Growing up, I was always a huge fan of Calvin and Hobbes, but who isn't? The best way for me to describe Calvin is by comparing him to Holden Caulfield from J.D. Salinger's, The Catcher in the Rye. There is a big difference in age between Calvin and Holden, but when you consider their personalities, they are eerily similar. Calvin is only 6 years old, but he's incredibly smart for his age and full of life. He hasn't quite realized what the real world is all about, because most of the comics he's in are written through his perspective of reality. Whereas, Mr. Caulfield is a coming of age 16 year old, who's been kicked out of several colleges. It's not that he wasn't a smart person, it was almost as if he refused to jump on the bandwagon, and become an ordinary successful person. He may be portrayed as very cynical, but what if he's just another young man who's lost his innocence by being exposed to what real life is all about? Would it be wrong to consider that perhaps his during childhood, he was very "Calvinesque?" It really is hard not to speculate this, considering that there really is no concrete evidence to support this claim. Holden was created long before Bill Watterson sketched up the first Calvin and Hobbes strip.
Anyways, my point with all this is their reaction to education, Holden refused to do well in school because he wasn't exactly sure why he was doing it, like what was the purpose of it? Calvin had the same approach, but most people speculate that it was mainly due to the fact that he was bored with school and that they weren't doing anything to mentally stimulate him. As if they were going at too slow of a pace for him. Now the tragedy of this is that this does occur everyday in our modern school system. A few months ago, I received my substitute teacher's certification for the state of North Carolina, with the goal to ultimately receive my full certification. Now I've only had 2 sub days since being approved, so I know I don't have much in the way of experience. Yet I have taken several courses on education, and there was one class I took that stood out to me. It was Educational Philosophy, my professor was Dr. Tyson Lewis, who was probably about early to mid 30's when I took this class, so he was relatively young to have a PHD. The reason why this class affected me so much was because we didn't just talk about how to educate a student, we looked at multiple methods on how to effectively educate a child. We went as far back as Socrates all the way to Michel Foucault with his Panopticon theory. We discussed all methods, their pro's and con's, and how they would interact with our modern society. Now every teaching method has it's positive aspects, like Rousseau, teaching a child based on necessity and their willingness to learn.
The main lesson I got out of this class was that every child learns in their own unique way, and that many teachers throughout history have developed methods to address the pupils needs. My first sub call was at one of the smaller schools in the county (I will not post the name of any school that I have been to, nor will I give out teacher's names). These kids were 7th grade to high school seniors, and they needed more of a one on one approach or even a slower pace to learn the required material. Now this school has a reputation for having horrible students behavior wise, but what school doesn't? This rumor causes disparity amongst the community, and the school has a hard time finding substitutes who are willing to work there. This was my first "teaching" experience, and I honestly found the students to be wonderful. Sure, they needed some extra guidance, they weren't challenged in any way, they just need the motivation to do the work. And someone has to be willing to give them that extra attention. Same thing happened today, I got called in to sub at one of the local middle schools, and it was for a student mentor. So I accompanied this student to all her classes throughout the day. She was a very smart person, she just had no interest in any of the classes. Yet she's a talented artist, so she spends most of her time in class doodling. Why should a teacher try and hinder a natural talent? If she needs one on one education, then let her learn the material her way. Have her illustrate something that relates to a history lesson, or science, etc. Could Calvin's teacher have used a similar approach with him? Allow him to learn his own way? Figure out how to apply a lesson to something that interests him. Try to expand that imagination he has to include the course material. Try to relate Magellan's expeditions to Spaceman Spiff's explorations.
I know this is easier said than done, but a teacher who strictly sticks to a curriculum is going to have a hard time keeping his/her students interested. The best teacher's I've had were the one's who tried to get through to the kids, who were interested in their hobbies.
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