Peanuts by Charles Schulz for February 03, 2021

was there even such thing as elementary school shop class?

Perhaps you’re not getting anyware Peppermint Patty because you don’t do your homework, pay attention in class and study for the tests!

We would have been better off if our shop teacher had hit himself with a hammer.

Her shop teacher was “Tim ‘The Tool Man’ Taylor” …

There are different kinds of smart. Other that playing baseball and perpetually beating Charlie’s team, we’ve not seen Patty’s other talents.

I can identify with this. In high school my math teacher was the wrestling coach who took six years to get his four year degree. We had to teach him how to do the problems.

What was he doing with that hammer? Never mind. I don’t wanna know.

Public school budgets were a problem even back then.

Those who can’t do… can’t do.

Patty just reminded me of our drivers Ed teacher who locked his keys in his car.

The perfect mentor for young minds.

Among academics there is an argument that school structures that drive advancing students by age vs. learning causes an enormous number of problems in the system. Essentially, the argument is that if cadres of kids of equal knowledge are advancing – education can happen more effectively. The counter point is always the “Billy Madison” effect – essentially, that as you have an increasingly different age group in a cadre you create socialization problems. I haven’t seen studies that actually try and quantify or address this – but at least anecdotally I have seen articles which argue that the amount of spread that would increase in the age of cadres wouldn’t be that significant and the “smoothing” of the academic differences have a greater positive effect on the social pieces than the age differences would be negative.

Patty needs professional help so she should check with Lucy to see if the doctor is in.

Was that before or after he asked you to answer a simple question like “How many quaerters of an inch make up an inch?”

I’d hit myself with a hammer too if I had to listen to your problems

Head or hand..?

Wow, a school that still has a shop teacher. Pretty cool.

Not the sharpest nail in the bag.