is bigger. There are also all the “arts and crafts” assignments in what were once serious classes, so the poor kid is likely to also be carrying around one or two scrapbook projects.

2. Middle schools have much younger kids going from classroom to classroom all day. A high-school freshman can carry a load of books much better than a 5th grader can.

3. Huge schools.

In addition, while technology might solve this, at present the kids are more likely to have to lug a laptop or tablet in addition to all the dead-tree books.

At least it didn’t rain, or that would be one wet Willy.

The real problem is textbooks are made with thick paper which is impregnated with stone dust (very fine sand), so they’re twice as thick and 4 times as heavy as a normal book with an equal number of pages. I guess they do that to try to justify charging so much for them.

That would make the most sense, although the people who publish those overpriced and oversized hard copy textbooks would scream bloody murder. The education industry is a racket anyway, but the worst offenders are the textbook publishers.

My kids are Willy. Their backpacks are stuffed solid, and they carry additional books and notebooks in their arms to and from school. One reason is that nearly every class assigns homework every day, so they have to bring home all their notebooks (1 to 1.5" thick each class, as required by the middle school, looser rules in high school) and often their textbooks. They also have weekly or biweekly tests, so they have to bring home that stuff anyways to study for the upcoming test, even if they don’t have homework (rare). Also, the schools are locked up tight about half an hour after school lets out, so they can’t go back to their locker after school if they forgot anything, so they often bring home everything just so they won’t have forgotten anything. “Back in my day,” I could head over to campus at midnight to get something out of my locker if I needed it. Even if all texts go digital, unless something changes about the culture of excessive homework, lack of access, and arcane rules about school supplies, this will not change.

i’ve returned to college in my middle youth. you should see me bent double with the backpack of doom i refuse those little wheelie suitcases. so middle aged. also, re: birds of prey— see small gods-terry pratchett. eagles love them turtles. drop it on a rock to crack open.

He could have just slipped his arms out through the straps. Since the backpack is on the ground, the weight is not resting on his back so there would be enough slack. If the straps were so tight he couldn’t get them off in this position, then he would never have been able to remove the backpack even while empty.

I graduated from high school over 20 years ago, and even then teachers assigned homework assignments that seemed to be based on the assumption that none of your other teachers had assigned any.

Little Willy fell on his overloaded backpack. An owl nibbled at him all night long. It was not the hoped-for educational outcome…Pig offered after-the-deed commiseration. Way to go, Pig.

Cute!

xxx

The problem, as we speak, is being fixed… Laptops are used in many classes…Not just in tech lit, a classroom that which is today’s “Typing” class..all classes use them…Writing papers is a lot easier on them. Many schools have several portable carts of them..Kid’s do research with them. And yes, even parents can access what the homework assignment is…..It really will be only a few years before all students get a tablet with the content of the text,of all the classes he or she has… plus all kinds of exercises and practice material, Educational games…You name it…..

Funny how school districts and parents have different ideas of how much a kid can carry on his back. I recall a comparison to what a soldier carries in proportion to his weight on one occasion. But when I can barely pick up a back pack, it is too heavy for my kid. Period.

Just look at all this time little Willey is spending not studying! I know some who is not going to Harvard! Remember kids, if you do bring home a huge pay check, then you have wasted your parents and teacher’s time and other resources.

markmoss, smaller schools, smaller class sizes, (no more than 20 student’s ever) all would help. That’s #3. #2 is irrelevant…#1? Nonsense….The curriculum of all subjects is much more challenging than whenever you were a student in secondary school. Most students today can defend either side of the argument that President Andrew Jackson was a man of the people and a good president, or Andrew Jackson’s removal of Native Americans to move from their homes, “For their own protection!” Makes him a bad president..There is no right answer to the question… Does the student understand the history and can they answer comprehensive questions about it…

Also, markmoss, Google tactile learning…The theory was first proposed in New Harmony Indiana. Turns out some people learn by doing things…Think of carpentry…Try learning it without doing it…And, I find it impossible to understand how you have gone through your life without ever hearing the wise old phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words…” You probably don’t even know what the very well know phrase, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” any 7th grade could tell you what that means…They have to…..

@ Bilan – You’re as bad as Pastis.

“…the eagle will sit for hours on the crag and survey the kingdoms of the world until it spots a distant movement and then it will focus, focus, focus on the small shell wobbling among the bushes down there on the desert. And it will leap . . .And a minute later the tortoise finds the world dropping away from it. And it sees the world for the first time, no longer one inch from the ground but five hundred feet above it, and it thinks: what a great friend I have in the eagle.And then the eagle lets go.”.Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

thanks, i think. love pratchett. that one’s probably my favorite.

@abbybookcase, @JP Steve, mind you, there’s good eating on one of those.