I grew up reading Calvin and Hobbes. Bill Watterson named the characters after the philosophers John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes. If you don't know anything about this comic strip, I'll quote Wikipedia as it provides an accurate description:
"Calvin and Hobbes is set in the contemporary United States in an unspecified suburban area. The strip depicts Calvin's flights of fantasy and his friendship with Hobbes, and also examines Calvin's relationships with family and classmates. Hobbes' dual nature is a defining motif for the strip: to Calvin, Hobbes is a live anthromorphic tiger; all the other characters see him as an inanimate stuffed toy." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes)
Hobbes dual nature is never explained by Watterson as to whether he is strictly a figment of Calvin's imagination or if he truly is magical.
The above two strips show two instance of Calvin writing a test. If you've ever read these comics, you'll know that despite Calvin's hyperactive and troublesome nature, he is highly intelligent. He has a strong vocabulary, very creative, and discusses complicated philosophical ideas with Hobbes. In the third panel of the top strip, Calvin expresses the frustration of what most students experience. He shows he is capable of the bland memorization he is expected. In the second strip, Calvin's teacher is frustrated with Calvin for doing poorly on his test and he says that he just doesn't test well.
Both of these strips are interesting because they show two different ideas on what children go through. Calvin is creative and intelligent, but his education obviously doesn't support his strengths. Instead, it brings him down. This is a great reflection of our current education system. I'm sure most of you have experienced the same thing at some point during your education. Calvin would flourish if he was put in an environment where his interests, creativity, and strengths were supported, rather then suppressed. A lot of children probably experience thoughts like these every day at school. This shows why we need a change.
I have a second strip I want to talk about, but first, I'd like you to read the one below. It is the last Calvin and Hobbes strip (and don't worry - there are no spoilers!).
I showed the above strip because it shows Calvin's true nature - he is excited to explore a full day of possibilities with Hobbes. The one I wanted to talk about is a fake end to the story that someone made that greatly contrasts the true ending. I already read the last strip before I saw this, but it still almost brought a tear to my eye.
Hopefully that didn't just ruin your day. This four panel strip says a lot about how we view our children. Calvin's childhood and innocence is torn from him because someone has labeled him with some sort of disability. Calvin may be hyperactive and troublesome, but he is 6! Children are supposed to be hyperactive and troublesome at this age. Throughout the entire story of Calvin and Hobbes, no one ever really seems to realize how intelligent Calvin is. In the world today, someone like Calvin probably would be labeled with ADD or ADHD.
It's ironic because I've been thinking about doing this rendering for awhile and I read an article this morning that ADHD is being over-diagnosed in adolescents, just like Calvin was in this depiction. The article is here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/03/05/adhd-schoolchildren-birth-month.html
Suppressing our children with medication is a poor way of dealing with the way they act and learn, especially when they resemble Calvin - full of potential. Why would someone want to suppress that? Why don't we take the time to really get to the know the children before we provide them with suppressive medication?
Education must focus more on our students as individuals rather than suppressing them because they don't fall under the category of 'normal' or 'behaved'. The learning environment should be designed to support children of varying abilities rather than standardize and suppress them.
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