[2012-Mar-01] Kids These Days

[Issoisso]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2536

Discuss

[grammarcop2]

Spelling error in the votey.

[DonRetrasado]

Maybe it's just a sentence fragment?

[topher]

A sentence fragment would surely end with a trailing "...".
Having a sentence ending "!" suggests to me that it was a cock-up.

Ignoring tiny errors; I didn't really get the funny. Maybe I was too overwhelmed with hatred for squeeky wheel people, but the punchline just lacked punch!

[Edminster]

A sentence fragment would surely end with a trailing "...".

It was a very emphatic fragment.

[Shadlyn]

My mother is a teacher, my boyfriend's parents are both teachers, and this one couldn't make me laugh because it is painfully true. Most teachers do their best not to give in but it really does cause them a lot of trouble sometimes, because principals don't want the bad publicity.

The punchline, however, was perfect. I wanted to laugh, (not very self-reliant, heh) but I was still too heartbroken over the terrible system that makes this joke possible.

[topher]

I don't think it's the teaching system or the pricipals that cause the problem, it's personal resposibility.
If a parents argues with and threatens a teacher their kids getting better grades than the kids with reasonable parents.
If someone rages at the doctors receptionist they get an appointment sooner than the people quielty waiting.
It works because people wimp out and give those unreasonable self-absorbed people what they want, thus reinforcing that behaviour.
I try to make a point of working harder for people who treat me politely and make reasonable requests.

[PoetsHead]

I am a teacher and find this hilarious. These types of parents are known as "helicopter" parents, and their children seriously cannot deal with less than an A and expect others to go out of their way to give them what they think they "deserve." I used to back down all the time last year, but this year I'm standing my ground -- mainly because these future "leaders" need to learn right now how to EARN their grades, and I will no longer feed into a system of creating useless humans for the job market. It is also why I don't believe in "gifted & talented" programs, because it's the parents pushing for their children to be G&T, not so much the student being either of those things. Bah, education politics.

[dauntless]

The social commentary would be much more biting if the punchline was funny.

At least it wasn't a goddamn graph joke.

[Dane Raider]

At least it wasn't a goddamn graph joke.

Those are done solely to spite me, some people observe.

[Kaharz]

I had a college professor who would screw with the hyper grade obsessed, never got less than an A students. He would actually return a 20 page paper they slaved over with a C on it and let them stew until they really got worked up over it. He would then reveal that they actually got a higher grade and he was just being a jerk for a laugh at their expense. He usually only gave out one or two As for final grade a semester though and his reputation as a hard grader was well known, so it was an especially effective and cruel prank.

[Apocalyptus]

That does seem rather cruel, as I'm imagining some of those students are depending on certain grade averages to get into post-graduate programs or some such thing.

[Kaharz]

That does seem rather cruel, as I'm imagining some of those students are depending on certain grade averages to get into post-graduate programs or some such thing.

Yea, well he was a polisci professor, so just about everyone the class but me was pre-law. I was there because a lot of poli-sci classes counted towards my useless sociology degree and I'd already taken all the interesting sociology classes. He was a really hard grader, but he was fair. The students who were smart and really applied themselves to the few Aes, but he would sometimes screw with them to show them that the shouldn't take everything so seriously.

[Lethal Interjection]

Is anyone else having problems with this comic? It only loaded the first half inch of the comic (up to her eye), and that's all I got. That's the way it was yesterday, and that's how it is today.

[Dane Raider]

Gonna have to suggest you try clearing your cache or switching browsers, 'cos I've got it through no trouble.

I've got a bunch of different browsers on this machine (I won't bore you with why) and none of them are having any trouble -- the same is not true of other webcomics, some of which have the occasional comic that just doesn't like one of the older or less compliant browsers.

Edit: Oooh, does your ISP make use of proxies? Or are you utilising one yourself? If the proxy got hold of a corrupt image, it'll hold onto that until something persuades it to flush it and request a new version.