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I have so little sympathy for you, Calvin (except for the rain bit - I hate rain). I was much more like Susie, eager to learn and to make new friends. You have that ability too - but your stubborn selfishness drives it right out of you.
GrinsToYa is right. Find out yourself.
There are good social reasons to go to school. Have fun. If you pick up some education then thatâs great but youâre just there to get into higher education or a trade.
After you have graduated or gotten qualified or certified or whatever THEN you can learn.
Thatâs the thing about schools, Calvin. There is so much to know that they donât teach. But then there is so much that they are supposed to teach and donât.
School is where you learn far more than you think youâre learning â not only some of the basics of how to get on in the world (so we can spend our time reading comics, for example), but also some basics in getting along in society. And frankly, I loved school because it let me explore so many options for my future. Itâs just that so much of it depends on that ineffable combination of teacher, student and parents.
@Applescruff â I think you mean corporal punishment. They didnât let the nuns KILL children, even if they wanted too. But I agree with the rain sentiment. Hated waiting for the bus.
Buzzdog & lonewolf said it best
Some of the most profound questions of the universe.
Teaching you HOW to learn is important, but it works better when you learn things that are useful and practical. The âjourneyâ itself should be fun.
A Sunday Calvin strip decorated my home bulletin board for many years, the one ending with, âIf nobody makes you do it, it counts as fun.â It was the motto of our â for want of a better word â home school. One of the first things my son learned to read were Calvin books; heâd read them aloud into a tape recorder :-)
I so sympathize with Calvin. I absolutely hated school until college. I knew, even as a child, when I was being forced to learn things that would be useless to me thoughout my entire life. And Iâve yet to be proven wrong.
I wonder what it is exactly Calvin wants to know in school that theyâre not teaching him?
When I watch television trivia shows like âAre You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?â, âWho Wants To Be A Millionaire?â and âCash Cabâ ⊠it makes me feel sad at all the things they apparently ARENâT teaching kids in school anymore these days that they used to and should STILL be teaching, like American history, geography, etc. (I left âJeopardy!â off the above list because those contestants actually do have to be smart enough to be on it, unlike the other ones).
People donât seem to know anything these days except how to blurb meaningless bleeep on places like Twitter! I mean, why do they think anyone would care that, at this moment in time, theyâre eating a PB&J sandwich or going to the bathroom?!?!?
I donât think kids have the challenges that make learning fun. I agree about standardized tests. Education should be practical. I still know how to diagram a sentence, OH BROTHER, I use it every day, NOT! By the way, I grew up in a little logging town in the Cascades in Oregon. I often waited for the bus in cascading rain - real northwesterners donât mind it. We love our green and we love it when CA imports whine about it!.
That question ranks right up there with why do we pay a doctor or dentist to give us pain?~~~~and why would we go to someone who calls it âPracticeâ? I donât want someone practicing on me.
I just love that middle panel. The depiction of rain using just black ink on white paper is amazingly done there. I think Watterson commented in a later book that this was one of his favorites also. A great example of why color is not always a better thing for daily strips.
Im the only stupid one that reads this strip
I cant remember a thing I learned till about grade 6
O yes home schooling does have a down side grade 2 to 4
Then really enjoyed learning after that
Calvin will change his ways ,maybe make us all proud of him
The forgetting curve is real. We donât remember much in the world of facts. Itâs attitudes that stick with us. In school, we should learn that learning is fun. Alas, Calvin is on a very wrong track. But it was school that did it to him.
Johanan Rakkav, I donât know how many Calvin and Hobbes strips youâre read, but I think you misinterpret Calvin as a character. He does not âchoose to be ignorant,â nor is he intentionally antisocial.
He hates school not because of some hate of learning, but because of the arbitrary structure. He is shown to be highly intelligent but very unmotivated. Instead of grappling problems that he doesnât see uses for yet (math, etc) he spends his time thinking about the philosophies that apply directly to his life and decision making process. His teachers could have him working his butt off on math if they taught him through subjects he enjoys (rocket/space travel story problems).
As for the social side of school, he doesnât appear social because he doesnât relate to people around him. Thatâs not the same as not wanting to make friends. To him (and myself) sacrificing oneâs own interests to be social doesnât make sense (see the storyline about baseball). Calvin thinks independently far more than most people (adults included), so of course he doesnât know how to relate to people who donât. He never seems to be able to quite understand Moe, for example, because Moe seems completely devoid of morals. While Calvin, on the other, hand, obsesses over morals. His only friend in school is Susan, who is apparently the best student in their class. He is still a little kid and unable to relate to her (expect through teasing), but he likes her because she is such an avid thinker and learner. The main difference in their attitudes is only that Calvin wants to learn only what he wants to learn, while Susan just wants to learn anything she can.
I donât agree with you in principle, Humdum. Iâve read Calvin and Hobbes front to back and for many years. Iâve seen every strip BW has ever put out. And my impression - the impression the cartoonist has gone on record as stating is his intent - is that most of the time, Calvin creates his own problems. Thatâs what motivates the humor. He does things that Bill W. has said heâd never approve of.
Calvin and I were very much alike as personalities at that age. Very, VERY much. The salient difference is that I wasnât as radically selfish as he is. Calvin has no excuse - NONE - for not making himself more than he is. We ENFPs naturally rebel against artificial structures; we learn best when we learn on our own. But guess what? No artificial structure then or since has ever hindered me from learning what I wanted to learn. Nor has it stopped me from being social and (as far as I understood it) polite.
Calvin has everything he needs to adapt to his circumstances and be a truly brilliant, caring, imaginative child. The reason he isnâtâŠis that it wouldnât be funny. But in real life, Calvinâs life would be a Grade AAA tragicomedy, and most of that would be his fault.
Calvin does seem to have a lot of problems, but I donât think he creates them himself. He remains his childlike imaginative nature while at the same time analyzing the confusions he has about the world. I think thatâs what distinguishes Calvin from normal adults (despite being a child): that his curiosity isnât afraid to question. We tend to lose that curiosity as we age, slowly accepting the world as it is.
Luckily we had neighbors at the end of the street by the bus stop that would let us use their front porch on bad weather mornings. One morning it was pouring and we all piled on the front porch at about 7:20AM waiting for the bus. We were unaware that the previous owners had moved to Florida and left or sold their house to a young couple, who had moved in over the weekend. We scared them out of a sound sleep with all our noisy feet and talking that early in the morning and they scared us coming out yelling at us for being on their porch. The older couple were early risers and sometimes would come out with pitchers of hot cocoa and cups on windy, snowy mornings and urge us to come over and warm up. The older couple were the ones who invited us on the first bad weather day years before. The younger couple were never thrilled with our being there but checked with the older couple on the tradition and I have a feeling were related and were told to be nice to us.
Sorry, SaraCVT, not Canadian. Helmet Head is what Danaeâs horse, Lucy, calls her sometimes, and as a horsewoman myself who NEVER rides without one, I just love the name.
A marriage between Calvin and Danae would produce Lio.
I never meant to imply that Calvin is a great person or good company. I was saying that his problems with school and being social arenât caused by any inherent flaw in Calvin. Like with so many people, itâs a matter of growing up and figuring out the âwhyâs for himself. He can learn something useful from school, but as I said, thatâs something thatâs not yet apparent to him. (It may have been apparent to you, since you say you wanted to learn it. I was also eager to learn through my first few years of school; there was so much I wanted to be able to do. If I hadnât had outside motivations though, I would have hated being âforcedâ to learn.) The same principle applies to his social life: He alienates himself because he canât understand other people (heâs not properly objective yet). Neither of these make him irredeemable.
cleokaya about 15 years ago
Welcome to the real world Calvin.
margueritem about 15 years ago
What is it you wish to know?
kpeiyin about 15 years ago
What an enlightening thought!!
alondra about 15 years ago
That question ranks right up there with why do we pay a doctor or dentist to give us pain?
grinstoya about 15 years ago
They never teach you what you want to know because they know youâll learn it soon enough on your own.
kozykitn27 about 15 years ago
Then perhaps Calvin, you should pay more attention in class.
ARF2 about 15 years ago
Where is that nasty virus when you need it?
sjoujke about 15 years ago
It floated down a drain?
Pacejv about 15 years ago
Iâm waiting for the Morton Salt girl to come along and save him.
Rakkav about 15 years ago
I have so little sympathy for you, Calvin (except for the rain bit - I hate rain). I was much more like Susie, eager to learn and to make new friends. You have that ability too - but your stubborn selfishness drives it right out of you.
Superfrog about 15 years ago
GrinsToYa is right. Find out yourself. There are good social reasons to go to school. Have fun. If you pick up some education then thatâs great but youâre just there to get into higher education or a trade. After you have graduated or gotten qualified or certified or whatever THEN you can learn.
krisch about 15 years ago
what he wants to know is how to make TNT out of common household detergent and stuff like that.. Just imagine if Calvin had access to Google
Downeasta about 15 years ago
You will Calvin, and you will learn such wonderous things.
zero about 15 years ago
@Downeasta - you are either a teacher or they have a different primary educational system on your planetâŠ
DolphinGirl78 about 15 years ago
LOL! I agree with Johanan, I hate the rain as well⊠School never bothered me muchâŠ
APPLESCRUFF about 15 years ago
Calvin should be grateful he doesnât have nuns in his school. They used capital punishment back then.
Ivy0730Lcsq about 15 years ago
What do you want to learn then?
jrbj about 15 years ago
Thatâs the thing about schools, Calvin. There is so much to know that they donât teach. But then there is so much that they are supposed to teach and donât.
BuzzDog about 15 years ago
I finally figured out that school isnât so much about WHAT you learnâŠitâs really more about teaching you HOW to learn.
At least thatâs the mindset that got me through undergrad and grad school (grin)âŠ
ninmas about 15 years ago
right now weâre passing through the best time period of calvin and hobbes. 1988-1991.
cdward about 15 years ago
School is where you learn far more than you think youâre learning â not only some of the basics of how to get on in the world (so we can spend our time reading comics, for example), but also some basics in getting along in society. And frankly, I loved school because it let me explore so many options for my future. Itâs just that so much of it depends on that ineffable combination of teacher, student and parents.
COWBOY7 about 15 years ago
They never teach you what you want to know in class! But you need what they teach to learn what you want!
wicky about 15 years ago
I reckon it is a good morning to be judgemental.
davidf42 about 15 years ago
The artwork is supurb, especially the second panel.
midiranger about 15 years ago
@Applescruff â I think you mean corporal punishment. They didnât let the nuns KILL children, even if they wanted too. But I agree with the rain sentiment. Hated waiting for the bus. Buzzdog & lonewolf said it best
GROG Premium Member about 15 years ago
I didnât learn what I wanted to learn until the very last year of University.
coffeeturtle about 15 years ago
Some of the most profound questions of the universe.
Teaching you HOW to learn is important, but it works better when you learn things that are useful and practical. The âjourneyâ itself should be fun.
Helmet Head about 15 years ago
A Sunday Calvin strip decorated my home bulletin board for many years, the one ending with, âIf nobody makes you do it, it counts as fun.â It was the motto of our â for want of a better word â home school. One of the first things my son learned to read were Calvin books; heâd read them aloud into a tape recorder :-)
GROG Premium Member about 15 years ago
HelmetHead
I like your avatar. Do you think Calvin and Danae would make good partners in ruling the world?
Awesome-o about 15 years ago
Calvin speaks the truthâŠ
Trainwreck_1 about 15 years ago
Ah⊠The wisdom of the ages while still in itâs infancy? Take Two
sono_tremenda about 15 years ago
I just adore them!!
katdreams about 15 years ago
I so sympathize with Calvin. I absolutely hated school until college. I knew, even as a child, when I was being forced to learn things that would be useless to me thoughout my entire life. And Iâve yet to be proven wrong.
Gretchen's Mom about 15 years ago
I wonder what it is exactly Calvin wants to know in school that theyâre not teaching him?
When I watch television trivia shows like âAre You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?â, âWho Wants To Be A Millionaire?â and âCash Cabâ ⊠it makes me feel sad at all the things they apparently ARENâT teaching kids in school anymore these days that they used to and should STILL be teaching, like American history, geography, etc. (I left âJeopardy!â off the above list because those contestants actually do have to be smart enough to be on it, unlike the other ones).
People donât seem to know anything these days except how to blurb meaningless bleeep on places like Twitter! I mean, why do they think anyone would care that, at this moment in time, theyâre eating a PB&J sandwich or going to the bathroom?!?!?
Yukoneric about 15 years ago
Wait until youâre a teenager. Youâll know it all then.
bald about 15 years ago
i never had a school bus to ride to school as we lived .95 miles from the school so i had to walk which made it worse
if you lived here that amount of rain might have added up to a lot of snow and you might have had a snow day
adavis82 about 15 years ago
school became boring when they started teaching in order to pass standardized tests
jessero about 15 years ago
bleeep of
grammahotsho about 15 years ago
I donât think kids have the challenges that make learning fun. I agree about standardized tests. Education should be practical. I still know how to diagram a sentence, OH BROTHER, I use it every day, NOT! By the way, I grew up in a little logging town in the Cascades in Oregon. I often waited for the bus in cascading rain - real northwesterners donât mind it. We love our green and we love it when CA imports whine about it!.
RixRox about 15 years ago
Hey GretchensMomâŠ
He wants to learn why he doesnât want to go to places he doesnât like going (like school). Thatâs why itâs so funny.
Marty241 about 15 years ago
Macushlalondra said, about 11 hours ago
That question ranks right up there with why do we pay a doctor or dentist to give us pain?~~~~and why would we go to someone who calls it âPracticeâ? I donât want someone practicing on me.
jpozenel about 15 years ago
One wordâŠ.âprofoundâ. No wait, thatâs three words.
heybigbubba about 15 years ago
Calvin, these are the three most important things they want to teach you, shut up, get in line, and do as youâre toldâNOW.
Ginrummy33 about 15 years ago
I just love that middle panel. The depiction of rain using just black ink on white paper is amazingly done there. I think Watterson commented in a later book that this was one of his favorites also. A great example of why color is not always a better thing for daily strips.
vermabharat about 15 years ago
:)
jay_dallas about 15 years ago
Kid, welcome to lifeâŠ
ratlum about 15 years ago
Im the only stupid one that reads this strip I cant remember a thing I learned till about grade 6
O yes home schooling does have a down side grade 2 to 4 Then really enjoyed learning after that Calvin will change his ways ,maybe make us all proud of him
Bargrove about 15 years ago
The forgetting curve is real. We donât remember much in the world of facts. Itâs attitudes that stick with us. In school, we should learn that learning is fun. Alas, Calvin is on a very wrong track. But it was school that did it to him.
fbmce about 15 years ago
Who or what is that âthingâ peeking out of the underbrush in the center pic ??
Trainwreck_1 about 15 years ago
Looks like a fire hydrant to me?
Gretchen's Mom about 15 years ago
I believe itâs a fire hydrant.
Humdum about 15 years ago
Johanan Rakkav, I donât know how many Calvin and Hobbes strips youâre read, but I think you misinterpret Calvin as a character. He does not âchoose to be ignorant,â nor is he intentionally antisocial.
He hates school not because of some hate of learning, but because of the arbitrary structure. He is shown to be highly intelligent but very unmotivated. Instead of grappling problems that he doesnât see uses for yet (math, etc) he spends his time thinking about the philosophies that apply directly to his life and decision making process. His teachers could have him working his butt off on math if they taught him through subjects he enjoys (rocket/space travel story problems).
As for the social side of school, he doesnât appear social because he doesnât relate to people around him. Thatâs not the same as not wanting to make friends. To him (and myself) sacrificing oneâs own interests to be social doesnât make sense (see the storyline about baseball). Calvin thinks independently far more than most people (adults included), so of course he doesnât know how to relate to people who donât. He never seems to be able to quite understand Moe, for example, because Moe seems completely devoid of morals. While Calvin, on the other, hand, obsesses over morals. His only friend in school is Susan, who is apparently the best student in their class. He is still a little kid and unable to relate to her (expect through teasing), but he likes her because she is such an avid thinker and learner. The main difference in their attitudes is only that Calvin wants to learn only what he wants to learn, while Susan just wants to learn anything she can.
SusieD about 15 years ago
As the mother of a boy, I think Bill Watterson is a genius. Calvin is an âEveryboy.â
unemandarine about 15 years ago
So very true Calvin, so very true!
SaraCVT about 15 years ago
HelmetHead,
You arenât Canadian, by chance, are you? And if you are, have you heard of a band called Great Big Sea? Or are you just really into hockey?
pintcape about 15 years ago
everyone asks that same question,and everyone gets the same answer.
Rakkav about 15 years ago
I donât agree with you in principle, Humdum. Iâve read Calvin and Hobbes front to back and for many years. Iâve seen every strip BW has ever put out. And my impression - the impression the cartoonist has gone on record as stating is his intent - is that most of the time, Calvin creates his own problems. Thatâs what motivates the humor. He does things that Bill W. has said heâd never approve of.
Calvin and I were very much alike as personalities at that age. Very, VERY much. The salient difference is that I wasnât as radically selfish as he is. Calvin has no excuse - NONE - for not making himself more than he is. We ENFPs naturally rebel against artificial structures; we learn best when we learn on our own. But guess what? No artificial structure then or since has ever hindered me from learning what I wanted to learn. Nor has it stopped me from being social and (as far as I understood it) polite.
Calvin has everything he needs to adapt to his circumstances and be a truly brilliant, caring, imaginative child. The reason he isnâtâŠis that it wouldnât be funny. But in real life, Calvinâs life would be a Grade AAA tragicomedy, and most of that would be his fault.
northcoast about 15 years ago
They donât teach useful things like demolition in elementary school.
mrprongs about 15 years ago
I barely learned anything at school. Most of my knowledge comes from elsewhere.
Reptar about 15 years ago
Calvin does seem to have a lot of problems, but I donât think he creates them himself. He remains his childlike imaginative nature while at the same time analyzing the confusions he has about the world. I think thatâs what distinguishes Calvin from normal adults (despite being a child): that his curiosity isnât afraid to question. We tend to lose that curiosity as we age, slowly accepting the world as it is.
Dino-1 about 15 years ago
Luckily we had neighbors at the end of the street by the bus stop that would let us use their front porch on bad weather mornings. One morning it was pouring and we all piled on the front porch at about 7:20AM waiting for the bus. We were unaware that the previous owners had moved to Florida and left or sold their house to a young couple, who had moved in over the weekend. We scared them out of a sound sleep with all our noisy feet and talking that early in the morning and they scared us coming out yelling at us for being on their porch. The older couple were early risers and sometimes would come out with pitchers of hot cocoa and cups on windy, snowy mornings and urge us to come over and warm up. The older couple were the ones who invited us on the first bad weather day years before. The younger couple were never thrilled with our being there but checked with the older couple on the tradition and I have a feeling were related and were told to be nice to us.
Helmet Head about 15 years ago
Sorry, SaraCVT, not Canadian. Helmet Head is what Danaeâs horse, Lucy, calls her sometimes, and as a horsewoman myself who NEVER rides without one, I just love the name.
A marriage between Calvin and Danae would produce Lio.
theoze about 15 years ago
life suck sometimesâŠ!!
Humdum about 15 years ago
I never meant to imply that Calvin is a great person or good company. I was saying that his problems with school and being social arenât caused by any inherent flaw in Calvin. Like with so many people, itâs a matter of growing up and figuring out the âwhyâs for himself. He can learn something useful from school, but as I said, thatâs something thatâs not yet apparent to him. (It may have been apparent to you, since you say you wanted to learn it. I was also eager to learn through my first few years of school; there was so much I wanted to be able to do. If I hadnât had outside motivations though, I would have hated being âforcedâ to learn.) The same principle applies to his social life: He alienates himself because he canât understand other people (heâs not properly objective yet). Neither of these make him irredeemable.