For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for June 22, 2010

NO child will be left behind………………Hooray!!!!

Michael’s report card didn’t show how much he learned on English, math and reading with A, B, C, D and F. Michael should be gotten B on English, C on Math and B- on Reading. How much improvement he learned on these academics at the elementary school. He will be going to the second grade next fall. That will be awesomely cool! On the strip, the report card did not show anything what Michael did at the school.

The punch line is in the teacher writing “relief” then switching it to “pleasure” in the last panel.

I don’t know about now, but when I was a student there was one section of a report card where the teacher wrote the grades for each class and another section for teacher comments. These comments are what he’s reading.

1st graders don’t need grades - that will come early enough, believe me!

I didn’t get graded in 1st grade. I didn’t even have more than one teacher.

I’ve always been intrigued by the subtle differences in terminology and spelling between Canada and the United States, but I’ve never found a satisfactory explanation as to why it’s “grade two” in Canada, while in the United States we typically call it “second grade.”

My Canadian sister-in-law is a teacher, and even she and her colleagues are stumped!

On Lynn Johnston’s website, she gives an interesting overview of her decision to retain “Canadianisms” (as she calls them) when the strip started appearing in the U.S., and how this sometimes prompted questions from her readers and syndicate.

Guess I won’t labor (or labour) on this too much…you can just color (or colour) me curious, from “A” to “Z” (or “zed”)!

Good point, BuzzDog. Another one I have noticed is that Canadians (and Brits) drop the word “the” in places where Americans use it. One example is, “He is in hospital for tests.” Americans would say, “He is in the hospital for tests.”

Another difference is how we talk about higher education. In Canada someone is at university while U.S. students are at college. I think the Canadians are more accurate since most U.S. schools are universities comprised of many colleges. Oh well. It keeps me up on my Brit-speak.

TexTech

Universities and colleges are not the same thing, even in the US. So, while in Canada one may attend University, such as York or U of T, one attend college at George Brown, which is a college and not a University - so far as I know, the US has the same thing - I went to Columbia College in L.A. for instance, which certainly was not the same as Columbia U in New York - the difference is that one is academic, one is vocational.

In the UK, this is true, too, but also, many of the older Universities are split into Colleges, here meant to indicate distinct societies and disciplines within the university structure.

BuzzDog said:

“Guess I won’t labor (or labour) on this too much…you can just color (or colour) me curious, from “A” to “Z” (or “zed”)!”

Not a big deal, really. We Canuckle-heads have closer ties, historically and culturally, with England. It wasn’t until 1982 that we had our own Constitution. Before that, the document that defined the country was an Act of the British House of Lords. We still maintain the British Monarchy, though it is 99.99% ceremonial and symbolic, but up to about 50 years ago, the Queen’s representative in Canada (the Governor General) was British.

Now, would you like a slice of back bacon on your burger?

And the spammer strikes again!

I can relate to the teacher’s relief at passing Michael on. OTH, it’s the “challenging” students you wind up remembering. I still think Michael is bored in school and that’s why he has too much energy. A creative teacher can make all the dfference to a child like that.

I’m still friends with many students I had in my first class, 34 years later … we’ve forgiven each other for the “hardships” and remember those days with smiles.

Oh brewwitch the back bacon on a burger sounds good here in Wexford!

Buzzdog the reason American’s (from what I’ve been able to find out) got rid of “U” in words, is because of telegraphing. Every letter cost right? So removing the “U” would often save a letter or two thus a penny or two.

As for ‘grade one, grade two’ … we up above the 49th, don’t use “Sophomore” etc in our schools. (Usually, depending on the board of ed) it’s Grade 9 through to Grade 12.

When you are a military brat, all of these items become blurred. I was in 34 schools before I got to High School and I doubt if I would recognize any of my teachers or classmates from the early years. Seems I spent all of my time learning who the bullies were since being the “new kid” and wearing glasses made me an obvious target!

Actually Wilorg, the difference between college and University (in the US) is that a University is a corporate entity that provides both graduate and undergraduate education. Colleges are not necessarily vocational. There are many liberal arts colleges.

In some countries, college is secondary (high) school. Here it just means a facility of higher education that either provides solely undergraduate courses or is not incorporated.

My Father’s degree says, “College of Engineering, University of Arkansas”

And - like ses1066 - I am an Army Brat … I had many teachers - and only remember a few of them. My 4th grade teacher. My 6th grade teacher - and a few from high school.

Allan V - Noah Webster wrote his dictionary in 1828. The telegraph wasn’t invented until 1844, so that probably isn’t the reason for dropping the “u” from words like labor/labour & color/colour. To quote from: http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/noah-webster.html “Webster changed the spelling of many words in his dictionaries in an attempt to make them more phonetic. Many of the differences between American English and other English variants evident today originated this way.”

Dropping the “u” from “labour” makes it closer to the Latin. Perhaps that was the goal, to make English more Classical.

I thought only universities could award a bachelor’s degree? and colleges awarded some kind of certificate.

Haha… love the last panel! I’ve had kids like that. ;)

Actully, grade 2 in Canada, is NOT the same as second grade in America. In Canada, there is no “Kintergarten”. What we refer to as kintergarten here in the states is refered to as grade 1 in Canada. Therefore, grade 2 in Canada, would be the same as first grade here in the states.

ADD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey Agios you may want to check your facts. In Canada they have kindergarten and in some areas junior kindergarten. In Ontario they are changing from half-day kindergarten to full-day kindergarten over the next couple of years.

Am I the only one that finds it weird that you can’t get an “E” on your report card? You can get an “A”, a “B”, a “C”, a “D”, and an “F”, but not an “E”. What is up with that?