The Wisdom of Bill Watterson

I was going through some of my old Calvin and Hobbes comic books, and I was amazed that as I have developed with more and deeper ways of looking at things, I was able to see more and more genius in the work of Bill Watterson. Today, I would like to focus on one strip I recently read. While I cannot find an image, nor scan it, I hope a simple transcript will suffice.

Hobbes: I can't believe there's a magazine for gum chewers.
Calvin: Heck, there must be a dozen such magazines.
Calvin: Each appeals to a different faction. "Chewing" is a high-gloss, literate and sophisticated. "Gum Action" goes for the gonzo chewers. "Chewers Illustrated" aim at vintage gum collectors, and so on!
Calvin: Each one encourages you to think that you belong to an elite clique, so advertisers can appeal to your ego and get you to cultivate an image that sets you apart from the crowd. It's the divide and conquer trick.
Hobbes: I wonder whatever happened to the melting pot.
Calvin: There's no money in it.

There isn't much I can say about Watterson' genius in this strip, let alone his entire works. Everything works in this dialogue. He has the reference to another "magazine" as an intro. He has Calvin give an excellent description of how marketing and sales works in America in regards to his magazine. He then even makes a connection to an overarching idea of how America has, one could say, deteriorated ethically.So, I guess you can say ol' Bill has done all of my work for me.

What I do want to do is expand on some of the crucial questions that were brought up in the cartoon. Has financial incentives become the driving force of the American market? Or, perhaps more appropriately, hasn't it always been? While it may seem rudimentary to point out that marketing  is founded upon sales, but it seems to me that American's tend to  ignore or pass over the brute fact that marketing is a strategic game, in which the players will use any means necessary to win.

A need for iZoning Committees?

I was scanning headlines on the BBC's website when I came across this article. I am rather interested in the education system, and after being around the lab school on our excellent field trip to Chicago, I couldn't help but read the article. The article summarizes, for those of you too lazy to open a link, a new broad concept for adapting schools, in this instance New York's, for both advancing technology and also individual needs in school. With a French teacher in a public school for a mother, I have a good idea of how difficult a class can be without adequate time in the library or with computers, or if their is a special needs kid in the class. All of these factors people want to be addressed, and this new iZone idea is some sort of solution for these problems in New York public schools. But really, it would be best if you just read the article. Go on. Open the link. Good job.

Now that that's settled, I wanted to focus on one of the issues the plan is supposed to solve, that of individual needs. Brooke Jackson, a NYC lab school principle and promoter of the iZone, talked about the varying needs of different students.
 "We have students who are ready for graduate level work now - and we have students who will not make progress unless they're in a three to one staff situation."
It is this type of grouping, one based on learning styles, that will really help students.  But it is more than that. Arthur Vanderdeen, former head of innovation for New York's Department of Educcation, put it best by saying,
 "It's a wholesale rethinking of a school and its cultural mindset."
A rethinking designed to maximize student potential, without pushing them to far or providing openings for underachievement.

Of course, as with every new concept plan, there are some flaws in forms of practical implementation on a city scale. Standing out first, as always, is cost. It is pretty common knowledge that the more teachers a school has to hire, the more financial strain is put on that community. On an inner-city family, that strain might be too much, especially when Jackson calls a possible need for a 3-to-1 student teacher ratio. Also, the iZone concept calls for much more attention to technology use, which is one of the most expensive ways to put material into a student's hands. With maintenance, program purchases, etc., this would most definitely add up in cost.

In all,  I think the ideas brought to the table by the iZone idea are really neat and useful, but so far, it seems to me a practical and efficient method of using these  ideas has been developed yet. What do you think? Are these concepts good ones? Should the iZone concept be carried out?

Oakland: the next Wild, WIld West?

The Occupy Wall Street movement was the first to reach media publicity, and after that other 'Occupy' protests and marches followed.

For us in the Chicagoland area know the of the Occupy Chicago protest, one which held the same basic values of the Occupy Wall Street, and kept the same non-violence as its predecessor. Up until now, I have no problem with this kind of act. It is for the most part legal, people voicing their oppinion, and while I personally think that their demands and intentions are very hazy and poorly operated, I must still respect their actions. However, recent Occupy Oakland events have me startle. As I read in this BBC Article , what started as a fairly peaceful 'Occupy' initiative turned into what I would consider a full on riot.

As the article reports, "Protests on Wednesday were largely peaceful until around midnight local time, when some of the protesters reportedly set a barricade on fire."

However, the protesters did not stop there, BBC quoted reports  the police saying they gave the order to fire tear gas and bean bags "following repeated orders for the crowd to disperse" and in the face of "continued assaults by rocks, lit flares, roman candles and bottles" While no formal number was provided, the primary damage estimates were valued to be around one million. Also, human damages were also listed-around five protesters were hospitalized-including an Iraq War veteran.

While many public officials were upset with the protest-turned-riot in Oakland, other members of the 99% movement said they, too, were disapointed. Comments like, "I think it will allow detractors to criticise the movement," and, "It's messing with our movement," are not far from earshot.

I'm all for freedom to assemble and right to free speech, but when people take and abuse these priviledges and use them to incite harm and violence, no matter what they are saying, I'm not sure if I could ever support something like this incident. What do you think? Is there any justification for these actions? Did they take it too far?