Tooning Out Education

I analyzed Gary Varvel’s cartoon which appeared in unionleader.com on May 2, 2006. It’s a pretty simple cartoon, a teacher, I assume this because of the blackboard in the background, is talking to the parents of a student. The teacher is enlightening the parents on all of the sporty aspects of the school, while the parents are asking about why their child is failing. I feel with this cartoon, the artist is trying to convey the problem with the education system of today. It seems like he is trying to express that schools are focusing too much on athletic programs rather than spending their resources on what they are supposed to be doing, educating the leaders of the future. You can clearly see this drawn out by the teacher telling the parents all about the athletic department of the school instead of the educational programs. The look on the teacher's face shows that he seems to be more excited and proud of all the athletic programs the school has instead of focusing on his job, the students.

But I also believe this artist has included a double meaning in the cartoon by having the parents complaining to the teacher about their child’s grades instead of confronting their child. It reminds me of this cartoon by Daryl Cagle:

While teachers do have a big part in the education of their students, it is ultimately up to the students to keep their own grades up. Going back to the original cartoon, I feel that Gray Varvel was also trying to show that parent’s often blame teachers for their children’s problems. With this simple cartoon, the artist was able to effectively and concisely express his views of today’s flawed educational system.

SOPAthetic

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

–First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, 1789

Imagine a world whose freedom of speech is suppressed. Essentially taken away by the government. By the same government that forbidden the inhibiting of free speech in 1789. That is exactly what the government today is trying to do with SOPA. SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act and is designed to prevent the spreading of copyrighted material on the internet. I’ll admit that seems like a good idea in theory, but if this bill passes then the government will have the ability to take down any website that has any form of copyrighted material. If you upload your favorite song to YouTube, then the government would have the option to completely shut down the site. If your five year old daughter draws a cute picture of Mickey Mouse and you share it with your friends on Facebook, the government could remove Facebook from the web for good. If we allow the government to have their way, they will be able to censor basically anything that they don’t want the public to see. Even though this bill has been delayed, we still need to voice our opinions. Massive companies, like Google and Wikipedia, are already on board by encouraging others to contact their state’s representatives. If you haven’t already, then please contact your representatives or otherwise we might be faced with a world where freedom of speech is suppressed.