Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Hemlock
Josceline Fenton
A witch accidentally marries a monster, and now she and her familiar has to navigate life around her monstrous husband and her even more terrifying in-laws.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
All Known Alternatives
Karolina 'Kajotko' Jankiewicz
Akane has only one way to get back home: collect the 42 keys to parallel worlds. Eri and Ben are just trying to get through the summer before university. When a magical key turns up in an old spare set, all three are forced to change their plans and fast.
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We’ll know when Walky has hit rock-bottom, ‘cos he’ll start asking Sal for help with his maths assignments.
…I wish I was in there, I could give Walky some friendly advice on how trying to coast through a Bachelors is not a great idea. Also I got my degree in maths, so I could probably actually tutor him too (better than the TA dude could).
Hah, my mom’s a college prof and this is her least favorite thing. She’ll give someone a bad (or even moderate) grade and they’ll come to her and say “but I’m an A student!”
In all seriousness, though: Use the pointy brackets (I don’t know the name of them, sorry) instead of squared ones There’s a little hint at the bottom of the reply box with a list of the codes you can use here, and a lot of them are identical to the [ ]-type commands, with the exception of brackets.
Nobody knows the name of ‘the pointy brackets’. Because, they’re not brackets! They’re ‘greater than’ and ‘less than’ signs, common mathematical symbols that worked their way onto the modern QWERTY keyboard layout early on. Programmers decided a while ago, for some reason, that having (parentheses), [square brackets], and {curly brackets} simply wasn’t enough, and repurposed the signs for bracketing.
Yeah, mathematicians did it first in (one of) their notations of linear spans. But I’m just saying, maybe html tags use angular brackets precisely because they’re not normally used as brackets, so that bracketed clauses don’t get misinterpreted for tags ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That reminds me of Chesterton’s line about the militaristic Prussian general who saw success as a quality, not an incident. It didn’t work out too well for him, either.
Does she get the jerks ambushing her in the hallway with a bellowed “WHY DID YOU FAIL ME?” and then refusing to discuss it anywhere less public and then trying to complain to the dept that she discussed marks in public?
(hi that happened to me – dude was twice my size and doing his best to loom intimidatingly, too. Like if he made me think enough that he was going to punch me, I’d give him an undeserved A just to get him to go away? Which… no.)
Mmm, papery goodness. I wonder how much longer he can stay in denail before he is forced to face up to his slipping grades (by, say, being threatened with expulsion)?
Hey Walky, just go and ask your sister for some maths tutelage!
I really don’t get how people thought that could possibly be a thing that was happening?? They’re getting graded papers back. Papers that have their own handwriting and their own answers on them. No way Walky and Sal wouldn’t have noticed the mismatch while giving their papers even a casual once-over.
No, Walky is just making the extremely common mistake of assuming that because high school classes are easy enough for smart people to coast through them, that he can do the same in college.
I’ll admit, it usually doesn’t take the form of going from an honors student straight to flunking out of your first semester, but that’s probably for dramatic effect.
Shrug. My university math courses more or less started from scratch. They went through the stuff taught in 13 school years (easy to guess where I went to school now) in about two weeks of time. And then kept the pace. A whole lot of students dropped by the way side. The rule of thumb was that half dropped out in the first two years, and half of the rest in the rest. This was about the most renowned engineering university in the country and admission was free. So no student had a chance to feel entitled to passing grades because he had paid a lot.
And frankly, in a university intellectual Darwinism makes a lot more sense than social Darwinism. Survival of the fittest instead of the fattest, and you don’t start your job with oodles of student debts. Even if you failed.
As much as I agree with Sal and thinke these two need to have their egos cut down a peg I think this is a good chance for redemption for the both of them.
No good reason? Jason was mean and outright insulting to Sal and I think that she’s started to fall for him. She’s got enough old, thinly-healed scars that being treated like that would hurt a lot.
Jason is not a good man in this universe and he’s definitely not a good teacher and he definitely thinks that “dumb” students are the scum-of-the-earth. Sal’s dead on to call him out on some of his shit here.
Except that as the guy who grades their assignments, he’s probably noted their last names. Not to mention possibly recall Sal’s mention of her brother.
One of my classes in High School had two girls with the exact same first, middle and last names. No relation at all, just name-doppelgangers. I’m guessing the front office had fun with their grades.
Yes, analyzing preview panels is something of a compulsion for me. More often than not, my predictions end up being completely wrong, but I still can’t stop. You never know. One of these days, I’ll totally call it.
Odds are, *if* that day comes, it will be something really obvious and trivial, and no one will care. Still, I’ll savor that tiny victory for a fraction of a second, and it’ll be the highlight of my day.
Walky isn’t Sal. Jason’s repetition-based approach might work for Walky.
Danny would still be a better tutor though, since he actually tries to tailor the lesson to the learner.
Seems more likely to me that Walky is saying something negative about Jason to cover for the delay in catching up to the two of them, Joyce is shocked by derision for an authority figure, and Sal agrees with her brother for her own reasons.
That or Walky is bowing out of lunch to go study and Joyce is like “Walky???? STUDYING???????????” And Sal just gives zero fucks.
…Seriously? I mean I don’t condone it either but if that’s her reasoning for him being an asshole it’s stupid. She had sex with him in order to get better grades and when he didn’t give her better grades she got pissy.
Are we not gonna’ talk about how Joe and Jason’s female colleague are also learning the vertical periodic table or is that different because Joe’s not a main character?
That’s not the entire reason she’s ‘pissy’. He told Sal that she may want to reconsider taking college math as she didn’t seem capable of learning it.
She got a tutor and (Danny) and she learned well enough to pass. Proving that Jason’s not much of a TA.
If she slept with him only to get the good grade, she wouldn’t have continued on for more help and passed the dang class.
I agree to a point. Jason’s approach is lacking, but Danny stumbled on Sal’s rebellious streak being her inhibitor. Jason should not be expected to know what makes everyone tick. These are adults who have to take responsibility for their own academic success.
I mean, Jason is training to be a teacher, so he should take responsibility for his academic failures, such as being unable to help a student. But instead he keeps saying it’s Sal’s fault, and now it’s obvious it wasn’t. Figuring out the best way to teach a student is part of the teacher’s job, or at least helping them find the resources that will help if they can’t.
And it’s not like Sal’s rebellious streak is a big secret. If Danny stumbled into it, it was him running into a mile wide sign displaying it in flashing letters. Plus, from what’s been said about the tutoring sessions, it seems to have been Jason just repeating the lecture content and not really trying to understand why she wasn’t getting it.
I sincerely doubt Jason’s training to be a teacher. He’s training to be a mathematician, which necessitates him performing teaching duties. I would be completely and utterly surprised if he’s had any actual training as an educator or gets any support of that kind from the professor who’s theoretically mentoring him.
Not that I’m saying he’s not a bad teacher! He is. But teaching is a skill, not a talent. Jason at least cares enough to put effort and worry into things, so I feel it’s rather sad that he continues to fail and flounder.
Yes, that’s true. Except I’m talking more about what Skizz implied, with the sex. The sex? The sex.
It doesn’t matter anyways. Sal will continue to have less and less actual character flaws as the comic goes on. Soon the day will come when Ethan recognizes Sal from the robbery incident, and completely forgive her for holding a knife up to his throat. Then Amber will swoop down and hand over her Amazi-Girl costume in repentance for daring to stab Sals hand all those years ago. Sal can do no wrong. Sal is love. Sal is life.
Sal being good at math doesn’t suddenly mean she has no character flaws. Last I checked she still attacked Malaya just out of jealousy for spending time with Marcie. I agree that it was shitty of her to bang Jason for a good grade (and it was shittier of Jason, of course. Regardless that Sal initiated it, he’s still in a position of authority over her), but that failed and she’s improved the right way.
As for Ethan, he never really had the opportunity to make it about him. Amber was always his main concern, which is why when Amber told him that Sal was at the school, Ethan’s main concern was that Amber was wearing a mask, crawling through windows and speaking in the third person.
I’m usually the first person to try and explain Amber’s actions that night, but, well, she did stab Sal. You’re talking about it as if it wasn’t a terrible thing to do, even though Sal did terrible things herself that night too.
As quick as I am to go all “grr how dare you Sal” it’s not like she intentionally planned on doing it. She didn’t walk up to him all saucy looks asking what she could do for him; it was basically a completely spontaneous action.
I mean, she had a point. She was just being judged for her marks, not the effort she put into trying to attain them. The education system has a tendency of devaluing the worth of effort.
Yup. She actually tried to make a genuine effort to work within the system and then added a post-hoc rationalization about cheating the system to justify her sexual frustration, and then went outside the system and found what worked for her to succeed within the system.
This universe’s Penny has a long, long way to go before she’s as big an asshole – or as completely fucking batshit – as the other Penny. Banging a student is barely a drop in the bucket.
That and I don’t think her arrangement with Joe involves any understanding of exchanging sex for grades from either party. I think they’re just exchanging sex for sex.
And I’m not even entirely sure Joe is actually one of Penny’s students…
Jason was just an all around jerk to Sal. Belittling Sal’s intelligence at every opportunity. Of course when Jason’s tutoring failed to help Sal he blamed this on the student rather than his abilities as an educator.
Sal switched to a new tutor and started getting really good results. Ever since she’s been enjoying shoving it in his face that the problem was never on her end. She can learn just fine with a tutor who’s actually worth a damn.
They got close to having a moment at the bar. Sal even opened up enough to tell Jason that Danny’s tutoring worked because he tried to understand her, only for Jason to take it as some personal slight.
Well according to the comic I mentioned above, Jason’s reaction to Sal improving was “Maybe you finally started to listen.” I have to say, I don’t blame Sal for having a poor reaction to that.
Exactly. Jason has an ego as big as Walky’s.
He just doesn’t understand how he can possible be in the wrong, just because he told her she was too stupid to learn the math.Then when Sal did learn it with Danny’s tutoring help, he had the nerve to tell her that she learned because maybe she finally started to listen.
He’s not entirely wrong, though. Sure, Sal was definitely listening and paying careful attention, but she wasn’t able to process what she was hearing.
Danny put it in terms she could understand; he might make a damned good teacher someday. Then Sal was able to internalize the knowledge and score better.
So yeah, he could’ve said it better, and he was an ass before that in suggesting she give up (though he was nearly as frustrated as she was by the tutoring’s lack of effect) but I don’t think he was being as malicious as Sal seems to have perceived it, so it makes sense that he wouldn’t understand how bitter she is. From his viewpoint, she DID finally start to listen, he just doesn’t know why someone else was able to get through to her. Hell, Jason could probably use some tutoring from Danny in psychology.
That’s not listening better, that’s having a teacher who’s good at their job (even if it’s not a job, it’s just a friend helping you out in exchange for Mario Kart tips).
And Jason… ugh, one of Jason’s many problems is that he believes there are two types of students, ones who listen and respect his singular chosen method of reiterating and ones who are “good students” and he also thinks its okay to belittle and drive out the first group for “failing to get it”.
And… no. Just no.
As a teacher, you just don’t ever belittle a student. Even if they are being an asshole or having a tantrum. You don’t call them stupid. You don’t imply they can’t do anything. You don’t revel in their failure or get pissy about their success. That’s like Rule Number One and he’s constantly failing it so hard.
What I mean to say is that I think he’s misusing the word ‘listening’ and equating paying attention with understanding.
Belittling Sal was absolutely wrong, frustration or no, but it’s somewhat understandable. It’s a sad irony that his inability to process that not everyone thinks the same way kept him from helping Sal see math in a new light.
At least they’re not identical. Or fraternal twins but one is trans. (That would be an interesting premise for something, actually, a pair of fraternal twins that passes themselves off as identical because one of them is trans…I’d watch the hell out of that show.)
I think Walky is petrified someone will overhear their conversation, not anyone in particular, just anyone at all?
I thought Walky was having problems because of his extra-hours fun and games with Dorothy, instead of studying. We did see some funny as Hell scenes of Walky trying to study, from serious to standing on his head. Again, I thought maybe he was just twitter-patted. Hard to study when you’ve got sex on the brain.
But, Jason’s remark “…now that we are out of the review material..” shows there is more to it than that.
The “…but I’m an A student”, is as sure to happen to a lot of new college students, as the “freshman 15 (lbs.)”.
I think the problem is Walky’s used to skating by with high school material and isn’t transitioning well to more advanced stuff. He’s used to not putting in effort and now it’s finally come to bite him in the ass.
The whole point of that the scene where Walky was attempting to study was that he hadn’t been studying at all up until that point – and doesn’t even know how to study.
No and I really hope that isn’t the case. It would totally undermine the fact that each twin is getting what they are working for, Sal studying with Danny means she is finally getting results while Walky not studying at all (or at least not efficiently) is having trouble as the difficulty of the material increases.
That would actually make less sense than if this were due to Sal being tutored and Walky goofing off. If Jason really wanted to bump up Sal’s grade to an undeserved level, he could easily do that without affecting anybody else’s grade. And Jason doesn’t loathe Walky – this isn’t It’s Walky!
No. That development does not make sense (Sal and Walky have different handwriting and would presumably notice if they got the other’s paper back because their name is on the sheet) and it would mess up character development with Sal, Jason (he has to come to terms with the fact that he’s shitty at this) and Walky (who has to come to terms with the fact he can’t get always succeed without trying)
Some universities have photo rosters. There’s a chance Jason actually knows all his students’ names or at the very least will look up a student who is slipping on the photo roster in order to address the issue.
Wow, Sal! Don’t hold back; tell Jason how you really feel! At the risk of getting too far into her head, I wonder if this is about his lack of ability as a tutor or if it is about her mixed feelings towards him on a personal level?
As for Walky…? Well, in college, denial can be career-destroying. I hope that he talks to someone about this soon who has the courage to slap him upside the head and tell him that he needs help, no matter what lies he likes to tell himself!
It’s mostly her mixed feelings. Remember that in her mind she was exchanging nookie for grades and felt used because Jason still graded on her performance on the course material rather than her performance in the coatroom.
It’s interesting how the dynamic between Jason and Sal has reversed. Now Jason’s the one who’s trying to improve himself, but has no idea how, and Sal’s the one who’s being judgmental and dismissive of his efforts. Obviously, Sal has dealt with Jason for far longer than he had dealt with her when he jumped to conclusions about her character, so Sal’s a little more justified than he was.
I may be alone in this, but the Sal and Jason relationship is the one I’m most invested in. Not even speaking in terms of their romantic sexual relationship; Hell, I don’t necessarily even want them to be friends. I just really, really want them to eventually get to a point where they understand each other.
Not alone at all. Sal and Jason probably rank highest on the relationship arcs I care about. One of the hard things about the giant ensemble cast is who knows how long it’ll be until whatever characters you like best are in focus again.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Jason is very successful at teaching Walky. Based on how he tried to teach Sal, they’ll probably match up in teaching and learning style. He probably doesn’t share Sal’s disdain of rules, he’s just not used to having to try and learn difficult material. I’m sure Walky could understand stuff if he could actually stop and study for a while, and being in a session will force him to do that.
I find it interesting that Sal’s grades go up as Walky’s go down. It wouldn’t surprise me if Jason was accused of doing something ELSE unscrupulous, though I would still put money on Walky just having hit the limit of what prior schooling had given him and it obviously being because he doesn’t pay attention that he’s falling back now.
Why do so many people think that Sal and Walky had their grades swapped?
Is it that hard to believe Sal’s been working her ass off to improve and Walky’s just been coasting along with putting any effort into things? Is some conspiracy that much more of a likely outcome?
It’s weird and a little bit off to me honestly. Like some sort of sharing of Walky and Jason’s preconceptions that there are “good students” and there are “bad students” and “bad students” will always have bad grades no matter what and “good students” will always have good grades no matter what because of their inherent qualities.
But that’s not how any of that works. A “good student” can only coast by so far without intellectual curiosity and a study style that works for them and a “bad student” is usually a student who just hasn’t found the approach that works for them yet.
I’ve had so many “bad students” in my classes who’ve become “good students” by the end of the class, just because they had lost faith in themselves over a handful of concepts in another grade level or with another teacher. And hard work and working outside the given narrative is a good habit that will get good results and coasting by just trusting in your “smarts” is a bad habit that will eventually collapse like a rickety tower.
I read about a study that was done where when students were congratulated on a good grade by their teacher, they were either told “you must be really smart” or “you must have worked really hard”. The students who were praised for effort were more likely to take on more challenging tasks, and the students who were praised for natural ability were more likely to bail when presented with tasks more difficult than they were accustomed to, and avoid challenging themselves in order to preserve their self-image.
Or something like that. I don’t have a link but I believe I read about it on Diane Duane’s tumblr (dduane.tumblr.com, it was a few days ago so there will be some archive diving).
I was just suggesting that it would make sense the people involved would ACCUSE him of doing so, but the reality being far, far more tragic. Especially if they misinterpreted Sal through eavesdropping.
I have been so painfully identifying with Walky this entire math arc. =l I can only shake my fist and hope through the magic of fiction and motivation he gets through it better than I have.
I’m glad to hear (see) there are “born” teachers but not “born” student, and that if students fail, it’s because the teacher isn’t good enough ie born to teach. Don’t get me wrong, some teachers are better suited to teach than others, and I agree that there aren’t bad students per se. But the first years almost all teachers are “bad” teachers. I wouldn’t know if jason is bad or good before a few years. Even worse, he shouldn’t have to be a teacher. Because TA-teaching system is not here to pass knowledge from “experienced” students to “beginners” student (the education system isn’t even about that, but to determine in which way the teaching at this university encompass at the same time the needs of the people teaching, of the people learning, of the know-hows and the knowledges teached, of the ones supposed to be teached, of the ones the instutions think should be teached but can’t…. this all goes way too far beyond a webcomic’s TA’s attitude towards people’s critic). TA-teaching is there because it is practical for universities to pay lower wages to teach not too specific courses, and for students to get paid while doing research. Most of time TA don’t even want to teach. That said, I wonder how anyone could know how to teach to someone when you got 80 students, and that the whole thing that you know about them is a pair multiple-choice tests they gave you. Jason’s having first taken their notes is a good move, but should be followed by at least five or ten hours of individual follow-up to be of any use.
Teachers are not born good teachers. Teachers have to learn and adapt their craft. Teachers have to learn how to leave their baggage at home when they step in front of the class. And yes, indeed, many TAs don’t want to teach, but are just bitter PhD students who need to teach a certain number of hours to receive their stipend.
But I think even introductory teachers would manage to not actually literally fuck their student body or openly tell them to drop out because they are worthless and failures or consistently mock and belittle them to their faces.
There’s a wealth of difference between being a struggling novice teacher figuring out your craft on the job or being a bitter pill who doesn’t care enough to teach and being the particular amalgamation of terrible teaching practices Jason is doing.
Jason is not “born” a bad teacher. He has chosen it willingly, but still wants to be called good. That’s a whole ‘nother set of issues entirely and has nothing to do with this all being new to him. He’s just an asshole.
Jason is not a good teacher. Not even remotely close. Hell, from what we’ve seen, neither is Penny or Professor Rees.
I mean, let’s look at the list of transgressions:
1) His very first interaction with her, he starts perving on her instead of treating her like a student. Which, no. Just no. You don’t do shit like that as a teacher, even if you’re a TA and “closer in age”. There’s a power imbalance there and a betrayal of the roles of teacher and student and it’s openly disrespectful of the (often) women in your classroom: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/hours/
2) Their first tutoring session was off screen, but we know from later that his style is just to repeat what the teacher says and refusing to rephrase things so they make sense. But more importantly there is the point of what tutoring is. Tutoring is rephrasing things and making them make more sense. It’s 1-on-1 so there is no excuse for failing to adapt to learning methods and bringing in more information to allow the student a new perspective. And the impact that has can be somewhat measured by improved performance on the part of the student. And yet, not only did his advice confuse her more and cause her grades to drop, he decided to respond to this ironclad condemnation of his method by directly blaming the student to her face and telling her she was hopeless and should drop out because she couldn’t possibly succeed: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/worse/ http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/drop/
And before I move on, let me just note how this is never what you should ever do with a student. Calling a student a failure and hopeless is just an abusive action that can have long-term ramifications for their development and serves no positive benefit other than to get rid of a student you’ve decided to target to harass. There is no excuse for this. But it’s Jason’s default mode. Every time. He thinks Sal is a bad student so her failures are her fault. He did the thing he does but it didn’t work, so the problem is on the student. No, maybe this is a research university and he’s just a Math PhD student who doesn’t actually give a fuck about teaching, he just wants to do his research in peace, but even still, there’s things you do or do not do when you have a student’s well-being in your hands.
And it’s also worth noting the elephant in the room which is women and math. Women in math are constantly discouraged to continue and to take every speed bump of difficulty to mean that they are absolutely hopeless and worthless at the discipline and encouraged to quit, often through abusive harassment on the part of students and teachers. I don’t know if Jason is working on quite that level, but he’s definitely reinforcing that narrative in really toxic ways and it is clear that something about Sal (whether it be her presumed class, her accent, her gender, her presentation as rebel, or some combination of the above) that gets her a way different treatment at first as that given to her brother. She gets abuse and what a failure you are, he gets, hey, reaching out to you cause I know you can do better. That’s a stark notable difference and says a lot about Jason’s implicit biases regarding who he regards as “good” and “bad” students.
Oh, and on that second link? Telling students they are crazy to their face? Also, really, really not what you do when you are a teacher. I don’t care if they are in a full manic episode in class. You as the teacher don’t get to mock them and muse about how “crazy” they are to their face. You’re free to be a prick and do it in the teacher’s room as a means of blowing off steam, but you don’t do it to their face and then act all dismissive about it when they call you out on how insensitive that was: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/enlightening/
3) Penny is also awful. I know this has nothing to do with Jason, but it’s worth noting that Jason is surrounded by terrible influences on how to be a teacher and while he wants to pretend he’s better and more caring than his counterpart and much more stoically resisting, he is very similar in how he views and treats the student body. I mean, Penny is a mess and woefully unethical, especially sexually. The reason you don’t have sex with students as a teacher is that there is a power imbalance and since as a teacher, you have a lot of control over grades and the like, there is always a level of coercion at play that minimizes the ability of the relationship to be fully consensual. It’s like a relationship between a boss and one of their employees. It may start as something chosen between two parties, but if that employee refuses a sexual action or wants to break up, can they do so openly without fear? No, it comes with the added weight of potentially being fired and so on. With teachers, the same applies, except in the form of flunked grades, more difficult progress through one’s major, and just overall imbalance of maturities. It’s predatory at best and non-consensual at worst and Penny 100% jumps into that bed with not a fuck given to her supposed role as educator and even goes so far as to encourage it in others: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/crackin/ http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/twelvethirty/
And it’s worth stopping for a second on that last one, because it really emphasizes how bad they all are. She straight up acknowledges that Professor Rees does not at all modify his content to better reach his student body, just regurgitates his method and retires to fake doing research. And she acknowledges she doesn’t even care about teaching herself, only about exploiting the position to sleep with impressionable college students and to hopefully network her way into his job. While Jason is a hypocrite about his supposed code, Penny openly flouts it and advocates for the worst form of teaching she can possibly advocate for: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/dangerous/
And she might have some point in how to navigate bureaucratic institutions, but she’s Machiavellian and a cancer to how teaching should operate. It’s worth noting that here because the problem is not just Jason.
4) But that doesn’t let him off the hook. He claims to actual teaching principles like how he claimed to value being a good teacher in the previous section and how he pretends to reach out to students who need help and he claims to care, but he fails to live up to those standards.
He refuses to grow as a teacher, but wants to be seen as being a good teacher and well, the student body is not a teacher’s therapist. They are not there to sort through his mental blocks and hang-ups and tell him he’s doing a wonderful job when he’s not. But he expects them to, because he doesn’t view them as fully equal to him and not even fully human beings, just cogs that dictate whether or not he’s a “good teacher”, which is mostly about protecting his career path.
And then there’s the sex. After all the protests about it, he still does it and then blames it all on Sal because she’s sexually aggressive. Which… no. Sex, when it is actually sex and not rape, is a consensual act between two people. Jason had full right and honestly needed to say no and could have done so. But he’s blaming being horny on her and then whining about how his poor morals have been threatened and how his career is on the line, but that’s not on her. She’s a horny college student with a crush. There’s no excuse for being “tempted”, because part of your job in being in authority on a college campus is that that “temptation” is bollocks and you shouldn’t be dipping your pen in that inkwell. But no, it’s all excuses and blame: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/nothing-to-lose/
And he’s even all make-up ruley about the whole thing, drawing random lines that get him what he wants (sex with a woman he was openly drooling over and to pretend he has a code of morals he wants) that only inconvenience and mistreat the other individual. No, I didn’t give you a grade bump for sex, therefore, I am still morally intact. Oh, hey, I’ll jump you again in an instance because I’m getting what I want, but oh no, you must be the dirty slut who sleeps with all the TAs because that’s our dynamic: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/more-quietly/ http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/genuine/
He wants to blame others for his moral failings and his failings as a teacher. And he undermines the person he has fallen in this really not okay relationship because he thinks that if he doesn’t treat her fully like a person then that somehow makes the sexual exploitation okay. Oh, I’m dismissive to your face and give your grades to other people to avoid sexual bias, so it’s all okay, like I don’t sleep with my students like the worst possible form of teacher.
Because if the relationship is one-sided and abusive, then it’s almost like he hasn’t violated the base principles of being a teacher at all. And that “logic” is so twisted and harmful that it very much disgusts me. There are things that teachers don’t do and he’s doing all of them, but still expects to be called great for it, all because he left merry ol’ England for graduate school.
And on top of all of that, he’s resentful of her success without him. When she goes outside of his abusive, dismissive, possibly bigoted crap and seeks out what works for her and is proud of it, he takes it personally and lashes out at her and accuses her of cheating the system, because he’s got it in his head that “bad students” can’t improve unless he personally is involved with his chosen singular method of reaching them: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/nothanks/
And I’m sorry for the long rant, but that sort of crap really incenses me as a teacher, because it is so toxic to the very idea of teaching and is the source of so much long-term damage in student development and is so just, no, just no, there is no excuse for sleeping with a student, just none. That it all just legitimately upsets me on that level.
Jason is not a good teacher. He’s not even a good person. Maybe he could if he actually started taking shit to heart and actually put effort into becoming better. But right now? Nope.
And it’s so satisfying to hear Sal call him out on his shit.
Maybe she’ll feel lonely again and slip back into his abusive clutches, but for now she’s taking a stand against his attacks on her self-esteem and standing up for herself and that’s a “good on ya” moment.
Walky needs help, but he needs to be far far away from what Jason will pretend is help. Maybe that help can come from his girlfriend, maybe even from Joyce (she says she likes math after all and is currently looking in the direction of becoming a teacher). But he definitely does not need to feed Jason’s need to feel important while imparting absolutely nothing of value.
Yeah, I agree with all of this. Great post compiling all those examples, by the way.
Above when I mentioned I was surprised she was so insulting to him, I didn’t really mean that Jason didn’t deserve it, just that I thought they had a more civil dislike of each other. I think it’s pretty good of Sal to call him out so directly, especially since, as you linked, he claims to care about being a good teacher.
When did Jason call Sal “crazy”? He said “you need therapy”.
Maybe he’s implying that he finds her mentally unstable, but he doesn’t call her crazy to her face as you say.
And honestly he says this right after she declares that she’ll run her parents over with her motorcycle if they don’t appreciate her college efforts. Sal has issues to say the least and Jason obviously observes this.
I don’t doubt that it’s Willis’s intent to show Jason as a jerk. Nor am I saying that Jason isn’t a jerk. However, after clicking on many of the links that people have posted in these comments, I can’t help but notice that many of the things that he says — the things that people point out as crossing the line — seem to be there just as much for a punchline as for anything else.
If this were a real life situation, would he say he’s changing his office hours to “right the hell now?” If they were real people, would he say she’s hopeless or she needs therapy in the way that he did? I’m sure there are real people who would do these things, but I suppose this is the problem when you have a webcomic with serious themes but that also loves a good punchline.
A funny punchline to a four panel strip sometimes trumps staying serious and realistic. The jokes still give the same context: Jason is taken aback by Sal’s attractiveness, he thinks she has mental problems, etc, and those are really inappropriate things for a teacher to say.
…I realize the irony of having said student-banging douchebag as my avatar. My previous one was Dina. I sure miss my fellow Japanese neurodivergent avatar…
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Jason, I’m pretty sure Walky isn’t interested in your TUTORINGifyouknowwhatimean
Nudge nudge wink wink knowwhatImean?
“Why, NO, my good man! I have no bloody idea what you mean! What DO you mean?”
Tutoring of course.
One on one tutoring.
Threesome tag?
#twincest
no
yes
I’m with Sentinel on this one.
Incest, a game for the whole family… o.O
Walky, Sal, and the TA dude. Why not?
youre going to hell for that one
Walky: Okay Jason, I’m glad that you’re willing to help me, but why do you want me to wear this long black wig?
Jason: Helps m- helps YOU stay focused. And please, say it “Why do y’all want me t’ wear this long black wig.”
Jason needs more of that ,,flavour”.It became like a drug for him.
Not according to the image immediately to the left.
To the left of your post, I meant. Because that close-up of Sal looks so much like Walky.
I would weirdly be okay with that.
I know, right?
Walky…TAKE. THE HINT. And by hint, I mean unsubtle offer to help.
Of course Jason’s idea of help is to just repeat the formula you already don’t understand and then insult you for it.
We’ll know when Walky has hit rock-bottom, ‘cos he’ll start asking Sal for help with his maths assignments.
…I wish I was in there, I could give Walky some friendly advice on how trying to coast through a Bachelors is not a great idea. Also I got my degree in maths, so I could probably actually tutor him too (better than the TA dude could).
fuk still not the first to say at least someone’s trying to care walky
Pride goeth before the fall
Or something like that.
The same proverb follows up with a warning about walking, with your eyes wide open, into a brick wall. Walky definitely needs to heed that one!
Hah, my mom’s a college prof and this is her least favorite thing. She’ll give someone a bad (or even moderate) grade and they’ll come to her and say “but I’m an A student!”
not anymore, clearly
“Sure, you’re A student, but you’re not an A student…”
And since everything is done through email these days”
“I’m an A student!”
…
>”I’m [s]an[/s] A student!”
FTFY
IDK how to strike through and it’s ruining my bad jokes
For HTML it’s angle brackets for
strikethrough, the Less Than and Greater Than signs. [s] is BB Code, which is not enabled here.“>’I’m
anA student!’FTFY”
FTFY
In all seriousness, though: Use the pointy brackets (I don’t know the name of them, sorry) instead of squared ones
There’s a little hint at the bottom of the reply box with a list of the codes you can use here, and a lot of them are identical to the [ ]-type commands, with the exception of brackets.
Nobody knows the name of ‘the pointy brackets’. Because, they’re not brackets! They’re ‘greater than’ and ‘less than’ signs, common mathematical symbols that worked their way onto the modern QWERTY keyboard layout early on. Programmers decided a while ago, for some reason, that having (parentheses), [square brackets], and {curly brackets} simply wasn’t enough, and repurposed the signs for bracketing.
Yeah, mathematicians did it first in (one of) their notations of linear spans. But I’m just saying, maybe html tags use angular brackets precisely because they’re not normally used as brackets, so that bracketed clauses don’t get misinterpreted for tags ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
OMG, that’s brilliant. I wonder if I’d ever have the guts to actually use that one on one of them.
That reminds me of Chesterton’s line about the militaristic Prussian general who saw success as a quality, not an incident. It didn’t work out too well for him, either.
My response to such people would be “well, you _were_ an honors student”.
Well, more like an a… student.
Does she get the jerks ambushing her in the hallway with a bellowed “WHY DID YOU FAIL ME?” and then refusing to discuss it anywhere less public and then trying to complain to the dept that she discussed marks in public?
(hi that happened to me – dude was twice my size and doing his best to loom intimidatingly, too. Like if he made me think enough that he was going to punch me, I’d give him an undeserved A just to get him to go away? Which… no.)
I like seeing Walky coming off of his high horse.
Pride comes before the fall? This bit looks like the fall…
Then i wait for the impact
More like, denial ? At least he didn’t eat his paper whole this time.
Mmm, papery goodness. I wonder how much longer he can stay in denail before he is forced to face up to his slipping grades (by, say, being threatened with expulsion)?
Hey Walky, just go and ask your sister for some maths tutelage!
Dat river in Egypt claims yet another victim
Well, being in de Nile is still far better than being in Seine. Apparently.
Hey, I like dat river in France…
This is ridiculous. I give up.
If by ‘coming’ you mean ‘falling’. As in, he’s frantically trying to deny he has any problems at all while he slides right off.
That’s putting the pride before the horse. I mean, the summer before the fall.
Huh, and I thought the twist was gonna be that Sal and Walky’s assignments were getting mixed up. This is a new direction…
That would have wrecked the whole ‘Danny helps by actually understanding how Sal thinks” thing.
I really don’t get how people thought that could possibly be a thing that was happening?? They’re getting graded papers back. Papers that have their own handwriting and their own answers on them. No way Walky and Sal wouldn’t have noticed the mismatch while giving their papers even a casual once-over.
No, Walky is just making the extremely common mistake of assuming that because high school classes are easy enough for smart people to coast through them, that he can do the same in college.
I’ll admit, it usually doesn’t take the form of going from an honors student straight to flunking out of your first semester, but that’s probably for dramatic effect.
Shrug. My university math courses more or less started from scratch. They went through the stuff taught in 13 school years (easy to guess where I went to school now) in about two weeks of time. And then kept the pace. A whole lot of students dropped by the way side. The rule of thumb was that half dropped out in the first two years, and half of the rest in the rest. This was about the most renowned engineering university in the country and admission was free. So no student had a chance to feel entitled to passing grades because he had paid a lot.
And frankly, in a university intellectual Darwinism makes a lot more sense than social Darwinism. Survival of the fittest instead of the fattest, and you don’t start your job with oodles of student debts. Even if you failed.
Walky, don’t be like that, he only wants to put some pip in your cheer-Okay NO. I can’t even finish the bad pun.
I’ll show myself out now
*pats shoulder*
As much as I agree with Sal and thinke these two need to have their egos cut down a peg I think this is a good chance for redemption for the both of them.
Yeah, I love Sal, but now she’s just being unpleasant for no good reason.
No good reason? Jason was mean and outright insulting to Sal and I think that she’s started to fall for him. She’s got enough old, thinly-healed scars that being treated like that would hurt a lot.
This.
Jason is not a good man in this universe and he’s definitely not a good teacher and he definitely thinks that “dumb” students are the scum-of-the-earth. Sal’s dead on to call him out on some of his shit here.
I give it about 30 minutes before Jason reenacts panels 3–4 of this strip.
Except that as the guy who grades their assignments, he’s probably noted their last names. Not to mention possibly recall Sal’s mention of her brother.
One of my classes in High School had two girls with the exact same first, middle and last names. No relation at all, just name-doppelgangers. I’m guessing the front office had fun with their grades.
Awww, I thought you meant strip.
* this strip.
(never got the hang of HTML, I work in BBCode)
I was guessing the same.
(It has instructions right underneath the friggin’ comment box, and I still goof it up occasionally.)
Look at all the faces!
STOP WITH THE FACES
Knock it off, Walky. You need help, and you must realize that on some level.
Fortunately, I suspect that Sal and Joyce may be confronting Walky soon as well. http://dumbingofage.tumblr.com/post/123212578546/itswalky-september-30
Yes, analyzing preview panels is something of a compulsion for me. More often than not, my predictions end up being completely wrong, but I still can’t stop. You never know. One of these days, I’ll totally call it.
Odds are, *if* that day comes, it will be something really obvious and trivial, and no one will care. Still, I’ll savor that tiny victory for a fraction of a second, and it’ll be the highlight of my day.
At the very least, they make me give the previews a glance.
Jason won’t help though, he’ll just repeat the same thing Walky’s already not getting and then insult him for not getting it.
Walky isn’t Sal. Jason’s repetition-based approach might work for Walky.
Danny would still be a better tutor though, since he actually tries to tailor the lesson to the learner.
Seems more likely to me that Walky is saying something negative about Jason to cover for the delay in catching up to the two of them, Joyce is shocked by derision for an authority figure, and Sal agrees with her brother for her own reasons.
That or Walky is bowing out of lunch to go study and Joyce is like “Walky???? STUDYING???????????” And Sal just gives zero fucks.
Can’t sleep alone at night/I just can’t seem to get it right/Damned If I Do/Damned if I don’t… (–The Alan Parsons Project)
Sal is kinda right. He is an asshole for having sex with one of his students, but he is still a teacher.
Jason’s a TA, not a teacher, so I guess she’s even more right?
…Seriously? I mean I don’t condone it either but if that’s her reasoning for him being an asshole it’s stupid. She had sex with him in order to get better grades and when he didn’t give her better grades she got pissy.
Are we not gonna’ talk about how Joe and Jason’s female colleague are also learning the vertical periodic table or is that different because Joe’s not a main character?
That’s not the entire reason she’s ‘pissy’. He told Sal that she may want to reconsider taking college math as she didn’t seem capable of learning it.
She got a tutor and (Danny) and she learned well enough to pass. Proving that Jason’s not much of a TA.
If she slept with him only to get the good grade, she wouldn’t have continued on for more help and passed the dang class.
I agree to a point. Jason’s approach is lacking, but Danny stumbled on Sal’s rebellious streak being her inhibitor. Jason should not be expected to know what makes everyone tick. These are adults who have to take responsibility for their own academic success.
I mean, Jason is training to be a teacher, so he should take responsibility for his academic failures, such as being unable to help a student. But instead he keeps saying it’s Sal’s fault, and now it’s obvious it wasn’t. Figuring out the best way to teach a student is part of the teacher’s job, or at least helping them find the resources that will help if they can’t.
And it’s not like Sal’s rebellious streak is a big secret. If Danny stumbled into it, it was him running into a mile wide sign displaying it in flashing letters. Plus, from what’s been said about the tutoring sessions, it seems to have been Jason just repeating the lecture content and not really trying to understand why she wasn’t getting it.
How does he “keeps saying it’s Sal’s fault” when he actually says “I saw you are still performing admirably”?
Ironic Gravatar, isn’t it?
Jason is the one actually caring about being a good teacher.
For Penny it doesn’t sodding matter.
Previous tutoring sessions. After Danny helping her and her
grade improves, she taunted Jason about it.
I sincerely doubt Jason’s training to be a teacher. He’s training to be a mathematician, which necessitates him performing teaching duties. I would be completely and utterly surprised if he’s had any actual training as an educator or gets any support of that kind from the professor who’s theoretically mentoring him.
Not that I’m saying he’s not a bad teacher! He is. But teaching is a skill, not a talent. Jason at least cares enough to put effort and worry into things, so I feel it’s rather sad that he continues to fail and flounder.
Yes, that’s true. Except I’m talking more about what Skizz implied, with the sex. The sex? The sex.
It doesn’t matter anyways. Sal will continue to have less and less actual character flaws as the comic goes on. Soon the day will come when Ethan recognizes Sal from the robbery incident, and completely forgive her for holding a knife up to his throat. Then Amber will swoop down and hand over her Amazi-Girl costume in repentance for daring to stab Sals hand all those years ago. Sal can do no wrong. Sal is love. Sal is life.
Sal-U-Tations!
Ethan’s pretty much already let that go.
Sal being good at math doesn’t suddenly mean she has no character flaws. Last I checked she still attacked Malaya just out of jealousy for spending time with Marcie. I agree that it was shitty of her to bang Jason for a good grade (and it was shittier of Jason, of course. Regardless that Sal initiated it, he’s still in a position of authority over her), but that failed and she’s improved the right way.
As for Ethan, he never really had the opportunity to make it about him. Amber was always his main concern, which is why when Amber told him that Sal was at the school, Ethan’s main concern was that Amber was wearing a mask, crawling through windows and speaking in the third person.
I’m usually the first person to try and explain Amber’s actions that night, but, well, she did stab Sal. You’re talking about it as if it wasn’t a terrible thing to do, even though Sal did terrible things herself that night too.
At least no one is arguing that Sal is too perfect and has no flaws because she can skate. At least in the comments of this strip.
I know, right? Why is Sal talented at things?
She’s such a Mary Sue.
That and the reason she slept with him wasn’t entirely about the grades, but more because she was sexually desperate and frustrated (and apparently has an argument fetish):
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/without/
As quick as I am to go all “grr how dare you Sal” it’s not like she intentionally planned on doing it. She didn’t walk up to him all saucy looks asking what she could do for him; it was basically a completely spontaneous action.
I mean, she had a point. She was just being judged for her marks, not the effort she put into trying to attain them. The education system has a tendency of devaluing the worth of effort.
Yup. She actually tried to make a genuine effort to work within the system and then added a post-hoc rationalization about cheating the system to justify her sexual frustration, and then went outside the system and found what worked for her to succeed within the system.
Joe doesn’t actually need help and nobody’s arguing she’s not an asshole, she never bothered to pretend otherwise.
This universe’s Penny has a long, long way to go before she’s as big an asshole – or as completely fucking batshit – as the other Penny. Banging a student is barely a drop in the bucket.
That and I don’t think her arrangement with Joe involves any understanding of exchanging sex for grades from either party. I think they’re just exchanging sex for sex.
And I’m not even entirely sure Joe is actually one of Penny’s students…
I want to know who it is that Walk is looking around for. Dorothy or Joyce?
Not sure Dorothy is even in that class though.
I think he’s just looking around desperately.
To make sure no one else heard that.
Sal, Joyce, Mike… Anyone who’d recognize him and/or care, really.
Someone to distract him from his bad grades? Guess that would make Jason the worst person to find in this case…
Yes Walky,we all know you are a misunderstood genius.
but not a mad scientist tho. He doesn’t have the crazy hair, make questionable creations or have an insane laugh.
Wait a minute, Daniel the Human has all those in surplus…
…Help me…
I was not aware of Sal/Jason bad terms
It’s why Sal switched to Danny as her tutor.
Ever since Sal’s improved in math without Jason’s help.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/nothanks/
Jason was just an all around jerk to Sal. Belittling Sal’s intelligence at every opportunity. Of course when Jason’s tutoring failed to help Sal he blamed this on the student rather than his abilities as an educator.
Sal switched to a new tutor and started getting really good results. Ever since she’s been enjoying shoving it in his face that the problem was never on her end. She can learn just fine with a tutor who’s actually worth a damn.
Thanks everyone!
I was not aware they had good terms. Every interaction they’ve had has been unpleasant.
They got close to having a moment at the bar. Sal even opened up enough to tell Jason that Danny’s tutoring worked because he tried to understand her, only for Jason to take it as some personal slight.
I suspect if she had been less drunk/pass-outy, she might have worded it better, but we’ll probably never know.
Jason, beware the Walkerton Twins. They’ll eat you alive and spit out your bones, figuratively speaking.
Sal would, Walky would just get nervous and throw a toy at your head
Isn’t that his courtuing method?
Sal’s courting method being the figurative devouring-alive, then?
I realized the implications as I typed but I Posted anyway
Figuratively? Where do you think Ruth gets her femurs?
I wasn’t expecting Sal to be so mad at Jason and I guess he didn’t expect it either considering how shook he was by her words.
She should go give Danny thanks for his good teaching! Completely platonic thanks.
Well according to the comic I mentioned above, Jason’s reaction to Sal improving was “Maybe you finally started to listen.” I have to say, I don’t blame Sal for having a poor reaction to that.
Exactly. Jason has an ego as big as Walky’s.
He just doesn’t understand how he can possible be in the wrong, just because he told her she was too stupid to learn the math.Then when Sal did learn it with Danny’s tutoring help, he had the nerve to tell her that she learned because maybe she finally started to listen.
He’s not entirely wrong, though. Sure, Sal was definitely listening and paying careful attention, but she wasn’t able to process what she was hearing.
Danny put it in terms she could understand; he might make a damned good teacher someday. Then Sal was able to internalize the knowledge and score better.
So yeah, he could’ve said it better, and he was an ass before that in suggesting she give up (though he was nearly as frustrated as she was by the tutoring’s lack of effect) but I don’t think he was being as malicious as Sal seems to have perceived it, so it makes sense that he wouldn’t understand how bitter she is. From his viewpoint, she DID finally start to listen, he just doesn’t know why someone else was able to get through to her. Hell, Jason could probably use some tutoring from Danny in psychology.
The idea of someone learning how to get clues from Danny is pretty hilarous.
Hey, Danny has rated two top of the line spectacular first class girlfriends in a row. Can you say the same?
Welll.
Rated? That surely was Joe!
Or did you mean dated?
…..He got one top of the line girlfriend and then moved on to an emotionally unstable violent time bomb.
That’s not listening better, that’s having a teacher who’s good at their job (even if it’s not a job, it’s just a friend helping you out in exchange for Mario Kart tips).
And Jason… ugh, one of Jason’s many problems is that he believes there are two types of students, ones who listen and respect his singular chosen method of reiterating and ones who are “good students” and he also thinks its okay to belittle and drive out the first group for “failing to get it”.
And… no. Just no.
As a teacher, you just don’t ever belittle a student. Even if they are being an asshole or having a tantrum. You don’t call them stupid. You don’t imply they can’t do anything. You don’t revel in their failure or get pissy about their success. That’s like Rule Number One and he’s constantly failing it so hard.
What I mean to say is that I think he’s misusing the word ‘listening’ and equating paying attention with understanding.
Belittling Sal was absolutely wrong, frustration or no, but it’s somewhat understandable. It’s a sad irony that his inability to process that not everyone thinks the same way kept him from helping Sal see math in a new light.
Will he bang Walky, too?
As soon as he reports to the ship.
XD *Watches ship for a laugh* See what happens… XD
Well all he needs is a wig so walky can look like Sal, then it wouldn’t be too awkward.
That’s gotta be weird, to encounter the twin of someone you’ve slept with.
At least they’re not identical. Or fraternal twins but one is trans. (That would be an interesting premise for something, actually, a pair of fraternal twins that passes themselves off as identical because one of them is trans…I’d watch the hell out of that show.)
I think Walky is petrified someone will overhear their conversation, not anyone in particular, just anyone at all?
I thought Walky was having problems because of his extra-hours fun and games with Dorothy, instead of studying. We did see some funny as Hell scenes of Walky trying to study, from serious to standing on his head. Again, I thought maybe he was just twitter-patted. Hard to study when you’ve got sex on the brain.
But, Jason’s remark “…now that we are out of the review material..” shows there is more to it than that.
The “…but I’m an A student”, is as sure to happen to a lot of new college students, as the “freshman 15 (lbs.)”.
I think the problem is Walky’s used to skating by with high school material and isn’t transitioning well to more advanced stuff. He’s used to not putting in effort and now it’s finally come to bite him in the ass.
Been there, done that, and all I can add is an AMEN to that!!!
The whole point of that the scene where Walky was attempting to study was that he hadn’t been studying at all up until that point – and doesn’t even know how to study.
well, that definitely explains his grades going down
Walky performs a fail
Jason is wondering why he has the weirdest boner right now.
Honestly, no surprise there, i mean come’on he IS pretty tasty looking regardless who you may be so no need to feel bad about it:-P
Jason is pretty ew all around.
I didn’t mean jason
I’d go more for his stomach grumbling.
Anyone else think that jason is switching walky’s and sal’s papers?
No and I really hope that isn’t the case. It would totally undermine the fact that each twin is getting what they are working for, Sal studying with Danny means she is finally getting results while Walky not studying at all (or at least not efficiently) is having trouble as the difficulty of the material increases.
No.
Definitly no.
That would actually make less sense than if this were due to Sal being tutored and Walky goofing off. If Jason really wanted to bump up Sal’s grade to an undeserved level, he could easily do that without affecting anybody else’s grade. And Jason doesn’t loathe Walky – this isn’t It’s Walky!
No, because they know their own names even if Jason doesn’t.
Wouldn’t they notice when the papers were returned?
No. That development does not make sense (Sal and Walky have different handwriting and would presumably notice if they got the other’s paper back because their name is on the sheet) and it would mess up character development with Sal, Jason (he has to come to terms with the fact that he’s shitty at this) and Walky (who has to come to terms with the fact he can’t get always succeed without trying)
Now you have my respect, Jason. You keep trying, and you reach out to a student who needs help. just try not to get snippy about it.
Or make out with that student,due to some similarities to another one he tried ,,tutoring”.
“And then, a bunch more people realized that “NSFW” link in the left page margin looks like Walkie…”
Appropriate Avatar is appropriate…
He’s just trying to make himself feel better. He’s already started treating him the same way he treated Sal.
How did Jason identify Walky by sight? It’s not like the TAs have photo ID of the people they’re grading.
I mean, maybe it’s because of his physical similarity to Sal and their shared last name, but eh.
Some universities have photo rosters. There’s a chance Jason actually knows all his students’ names or at the very least will look up a student who is slipping on the photo roster in order to address the issue.
Also possibly: Introduction round in the first lesson which wasn’t shown in the comic.
The first thing Walky turned in was a drawing of Jason getting eaten by a dinosaur. Not surprising Jason figured out who he was.
I’ve been there, Walky.
Calculus has this effect on people (and on people’s sense of intelligence).
For some reason i find walky adorable cute in the 5 panel for some reason xD
Wow, Sal! Don’t hold back; tell Jason how you really feel! At the risk of getting too far into her head, I wonder if this is about his lack of ability as a tutor or if it is about her mixed feelings towards him on a personal level?
As for Walky…? Well, in college, denial can be career-destroying. I hope that he talks to someone about this soon who has the courage to slap him upside the head and tell him that he needs help, no matter what lies he likes to tell himself!
It’s mostly her mixed feelings. Remember that in her mind she was exchanging nookie for grades and felt used because Jason still graded on her performance on the course material rather than her performance in the coatroom.
Ah,yes, Jason doubting his teaching abilities. I really care a lot about this arc. (And Walky’s grades, too, of course.)
It’s interesting how the dynamic between Jason and Sal has reversed. Now Jason’s the one who’s trying to improve himself, but has no idea how, and Sal’s the one who’s being judgmental and dismissive of his efforts. Obviously, Sal has dealt with Jason for far longer than he had dealt with her when he jumped to conclusions about her character, so Sal’s a little more justified than he was.
I may be alone in this, but the Sal and Jason relationship is the one I’m most invested in. Not even speaking in terms of their
romanticsexual relationship; Hell, I don’t necessarily even want them to be friends. I just really, really want them to eventually get to a point where they understand each other.That’s how I felt with the old series.
Nope, you’re not alone.
Not alone at all. Sal and Jason probably rank highest on the relationship arcs I care about. One of the hard things about the giant ensemble cast is who knows how long it’ll be until whatever characters you like best are in focus again.
Walky, this is college. Your honor society stuff is meaningless outside of the admission process. You’re going to have to work.
Walky, you may have been an honors student in high school, but what have you done lately?
Yes, Walky. And Billie’s a cheerleader. What’s your point?
HEAD cheerleader, Problem Solver…
Caramels-
Can’t eat just one.
Hah…
Its a strip without Becky. I’m totes cool with it!
Becky is always in your heart.
so amazingly tempted to edit that comment to say becky is great
And that makes two frauds.
Geez Walky’s so upset he’s starting to develop retinas.
The denial is strong with this one.
Reminds me of this comic.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Jason is very successful at teaching Walky. Based on how he tried to teach Sal, they’ll probably match up in teaching and learning style. He probably doesn’t share Sal’s disdain of rules, he’s just not used to having to try and learn difficult material. I’m sure Walky could understand stuff if he could actually stop and study for a while, and being in a session will force him to do that.
Or maybe they’ll both fail! Who knows!
“We could soar high if we do this right. Or crash & burn in a hideously awesome failtacular spectacle. Either way, this is gonna be worth watching…”
Next up: Jason/Walky Slipshine!
I find it interesting that Sal’s grades go up as Walky’s go down. It wouldn’t surprise me if Jason was accused of doing something ELSE unscrupulous, though I would still put money on Walky just having hit the limit of what prior schooling had given him and it obviously being because he doesn’t pay attention that he’s falling back now.
Why do so many people think that Sal and Walky had their grades swapped?
Is it that hard to believe Sal’s been working her ass off to improve and Walky’s just been coasting along with putting any effort into things? Is some conspiracy that much more of a likely outcome?
Yeah, it’s super weird. That’s not a thing that happens and it wouldn’t follow from the story either.
It’s weird and a little bit off to me honestly. Like some sort of sharing of Walky and Jason’s preconceptions that there are “good students” and there are “bad students” and “bad students” will always have bad grades no matter what and “good students” will always have good grades no matter what because of their inherent qualities.
But that’s not how any of that works. A “good student” can only coast by so far without intellectual curiosity and a study style that works for them and a “bad student” is usually a student who just hasn’t found the approach that works for them yet.
I’ve had so many “bad students” in my classes who’ve become “good students” by the end of the class, just because they had lost faith in themselves over a handful of concepts in another grade level or with another teacher. And hard work and working outside the given narrative is a good habit that will get good results and coasting by just trusting in your “smarts” is a bad habit that will eventually collapse like a rickety tower.
I read about a study that was done where when students were congratulated on a good grade by their teacher, they were either told “you must be really smart” or “you must have worked really hard”. The students who were praised for effort were more likely to take on more challenging tasks, and the students who were praised for natural ability were more likely to bail when presented with tasks more difficult than they were accustomed to, and avoid challenging themselves in order to preserve their self-image.
Or something like that. I don’t have a link but I believe I read about it on Diane Duane’s tumblr (dduane.tumblr.com, it was a few days ago so there will be some archive diving).
I was just suggesting that it would make sense the people involved would ACCUSE him of doing so, but the reality being far, far more tragic. Especially if they misinterpreted Sal through eavesdropping.
While I am still glad Sal’s grade are getting up I kind of saddens me how the interaction between her and Jason went
I have been so painfully identifying with Walky this entire math arc. =l I can only shake my fist and hope through the magic of fiction and motivation he gets through it better than I have.
I’m glad to hear (see) there are “born” teachers but not “born” student, and that if students fail, it’s because the teacher isn’t good enough ie born to teach. Don’t get me wrong, some teachers are better suited to teach than others, and I agree that there aren’t bad students per se. But the first years almost all teachers are “bad” teachers. I wouldn’t know if jason is bad or good before a few years. Even worse, he shouldn’t have to be a teacher. Because TA-teaching system is not here to pass knowledge from “experienced” students to “beginners” student (the education system isn’t even about that, but to determine in which way the teaching at this university encompass at the same time the needs of the people teaching, of the people learning, of the know-hows and the knowledges teached, of the ones supposed to be teached, of the ones the instutions think should be teached but can’t…. this all goes way too far beyond a webcomic’s TA’s attitude towards people’s critic). TA-teaching is there because it is practical for universities to pay lower wages to teach not too specific courses, and for students to get paid while doing research. Most of time TA don’t even want to teach. That said, I wonder how anyone could know how to teach to someone when you got 80 students, and that the whole thing that you know about them is a pair multiple-choice tests they gave you. Jason’s having first taken their notes is a good move, but should be followed by at least five or ten hours of individual follow-up to be of any use.
Teachers are not born good teachers. Teachers have to learn and adapt their craft. Teachers have to learn how to leave their baggage at home when they step in front of the class. And yes, indeed, many TAs don’t want to teach, but are just bitter PhD students who need to teach a certain number of hours to receive their stipend.
But I think even introductory teachers would manage to not actually literally fuck their student body or openly tell them to drop out because they are worthless and failures or consistently mock and belittle them to their faces.
There’s a wealth of difference between being a struggling novice teacher figuring out your craft on the job or being a bitter pill who doesn’t care enough to teach and being the particular amalgamation of terrible teaching practices Jason is doing.
Jason is not “born” a bad teacher. He has chosen it willingly, but still wants to be called good. That’s a whole ‘nother set of issues entirely and has nothing to do with this all being new to him. He’s just an asshole.
She’s right.
Jason is not a good teacher. Not even remotely close. Hell, from what we’ve seen, neither is Penny or Professor Rees.
I mean, let’s look at the list of transgressions:
1) His very first interaction with her, he starts perving on her instead of treating her like a student. Which, no. Just no. You don’t do shit like that as a teacher, even if you’re a TA and “closer in age”. There’s a power imbalance there and a betrayal of the roles of teacher and student and it’s openly disrespectful of the (often) women in your classroom:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/hours/
2) Their first tutoring session was off screen, but we know from later that his style is just to repeat what the teacher says and refusing to rephrase things so they make sense. But more importantly there is the point of what tutoring is. Tutoring is rephrasing things and making them make more sense. It’s 1-on-1 so there is no excuse for failing to adapt to learning methods and bringing in more information to allow the student a new perspective. And the impact that has can be somewhat measured by improved performance on the part of the student. And yet, not only did his advice confuse her more and cause her grades to drop, he decided to respond to this ironclad condemnation of his method by directly blaming the student to her face and telling her she was hopeless and should drop out because she couldn’t possibly succeed:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/worse/
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/drop/
And before I move on, let me just note how this is never what you should ever do with a student. Calling a student a failure and hopeless is just an abusive action that can have long-term ramifications for their development and serves no positive benefit other than to get rid of a student you’ve decided to target to harass. There is no excuse for this. But it’s Jason’s default mode. Every time. He thinks Sal is a bad student so her failures are her fault. He did the thing he does but it didn’t work, so the problem is on the student. No, maybe this is a research university and he’s just a Math PhD student who doesn’t actually give a fuck about teaching, he just wants to do his research in peace, but even still, there’s things you do or do not do when you have a student’s well-being in your hands.
And it’s also worth noting the elephant in the room which is women and math. Women in math are constantly discouraged to continue and to take every speed bump of difficulty to mean that they are absolutely hopeless and worthless at the discipline and encouraged to quit, often through abusive harassment on the part of students and teachers. I don’t know if Jason is working on quite that level, but he’s definitely reinforcing that narrative in really toxic ways and it is clear that something about Sal (whether it be her presumed class, her accent, her gender, her presentation as rebel, or some combination of the above) that gets her a way different treatment at first as that given to her brother. She gets abuse and what a failure you are, he gets, hey, reaching out to you cause I know you can do better. That’s a stark notable difference and says a lot about Jason’s implicit biases regarding who he regards as “good” and “bad” students.
Oh, and on that second link? Telling students they are crazy to their face? Also, really, really not what you do when you are a teacher. I don’t care if they are in a full manic episode in class. You as the teacher don’t get to mock them and muse about how “crazy” they are to their face. You’re free to be a prick and do it in the teacher’s room as a means of blowing off steam, but you don’t do it to their face and then act all dismissive about it when they call you out on how insensitive that was:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/enlightening/
3) Penny is also awful. I know this has nothing to do with Jason, but it’s worth noting that Jason is surrounded by terrible influences on how to be a teacher and while he wants to pretend he’s better and more caring than his counterpart and much more stoically resisting, he is very similar in how he views and treats the student body. I mean, Penny is a mess and woefully unethical, especially sexually. The reason you don’t have sex with students as a teacher is that there is a power imbalance and since as a teacher, you have a lot of control over grades and the like, there is always a level of coercion at play that minimizes the ability of the relationship to be fully consensual. It’s like a relationship between a boss and one of their employees. It may start as something chosen between two parties, but if that employee refuses a sexual action or wants to break up, can they do so openly without fear? No, it comes with the added weight of potentially being fired and so on. With teachers, the same applies, except in the form of flunked grades, more difficult progress through one’s major, and just overall imbalance of maturities. It’s predatory at best and non-consensual at worst and Penny 100% jumps into that bed with not a fuck given to her supposed role as educator and even goes so far as to encourage it in others:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/crackin/
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/twelvethirty/
And it’s worth stopping for a second on that last one, because it really emphasizes how bad they all are. She straight up acknowledges that Professor Rees does not at all modify his content to better reach his student body, just regurgitates his method and retires to fake doing research. And she acknowledges she doesn’t even care about teaching herself, only about exploiting the position to sleep with impressionable college students and to hopefully network her way into his job. While Jason is a hypocrite about his supposed code, Penny openly flouts it and advocates for the worst form of teaching she can possibly advocate for:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/dangerous/
And she might have some point in how to navigate bureaucratic institutions, but she’s Machiavellian and a cancer to how teaching should operate. It’s worth noting that here because the problem is not just Jason.
4) But that doesn’t let him off the hook. He claims to actual teaching principles like how he claimed to value being a good teacher in the previous section and how he pretends to reach out to students who need help and he claims to care, but he fails to live up to those standards.
If a student genuinely does need help because how Rees’s terrible method is not clicking with them, he just repeat what Dr. Rees said and blames them for not getting it:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/without/
He claims to want to understand how a student has improved without him so as (presumably) he can learn from that and grow as a teacher, but the second that the response comes back in a way that bruises his ego with regards to his regurgitation method not being what works for everyone, he gets super pissy and defensive:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/occupancy/
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/sappy/
He refuses to grow as a teacher, but wants to be seen as being a good teacher and well, the student body is not a teacher’s therapist. They are not there to sort through his mental blocks and hang-ups and tell him he’s doing a wonderful job when he’s not. But he expects them to, because he doesn’t view them as fully equal to him and not even fully human beings, just cogs that dictate whether or not he’s a “good teacher”, which is mostly about protecting his career path.
And then there’s the sex. After all the protests about it, he still does it and then blames it all on Sal because she’s sexually aggressive. Which… no. Sex, when it is actually sex and not rape, is a consensual act between two people. Jason had full right and honestly needed to say no and could have done so. But he’s blaming being horny on her and then whining about how his poor morals have been threatened and how his career is on the line, but that’s not on her. She’s a horny college student with a crush. There’s no excuse for being “tempted”, because part of your job in being in authority on a college campus is that that “temptation” is bollocks and you shouldn’t be dipping your pen in that inkwell. But no, it’s all excuses and blame:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/nothing-to-lose/
And he’s even all make-up ruley about the whole thing, drawing random lines that get him what he wants (sex with a woman he was openly drooling over and to pretend he has a code of morals he wants) that only inconvenience and mistreat the other individual. No, I didn’t give you a grade bump for sex, therefore, I am still morally intact. Oh, hey, I’ll jump you again in an instance because I’m getting what I want, but oh no, you must be the dirty slut who sleeps with all the TAs because that’s our dynamic:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/more-quietly/
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/genuine/
He wants to blame others for his moral failings and his failings as a teacher. And he undermines the person he has fallen in this really not okay relationship because he thinks that if he doesn’t treat her fully like a person then that somehow makes the sexual exploitation okay. Oh, I’m dismissive to your face and give your grades to other people to avoid sexual bias, so it’s all okay, like I don’t sleep with my students like the worst possible form of teacher.
But oh, is he lonely, guess he’ll just sidle up to her in a crowded bar and ask to get to know her, while openly being dismissive of everything she says:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/trousers/
Because if the relationship is one-sided and abusive, then it’s almost like he hasn’t violated the base principles of being a teacher at all. And that “logic” is so twisted and harmful that it very much disgusts me. There are things that teachers don’t do and he’s doing all of them, but still expects to be called great for it, all because he left merry ol’ England for graduate school.
And on top of all of that, he’s resentful of her success without him. When she goes outside of his abusive, dismissive, possibly bigoted crap and seeks out what works for her and is proud of it, he takes it personally and lashes out at her and accuses her of cheating the system, because he’s got it in his head that “bad students” can’t improve unless he personally is involved with his chosen singular method of reaching them:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/nothanks/
And I’m sorry for the long rant, but that sort of crap really incenses me as a teacher, because it is so toxic to the very idea of teaching and is the source of so much long-term damage in student development and is so just, no, just no, there is no excuse for sleeping with a student, just none. That it all just legitimately upsets me on that level.
Jason is not a good teacher. He’s not even a good person. Maybe he could if he actually started taking shit to heart and actually put effort into becoming better. But right now? Nope.
And it’s so satisfying to hear Sal call him out on his shit.
Maybe she’ll feel lonely again and slip back into his abusive clutches, but for now she’s taking a stand against his attacks on her self-esteem and standing up for herself and that’s a “good on ya” moment.
Walky needs help, but he needs to be far far away from what Jason will pretend is help. Maybe that help can come from his girlfriend, maybe even from Joyce (she says she likes math after all and is currently looking in the direction of becoming a teacher). But he definitely does not need to feed Jason’s need to feel important while imparting absolutely nothing of value.
Yeah, I agree with all of this. Great post compiling all those examples, by the way.
Above when I mentioned I was surprised she was so insulting to him, I didn’t really mean that Jason didn’t deserve it, just that I thought they had a more civil dislike of each other. I think it’s pretty good of Sal to call him out so directly, especially since, as you linked, he claims to care about being a good teacher.
Gosh. I had forgotten most of that outside of him screwing a student, but when you string it all together, he really is pretty awful.
yes to all of this. i honestly don’t understand why people seem to like jason, because he’s just so terrible to sal.
When did Jason call Sal “crazy”? He said “you need therapy”.
Maybe he’s implying that he finds her mentally unstable, but he doesn’t call her crazy to her face as you say.
And honestly he says this right after she declares that she’ll run her parents over with her motorcycle if they don’t appreciate her college efforts. Sal has issues to say the least and Jason obviously observes this.
Walky’s all like, “Ahm privieiged! Whars mah gawdanmed graed privliege dammut!”
I think Jason sounds like David Tennant
I don’t doubt that it’s Willis’s intent to show Jason as a jerk. Nor am I saying that Jason isn’t a jerk. However, after clicking on many of the links that people have posted in these comments, I can’t help but notice that many of the things that he says — the things that people point out as crossing the line — seem to be there just as much for a punchline as for anything else.
If this were a real life situation, would he say he’s changing his office hours to “right the hell now?” If they were real people, would he say she’s hopeless or she needs therapy in the way that he did? I’m sure there are real people who would do these things, but I suppose this is the problem when you have a webcomic with serious themes but that also loves a good punchline.
A funny punchline to a four panel strip sometimes trumps staying serious and realistic. The jokes still give the same context: Jason is taken aback by Sal’s attractiveness, he thinks she has mental problems, etc, and those are really inappropriate things for a teacher to say.
Damn it. I usually catch the new strip at 6 in Hawaii, but now that I’m in California I have to wait ’til 9.
I am SO GLAD Sal is telling off this barely-legal-student-banging douchebag. >:]
…I realize the irony of having said student-banging douchebag as my avatar. My previous one was Dina. I sure miss my fellow Japanese neurodivergent avatar…