Elizabeth Patterson – Educator?
How good a teacher is Elizabeth Patterson? I have decided to take a look at just the classroom strips to see how she does. In case you don’t want to read through all this, I will summarize. Liz's teaching falls into 4 stages:
1. Student teaching – fall, 2003
2. First year at Mtigwaki – fall, 2004 – spring, 2005
3. Second year at Mtigwaki – fall, 2005 – spring, 2006
4. First year at Glenallen– fall, 2006 – spring, 2007
She supposedly taught summer school at Mississauga in summer, 2006, but there were no strips dealing with that.
I discovered going through this exercise that in stages 1, 2, and 4; Liz is a decent teacher and was the most impressive in stage 1, which should not be a surprise considering the writing on the For Better or For Worse strip was better in 2003. However, in stage 2, her final year at Mtigwaki, she makes a lot of mistakes, and I have found that this year has tainted my opinion of her teaching overall, when most of what I consider to be Liz’s poor teaching practices can be traced to that year. It seems obvious to me now that Liz was burnt out on teaching in Mtigwaki in her second year and everybody in Mtigwaki knew it.
November 10, 2003
Elizabeth starts her student-teaching. Elizabeth diagrams a structure with C, P, and H leading into AT, presumably to show how the different initial consonants work with the concluding sound. She tells the students to turn off their electronic devices and the joke is that virtually every student has one.
November 11, 2003
The next day Liz actually builds on the prior day lesson by using EAR as the building block word. The students add F and get FEAR, but Dylan (the humourous scamp) uses EARF to stand for EARTH. Liz pronounces him totally annoying, but good, as Dylan’s classmates laugh at his joke.
November 12, 2003
Liz continues with EAR and tests the students to see how many words they know. Amalia includes the word SHEAR, which she explains is because “’cause we got sheep”, which Liz does not correct. She checks another student and then gets to Dylan, who includes BEER on his list because it sounded good to him. Students shown in the back with sticky-out tongue laughter.
November 13, 2003
WEAR changes the sound from EER to AIR. She asks for P to be added, so you get PEAR. Dylan does EARP, and makes a joke about where the P goes. Students laugh again.
November 14, 2003
Liz compliments Dylan for being creative but gives him extra work for disturbing the class. The teacher asks if Dylan is being disciplined, but Liz denies it and says she is giving Dylan an opportunity to challenge himself and gives a wary Dylan a “thumbs up”.
November 19, 2003
Dylan turns in the assignment and pronounces it fun. It was to write a short story without using the letters B, C or T. His regular teacher says Dylan is smart in English but is failing math.
November 20, 2003
Liz sits on a desk to talk to Dylan about math and explains that when Dylan becomes a famous author he will need to know numbers to be able to handle his money. Dylan is converted. I find this strip to be extremely ironic, considering what happened to Mike Patterson as an author, and who handles the money in his family.
November 24, 2003
Elizabeth gets evaluated. The criticisms are:
1. Talk less and listen more.
2. Let the students give you the answers
3. Make them think
4. Don’t turn your back when you write on the board
5. Didn’t adhere to the lesson plan
6. Focused heavily on one problem student, which was reported as possible favoritism.
It will be interesting to see if Elizabeth takes any of these criticisms to heart when she starts as a regular teacher.
Student-Teaching Summary:
However, I cannot say I have the same criticisms as the evaluators. Liz’s lessons are consistent and appropriate, and she manages to find a way to reach Dylan. At the end of the student teaching, I find Elizabeth to be a competent teacher.
October 7, 2004
Liz’s first classroom time with the Mtigwaki kids. Liz is doing a lesson on where to break words into syllables, if you come to the end of a line, a lesson which is a little archaic into today’s world of computers, but I’ll give that a pass. She asks Darren, Alexis and Jesse to answer questions about where to break works. Jesse gets the word “kissing” which he announces he would break up by throwing “water on ‘em”, since it worked on his sister. The class laughs as Liz is probably thinking something about fate always putting a humorist in her classroom.
October 8, 2004
Liz announces the schedule for the next day at the end of the day and tells the kids what to bring. It’s a pretty big list and reminds me exactly why my kids leave a lot of their stuff at school. It includes Ojibway calendars, scrapbooks and dreamcatcher materials and sounds like she is including quite a bit of Ojibway stuff in her lessons, which is important to the education in this culture.
In between these strips, Jesse gives Shiimsa to Liz.
November 22, 2004
Elizabeth catches Jesse leaving a trail of food on the floor. He makes a joke it’s “Trail Mix”. Elizabeth does not laugh and there are no students to laugh.
November 23, 2004
Mrs. McLeod is there and teaches Ojibway to the kids, while Liz sleeps in the corner. Alice asks her which clan is better because Daniel told her his turtle clan was better than her loon clan. Alice’s yelling at Daniel that turtles are slow outside the classroom wakes Liz up.
In between this classroom session and the next shown, Jesse Mukwa is at Liz’s house to eat cookies and to squirt Shiimsa with a water pistol.
February 8, 2005
Elly is in the school house with Gary Crane and says, “Elizabeth’s a good teacher, Elly. The kids can be hard to handle sometimes, but they like and respect her.” Then Jesse Mukwa walks through and makes a comment about Bingo and walks on.
February 9, 2005
Elizabeth on crutches comes and asks Elly and Gary if they saw Jesse, who is outside apparently getting ready to throw a snowball at a bird. Elizabeth brings him back and explains this is not answering “the call of nature.” The class room laughs.
June 14 - 17, 2005
Jesse Mukwa brings Liz a pie as a bribe not to leave. Liz gives him back all the things she took from him in class and says she expects to get them back, as a sign she plans to return. This is also the first sign that Liz ever did anything to discipline the disruptive Jesse.
June 21, 2005
Liz’s attempt to comfort Jesse Mukwa is unsuccessful, as he refuses to see her for the summer, on the premise if he doesn’t see them leave, then they’re still here. Jesse seems to have quite a bit of separation anxiety going there, which may explain why he’s over at his teacher’s house so much.
First Year Summary: On examination there are only two jokes with Jesse Mukwa disrupting the class (which is an improvement over Dylan) and Liz appears to apply some sort of discipline to him. She also has a mix of some Ojibway things in the curriculum. However Jesse spends too much time at Liz’s place by himself alone, and his anxiety over her departure at the end of the year shows that he has developed an unhealthy attachment to his teacher, which should have set off warning bells to both Liz and Jesse’s aunt Margaret. It isn’t until next year we find out both Jesse’s parents have left him, but Liz seems to be blissfully unaware Jesse is playing her as a surrogate mother, giving her gifts and coming over to her house to eat. Liz appears to be a good teacher, but she needs to detach herself from Jesse.
October 2, 2005
Our first Sunday teaching strip starts off Liz’s year number two. Liz asks if the kids brought in leaves for pressing and Jesse Mukwa waves a whole stick of leaves. After demonstrating it, Liz is showing her example to the kids in the class, when Jesse Mukwa and 2 other kids try the leave press on a cheese sandwich, while Liz looks astonished.
October 24, 2005
Liz panics because it’s the day before school and she doesn’t have a lesson plan yet. Considering this is October and school would have started in September and she taught this group all last year, this is a surprising strip.
October 25, 2005
The lesson for the week is learning navigation as if you were on an ancient sailing ship. Jesse Mukwa pretends to throw up over a rail and the class laughs.
October 26, 2005
Liz has diagrammed the rotation of the sun, earth and moon on her board for navigation. She then asks about the North Star – Polaris – which the students recognize as the brand name for snow machines. Since I live in Tucson, Arizona, this was actually educational for me.
October 27, 2005
Standing on her desk on tip toe, Liz puts star symbols on the ceiling. Liz does not get safety points on this demonstration. Then she rotates Ellen and asks her to tell her what she sees happening to the things on the ceiling. Ellen asks if she counts a dart and two spitballs. I actually spot the dart and two spitballs in panel 2, and think I missed them the first time I saw this strip, mistaking them for space ship and 2 small stars. No one laughs at Ellen’s joke, but Liz looks wide-eyed and off into space.
October 28, 2005
Liz explains more about the North Star and tries again with Ellen who gets the answer right this time. The kids pepper Liz with questions. She sits down and puts her hand in her heads as Gary Crane asks her how things are going? Liz says, “I’m completely lost.” This really does not make Liz look good, that she has lost control of the classroom enough to attract the principal’s attention and has responded by holding her head.
October 29, 2005
Liz announces an impromptu star-gazing party, because the night is going to be clear. She asks everyone to bring their star chart, and meet at the ball diamond and tells them they can invite other people. The kids ask for hot dogs and marshmallows and hot chocolate, which Liz then goes to buy. There are all kinds of issues with making sure every child has an opportunity to participate in and is safe during out of school events, and this strip made it look like Liz just decided to do this without planning of any sort, considering she didn’t have this as a lesson plan until just before she started and particularly considering what happens next.
November 2, 2005
Liz sets up the telescope to see Polaris the North Star, while aided by Gary Crane and virtually the whole town lines up to see the star. Apparently Jesse Mukwa invited the whole town and the village organized someone to bring a stove. The event comes off because the town rallies around Liz, and actually makes the town look really good.
November 3, 2005
Gary Crane compliments Liz for her good idea of having this for a school outing and then Constable Paul Wright arrives. I notice he doesn’t compliment her for organizing it.
November 5, 2005
We see people leaving randomly, and Elizabeth thanks them for coming. Paul Wright helps her pack up the telescope. In real life, a teacher would need to make sure each student was leaving safely with their parent. This does not seem to be a concern for her.
February 5, 2006
Liz is sick, but goes to school anyway because there’s no one else who can take her class and finds only 2 students there, since others are sick, taking care of relatives, working trap lines, or smoking fish. The two girls explain they can’t go home because their moms are working, from which we can infer that going home has been considered an option before. Liz takes them to her house and shows them a videotape on Egypt while she sleeps on the chesterfield with Shiimsa, as she proclaims northern teachers make their own rules.
The odd strip where Gary Crane predicts Liz will be leaving soon appears in here.
March 2, 2006
First appearance of Susan Dokis and the kids appear to be anxiously raising their hands to her.
March 3, 2006
Liz talks about using fractions with measurements they find in their homes. She asks for suggestions from the class, who respond enthusiastically. Not getting a response from Jesse, Liz asks him if he was paying attention, to which he quips, “1/2 the time.” Liz has actually moved from Jesse making unwanted jokes to making solicited jokes, which is not a good sign for the way their relationship has progressed.
March 4, 2006
Jesse Mukwa clobbers Susan Dokis with a snowball to the back of her head. Liz lifts Jesse up by his coat collar, obviously strangling him since his tongue is sticking out, while she talks about discipline. This strip shows how the relationship with Liz and Jesse has changed. Liz’s discipline is obviously more physical, and Jesse shows a complete lack of respect for Liz.
In between these strips, Jesse visits Liz just as she gets her fateful e-mail from April saying Anthony got divorced. Jesse announces he had a dream about her leaving, and wishes she would give him her stereo, which as I look at it now makes it seem obvious he wants some of the things she has, so the harmonica theft should have been no surprise.
In Jesse’s next appearance, he finds out Liz is leaving and throws a big tantrum about it. Liz tries to calm him down even chasing him back to his room in his Aunt’s house, but she is not successful.
June 19, 2006
Liz’s last teaching class in Mtigwaki. She announces it’s the last class for the summer. Ellen asks her if she is coming back to teach. Liz says no, but promises Jesse she will come back to visit. It is astonishing that Liz has not made an announcement to her class about this before the last day.
Liz leaves and gets a spirit name, given to her by Jesse Mukwa, who makes a joke he considered calling her Lizard Breath instead of White Goose. It seems obvious to me that Jesse's aunt Marge has made an effort to get Jesse to give Liz a proper farewell, considering the way he was feeling before about her leaving.
Second Year Summary: No Ojibway things in the curriculum and in fact, Liz seems to be making up classroom ideas as she goes along. The stargazing party comes off due to almost no effort of Liz’s, with principal Gary Crane and the village having to step in to salvage it. It also appears that Liz did not take Jesse’s behaviour at the end of last year as a warning, and has let her relationship with Jesse Mukwa get way out of hand. Gary Crane’s prediction of Liz’s departure and pushing for Liz to sign a contract (which he didn’t do before) so he can know one way or the other about Susan Dokis coming in makes a lot more sense now that I see the whole thing in perspective. Even Susan Dokis showing up just at the end of the school year as Liz is packing up makes sense. It looks like Lynn Johnston was trying to show Liz dealing more with the unusual issues of teaching in an Ojibway classroom, and how she overcomes those issues, but the whole thing with Jesse Mukwa taints it. It looks to me like Liz was burned out on Mtigwaki and the principal knew it and found a substitute.
September 5, 2006
Liz’s first day at the Glenallen school. She has written the provinces on the board and asks the class to answer which provinces the Canada’s longest river system crosses before she shows them a video on the subject.
April 22, 2007
Liz teaches grammar with panel after panel of examples of different grammar rules. Ultimately Brandy at Rock’n Central and Mizz Candy Rapper demonstrate the kind of job one can get if you don’t use proper grammar, i.e. the entertainment industry.
Third Year Summary: I don’t see any discipline problems. Liz may be a little preachy with the benefits of good grammar, but she is enthusiastic. The lesson isn’t consistent, but the kids seem to be getting it anyway. Liz may be back to being a good teacher again, but without only 2 strips as examples, there is not a large data pool from which to sample and with only 3 months left on the strip, there may not be any more Liz teaching strips.
1. Student teaching – fall, 2003
2. First year at Mtigwaki – fall, 2004 – spring, 2005
3. Second year at Mtigwaki – fall, 2005 – spring, 2006
4. First year at Glenallen– fall, 2006 – spring, 2007
She supposedly taught summer school at Mississauga in summer, 2006, but there were no strips dealing with that.
I discovered going through this exercise that in stages 1, 2, and 4; Liz is a decent teacher and was the most impressive in stage 1, which should not be a surprise considering the writing on the For Better or For Worse strip was better in 2003. However, in stage 2, her final year at Mtigwaki, she makes a lot of mistakes, and I have found that this year has tainted my opinion of her teaching overall, when most of what I consider to be Liz’s poor teaching practices can be traced to that year. It seems obvious to me now that Liz was burnt out on teaching in Mtigwaki in her second year and everybody in Mtigwaki knew it.
November 10, 2003
Elizabeth starts her student-teaching. Elizabeth diagrams a structure with C, P, and H leading into AT, presumably to show how the different initial consonants work with the concluding sound. She tells the students to turn off their electronic devices and the joke is that virtually every student has one.
November 11, 2003
The next day Liz actually builds on the prior day lesson by using EAR as the building block word. The students add F and get FEAR, but Dylan (the humourous scamp) uses EARF to stand for EARTH. Liz pronounces him totally annoying, but good, as Dylan’s classmates laugh at his joke.
November 12, 2003
Liz continues with EAR and tests the students to see how many words they know. Amalia includes the word SHEAR, which she explains is because “’cause we got sheep”, which Liz does not correct. She checks another student and then gets to Dylan, who includes BEER on his list because it sounded good to him. Students shown in the back with sticky-out tongue laughter.
November 13, 2003
WEAR changes the sound from EER to AIR. She asks for P to be added, so you get PEAR. Dylan does EARP, and makes a joke about where the P goes. Students laugh again.
November 14, 2003
Liz compliments Dylan for being creative but gives him extra work for disturbing the class. The teacher asks if Dylan is being disciplined, but Liz denies it and says she is giving Dylan an opportunity to challenge himself and gives a wary Dylan a “thumbs up”.
November 19, 2003
Dylan turns in the assignment and pronounces it fun. It was to write a short story without using the letters B, C or T. His regular teacher says Dylan is smart in English but is failing math.
November 20, 2003
Liz sits on a desk to talk to Dylan about math and explains that when Dylan becomes a famous author he will need to know numbers to be able to handle his money. Dylan is converted. I find this strip to be extremely ironic, considering what happened to Mike Patterson as an author, and who handles the money in his family.
November 24, 2003
Elizabeth gets evaluated. The criticisms are:
1. Talk less and listen more.
2. Let the students give you the answers
3. Make them think
4. Don’t turn your back when you write on the board
5. Didn’t adhere to the lesson plan
6. Focused heavily on one problem student, which was reported as possible favoritism.
It will be interesting to see if Elizabeth takes any of these criticisms to heart when she starts as a regular teacher.
Student-Teaching Summary:
However, I cannot say I have the same criticisms as the evaluators. Liz’s lessons are consistent and appropriate, and she manages to find a way to reach Dylan. At the end of the student teaching, I find Elizabeth to be a competent teacher.
October 7, 2004
Liz’s first classroom time with the Mtigwaki kids. Liz is doing a lesson on where to break words into syllables, if you come to the end of a line, a lesson which is a little archaic into today’s world of computers, but I’ll give that a pass. She asks Darren, Alexis and Jesse to answer questions about where to break works. Jesse gets the word “kissing” which he announces he would break up by throwing “water on ‘em”, since it worked on his sister. The class laughs as Liz is probably thinking something about fate always putting a humorist in her classroom.
October 8, 2004
Liz announces the schedule for the next day at the end of the day and tells the kids what to bring. It’s a pretty big list and reminds me exactly why my kids leave a lot of their stuff at school. It includes Ojibway calendars, scrapbooks and dreamcatcher materials and sounds like she is including quite a bit of Ojibway stuff in her lessons, which is important to the education in this culture.
In between these strips, Jesse gives Shiimsa to Liz.
November 22, 2004
Elizabeth catches Jesse leaving a trail of food on the floor. He makes a joke it’s “Trail Mix”. Elizabeth does not laugh and there are no students to laugh.
November 23, 2004
Mrs. McLeod is there and teaches Ojibway to the kids, while Liz sleeps in the corner. Alice asks her which clan is better because Daniel told her his turtle clan was better than her loon clan. Alice’s yelling at Daniel that turtles are slow outside the classroom wakes Liz up.
In between this classroom session and the next shown, Jesse Mukwa is at Liz’s house to eat cookies and to squirt Shiimsa with a water pistol.
February 8, 2005
Elly is in the school house with Gary Crane and says, “Elizabeth’s a good teacher, Elly. The kids can be hard to handle sometimes, but they like and respect her.” Then Jesse Mukwa walks through and makes a comment about Bingo and walks on.
February 9, 2005
Elizabeth on crutches comes and asks Elly and Gary if they saw Jesse, who is outside apparently getting ready to throw a snowball at a bird. Elizabeth brings him back and explains this is not answering “the call of nature.” The class room laughs.
June 14 - 17, 2005
Jesse Mukwa brings Liz a pie as a bribe not to leave. Liz gives him back all the things she took from him in class and says she expects to get them back, as a sign she plans to return. This is also the first sign that Liz ever did anything to discipline the disruptive Jesse.
June 21, 2005
Liz’s attempt to comfort Jesse Mukwa is unsuccessful, as he refuses to see her for the summer, on the premise if he doesn’t see them leave, then they’re still here. Jesse seems to have quite a bit of separation anxiety going there, which may explain why he’s over at his teacher’s house so much.
First Year Summary: On examination there are only two jokes with Jesse Mukwa disrupting the class (which is an improvement over Dylan) and Liz appears to apply some sort of discipline to him. She also has a mix of some Ojibway things in the curriculum. However Jesse spends too much time at Liz’s place by himself alone, and his anxiety over her departure at the end of the year shows that he has developed an unhealthy attachment to his teacher, which should have set off warning bells to both Liz and Jesse’s aunt Margaret. It isn’t until next year we find out both Jesse’s parents have left him, but Liz seems to be blissfully unaware Jesse is playing her as a surrogate mother, giving her gifts and coming over to her house to eat. Liz appears to be a good teacher, but she needs to detach herself from Jesse.
October 2, 2005
Our first Sunday teaching strip starts off Liz’s year number two. Liz asks if the kids brought in leaves for pressing and Jesse Mukwa waves a whole stick of leaves. After demonstrating it, Liz is showing her example to the kids in the class, when Jesse Mukwa and 2 other kids try the leave press on a cheese sandwich, while Liz looks astonished.
October 24, 2005
Liz panics because it’s the day before school and she doesn’t have a lesson plan yet. Considering this is October and school would have started in September and she taught this group all last year, this is a surprising strip.
October 25, 2005
The lesson for the week is learning navigation as if you were on an ancient sailing ship. Jesse Mukwa pretends to throw up over a rail and the class laughs.
October 26, 2005
Liz has diagrammed the rotation of the sun, earth and moon on her board for navigation. She then asks about the North Star – Polaris – which the students recognize as the brand name for snow machines. Since I live in Tucson, Arizona, this was actually educational for me.
October 27, 2005
Standing on her desk on tip toe, Liz puts star symbols on the ceiling. Liz does not get safety points on this demonstration. Then she rotates Ellen and asks her to tell her what she sees happening to the things on the ceiling. Ellen asks if she counts a dart and two spitballs. I actually spot the dart and two spitballs in panel 2, and think I missed them the first time I saw this strip, mistaking them for space ship and 2 small stars. No one laughs at Ellen’s joke, but Liz looks wide-eyed and off into space.
October 28, 2005
Liz explains more about the North Star and tries again with Ellen who gets the answer right this time. The kids pepper Liz with questions. She sits down and puts her hand in her heads as Gary Crane asks her how things are going? Liz says, “I’m completely lost.” This really does not make Liz look good, that she has lost control of the classroom enough to attract the principal’s attention and has responded by holding her head.
October 29, 2005
Liz announces an impromptu star-gazing party, because the night is going to be clear. She asks everyone to bring their star chart, and meet at the ball diamond and tells them they can invite other people. The kids ask for hot dogs and marshmallows and hot chocolate, which Liz then goes to buy. There are all kinds of issues with making sure every child has an opportunity to participate in and is safe during out of school events, and this strip made it look like Liz just decided to do this without planning of any sort, considering she didn’t have this as a lesson plan until just before she started and particularly considering what happens next.
November 2, 2005
Liz sets up the telescope to see Polaris the North Star, while aided by Gary Crane and virtually the whole town lines up to see the star. Apparently Jesse Mukwa invited the whole town and the village organized someone to bring a stove. The event comes off because the town rallies around Liz, and actually makes the town look really good.
November 3, 2005
Gary Crane compliments Liz for her good idea of having this for a school outing and then Constable Paul Wright arrives. I notice he doesn’t compliment her for organizing it.
November 5, 2005
We see people leaving randomly, and Elizabeth thanks them for coming. Paul Wright helps her pack up the telescope. In real life, a teacher would need to make sure each student was leaving safely with their parent. This does not seem to be a concern for her.
February 5, 2006
Liz is sick, but goes to school anyway because there’s no one else who can take her class and finds only 2 students there, since others are sick, taking care of relatives, working trap lines, or smoking fish. The two girls explain they can’t go home because their moms are working, from which we can infer that going home has been considered an option before. Liz takes them to her house and shows them a videotape on Egypt while she sleeps on the chesterfield with Shiimsa, as she proclaims northern teachers make their own rules.
The odd strip where Gary Crane predicts Liz will be leaving soon appears in here.
March 2, 2006
First appearance of Susan Dokis and the kids appear to be anxiously raising their hands to her.
March 3, 2006
Liz talks about using fractions with measurements they find in their homes. She asks for suggestions from the class, who respond enthusiastically. Not getting a response from Jesse, Liz asks him if he was paying attention, to which he quips, “1/2 the time.” Liz has actually moved from Jesse making unwanted jokes to making solicited jokes, which is not a good sign for the way their relationship has progressed.
March 4, 2006
Jesse Mukwa clobbers Susan Dokis with a snowball to the back of her head. Liz lifts Jesse up by his coat collar, obviously strangling him since his tongue is sticking out, while she talks about discipline. This strip shows how the relationship with Liz and Jesse has changed. Liz’s discipline is obviously more physical, and Jesse shows a complete lack of respect for Liz.
In between these strips, Jesse visits Liz just as she gets her fateful e-mail from April saying Anthony got divorced. Jesse announces he had a dream about her leaving, and wishes she would give him her stereo, which as I look at it now makes it seem obvious he wants some of the things she has, so the harmonica theft should have been no surprise.
In Jesse’s next appearance, he finds out Liz is leaving and throws a big tantrum about it. Liz tries to calm him down even chasing him back to his room in his Aunt’s house, but she is not successful.
June 19, 2006
Liz’s last teaching class in Mtigwaki. She announces it’s the last class for the summer. Ellen asks her if she is coming back to teach. Liz says no, but promises Jesse she will come back to visit. It is astonishing that Liz has not made an announcement to her class about this before the last day.
Liz leaves and gets a spirit name, given to her by Jesse Mukwa, who makes a joke he considered calling her Lizard Breath instead of White Goose. It seems obvious to me that Jesse's aunt Marge has made an effort to get Jesse to give Liz a proper farewell, considering the way he was feeling before about her leaving.
Second Year Summary: No Ojibway things in the curriculum and in fact, Liz seems to be making up classroom ideas as she goes along. The stargazing party comes off due to almost no effort of Liz’s, with principal Gary Crane and the village having to step in to salvage it. It also appears that Liz did not take Jesse’s behaviour at the end of last year as a warning, and has let her relationship with Jesse Mukwa get way out of hand. Gary Crane’s prediction of Liz’s departure and pushing for Liz to sign a contract (which he didn’t do before) so he can know one way or the other about Susan Dokis coming in makes a lot more sense now that I see the whole thing in perspective. Even Susan Dokis showing up just at the end of the school year as Liz is packing up makes sense. It looks like Lynn Johnston was trying to show Liz dealing more with the unusual issues of teaching in an Ojibway classroom, and how she overcomes those issues, but the whole thing with Jesse Mukwa taints it. It looks to me like Liz was burned out on Mtigwaki and the principal knew it and found a substitute.
September 5, 2006
Liz’s first day at the Glenallen school. She has written the provinces on the board and asks the class to answer which provinces the Canada’s longest river system crosses before she shows them a video on the subject.
April 22, 2007
Liz teaches grammar with panel after panel of examples of different grammar rules. Ultimately Brandy at Rock’n Central and Mizz Candy Rapper demonstrate the kind of job one can get if you don’t use proper grammar, i.e. the entertainment industry.
Third Year Summary: I don’t see any discipline problems. Liz may be a little preachy with the benefits of good grammar, but she is enthusiastic. The lesson isn’t consistent, but the kids seem to be getting it anyway. Liz may be back to being a good teacher again, but without only 2 strips as examples, there is not a large data pool from which to sample and with only 3 months left on the strip, there may not be any more Liz teaching strips.
posted by howard at 5:22 PM
3 Comments:
With the way that the current comic is shaping up, I'm learning that if I change my grooming style and accessories, the love of my life just might fall for me! This wouldn't annoy me nearly as much if Liz actually had feelings for Anthony (for either his personality, or his, well, dorkily charming appearance), but this wasn't the case. Way to not be shallow, Liz!
Despite the constant praise and recommendation of Anthony by her parents, and the criticism of her boyfriends by them and other family members; Liz soldiered on with almost anyone who wasn't Anthony and only considered him when Warren was unavailable due to his work. She was more than happy to take on Mason as an alternative, despite knowing nothing about him. It looks like Liz always goes for the best-looking guy available and most of the time, that's not Anthony.
I didn't realize that there were so many strips showing Liz in the classroom. Interesting to see how differently we view these lessons. I found the astronomy sequence to be exceptionally good. How many elementary school teachers could have taught those lessons better?! Liz's panic the night before is every teacher's nightmare, but she's in complete control when she is in the classroom.
Good work, Liz! Your high school teacher (I forgot her name) would be proud!
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