Elly’s Been Demoted: And It’s About Time

Since For Better or For Worse was often taken from the real life of Lynn Johnston, I find it a little strange that young Michael Patterson would be telling Elly Patterson that his teacher draws, prints and reads better than Elly. These should be Lynn Johnston’s strengths. If Lynn’s son, Aaron, criticized her in comparison to his teacher, I doubt that Lynn would take it very well. Did Lynn pick these items because she knew she could outshine any teacher in these areas?

As for my own kids, I experienced a situation similar to this, but not exactly the same. Since my son has Asperger’s Syndrome, there have been a number of occasions where I was called upon to help him with homework at home (i.e. teach him the things he zoned out during in class and missed). He did not like this. Nevertheless, it was a necessary thing to do to keep him up in class. We often would get to a point where my son would be absolutely defiant, and tell me that his teacher at the school taught him something which was the exact opposite of what I was trying to tell him. A lot of times these would be about subjects with which I am so familiar, that I was absolutely sure that I was correct. Then I would have to say, “Son, if the teacher said that, then she is wrong. However, I seriously doubt that she said that.”

These were difficult moments for me, because I remember in my youth, there were moments when I had teachers who did teach me things which were incorrect. You don’t want to undermine the teacher. At the same time, you don’t want your kid to learn the wrong thing. However, considering the very limited attention span of my son, this was never very much of a problem. He was arguing more for the sake of his understanding and interpretation of the lesson, than for the teacher.

In today’s strip, little Michael hits on a different element than just that of education. When my children hit Grade One, I was never demoted. My kids’ teacher was a tall, very beautiful woman, who was fantastic with young kids, and just as nice as she could be. My kids loved her. Even so, I never felt any kind of competiton with her, nor did my wife. We were glad that they had such a great teacher.

I don’t ever remember my kids comparing their teacher to their mother, with the mother coming in an unfavourable light. However, if my kids had a different relationship with their mother, then this might be different story. Why would a kid compare his mother to his Grade One teacher? Why would a kid tell his mother his teacher is better than she is, particularly in areas where the mother believes she is very good? These kinds of statements speak more to the relationship between the mother and son, than to the teacher’s actual skills.

My favourite part of the strip is the final panel where we see Michael Patterson wearing a blanket sleeper with a drop seat. I think the only time I have ever seen those things is in a Dennis the Menace comic strip. I have the feeling that was the only place Lynn Johnston saw one of those things, too.