For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 01, 2016

shut up kid or ill spank your butt red

so, Mike, you want homework given on the second to the last day of school instead?

Somehow, I’ve had the impression the Mike’s brains are ALWAYS on ‘holiday’…

I will never get used to most of the world outside ’merica calling vacation a holiday.

I always hated homework in high school. It felt like the teacher was shifting the learning chores to us rather than teach the lesson to us on their time in class instead of wasting it. Luckily, my grades came out OK anyway and I graduated.

It’s nice to see the colorist has filled in Mike’s hairline so it doesn’t look like a reverse mohawk. I just spent three days with a student that had an “in-house” school suspension. School started two weeks ago and this kid already has a suspension…..next time he gets to stay home for a week. What do you bet that’s exactly what he wants?

He has more than one brain? Oh yeah….he’s a guy….

Local teacher is NOT gonna give homework. She should get some kind of award. She says the amount of homework is getting out of hand!

Home work has gotten way out of hand. What they don’t finish in class? Maybe, but on the other hand, why not just hand it in and take the low grade? They’d finish it the next time, unless the teacher is being unreasonable, then the parents should intervene. The teacher is getting paid to teach, not send it home for the parents to teach their kids. If the parents wanted to teach their kids, they’d probably home school, don’t you think?

I never got the sense of the amount of homework they assign in North America. I used to get 20 to 25 problems in Math per day and they were all exactly the same except for different numbers! What’s the sense in that?I am a teacher in 6th and 8th grade and I never give homework unless there’s a longer period without class (excursions, holidays…) with an exam coming up, or they really behaved horrendously and that’s why we didn’t finish. If we don’t finish the work in class it’s usually because I didn’t get my plan right or they encountered problems I didn’t foresee. My students go to school 7.40 a.m. to 4 p.m. and after that they have sports, private lessons and what else. They don’t need to be punished with homework on the side.

Well maybe if we paid our teachers a little better they could be better teachers instead of having to earn money teaching private lessons or during vacations. It’s the same world-over with few exceptions.

I have always felt that “homework” should be given in preparation for the next day’s work ie. a reading assignment of a history chapter that would be covered in the next class.It should be preparatory work for the upcoming class not busy work which has no value, and isn’t even read by the teacher.

if you only knew what life for you in the future is gonna be, you would enjoy this lazy time.

If Michael thinks this onerous, imagine what is going to happen when he gets a job.

It’s hard for a kid who is being forced to do more work when he doesn’t like the work he already has to do. I was like that, school work bored me. I wanted to write and draw which I did anyway just didn’t get graded on that!

I knew the work, so I didn’t do the homework! Because I didn’t do the homework, I was put in a slower stream. But when I got serious about college (after flunking out originally, I found the work interesting and challenging so I did all the assignments.

P.S. to my last!

I also agree with the statement that someone made about teachers not being able to teach. I felt that I knew more than most of them.

I was like Micheal except I had plenty to do since I did read and draw. Not everyone is motivated and needs that motivation.

Michael doesn’t want to do homework because it’s nice outside

No screaming, but Elly would rather make cookies than do her homework (a rare Elly at school situation).

Michael shows signs of madness while doing homework.

Michael deals with his homework madness by deciding to only do a little bit of his homework.

Molly finds out that aging rockers are good with homework. There is no screaming here, but if you compare this strip to one with Anthony and Liz later, you will see the implication is clearly that Molly and the aging rocker are not doing just homework together.

Michael screams at homework. Elly indicates that ironing is worse.

Here we compare homework to paying the bills.

More screaming at homework and in an amazing move, John does not spank Michael for an action that would definitely have gotten him a spanking in other strips.

More screaming at homework and the usual joke of how procrastinating kids procrastinate.

When Liz screams at her homework, she actually accepts help from John, who can’t help but throw a lecture in there too.

More homework screaming and another comparison of homework to housework.

April gets her turn to scream at homework and unlike the other Patterson kids, she kicks off a shoe in protest.

realist666. You are actually attacking a teacher? Shame on you!

I live where the school district seems to assume that the only thing that family does for children is plunk them out of the way in front of TV or video games and whatnot. I may be a single mom, but I am VERY active with my kids. There is an entire WORLD out there!! Hiking, biking, swimming/water play, winter play of all sorts, animals, living systems and chains, physics of water flow and rock erosion, molecular activity in heat conduction, and and and….. THE BEAUTY OF IT ALL!!!! Along with mealtime and board and card games, making our own songs and skits and performing, or just plain hanging out and working together on our household chores and yard/garden tasks. Add in that they of COURSE DO NEED private and “down” time, and I wonder how to manage the NINE HOURS A DAY (with busing) for school. .I’m not known as a “homework advocate”, indeed. :-P