Student Teacher, Day Two

Today’s strip was yet another one of those teaching strips, which tries to show off how wonderful Liz is as a teacher and how incredibly enthusiastic her students are. This particular strip had the added dimension of the student teacher / Liz’s future replacement being there. It was interesting in tomorrow’s strip to see Liz remark on how well the student teacher did, when we do not actually get to see the student teacher teaching, unless you count that mob scene when she first appears or her standing around while Liz does all the talking. I suppose Lynn’s intent is to show that you don’t have to worry about the Mtigwaki kids when Liz eventually leaves (not really a worry of mine); however, it is unintentionally creating the effect that the students like Susan much more than Liz. These kids have just met this woman, and they are all over her. They are asking questions and throwing snowballs at her (the Jesse Mukwa way of showing affection). It is almost like they are saying, “Thank the gichi-manidoo (Great Spirit), we finally have a decent teacher.” I would hate to think that their enthusiasm was racially motivated, but it might be.

My mom used to teach high school chorus and many student teachers came to teach with her over the years. Let me tell you the only time the students were enthusiastic about a student teacher was the one lady who was really pretty, and then it was just the male students. The rest of the time, the person was some stranger inflicted on us for a certain period of time during each class.

As for my characters. Jeremy did not really touch the daily strip. Howard limited himself to using the word “half” over and over again. The good Constable snarked the tendency in the strip to reference Northeastern Ontario-related First Nations stuff. Lynn in Corbeil lives next to that area, and so her observations are based on the more populous area, instead of on the Northwestern Ojibway characteristics and remote location of the Northwest.

Tomorrow’s strip: Jesse is in love with Susan now and Liz is planning to throttle him with his own coat.