Tom Batiuk’s got a decade-plus on me, but I reckon my high school experience had more in common with his than with that of today’s high school student. In my days, the only “device” a student might carry would be some kind of orthodontic implement. Any phone calls a student made would have to be from the principal’s office or the corner malt shop. Logan Church and her peers are never without their cellphones, and thus, are never without access to all the world’s knowledge. No wonder the unpleasant Jim hates teaching a class. When Logan correctly answers a physics question, Jim’s initial surprised reaction immediately shifts to narrow-eyed suspicion. She couldn’t have known this answer without Googling it, because Jim believes, as does Les, that these students never even open their textbooks. The thought that he has actually taught a student something brings Jim to actual tears. Unless that teardrop in the corner of his eye is a prison tattoo.
Run the Joules
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Son of Stuck Funky 
“And do you know why it’s called a ‘joule,’ little fool?”
“It was named after that famous French writer who built a giant cannon to shoot a dork to the moon. You know, Jules Burn.”
Isn’t the proper term “dusty”? “Just got a little dusty in here.” In other words, “I am afraid to show genuine positive emotion, proving me human, so I excuse my current state as an allergic reaction.”
Yeah, sounds about right for BatiukWorld.
Q: What did BatYam say when he opened that folder labeled “Old gags I haven’t found a place for yet?
A: “It just got a little musty in here.”
Couldn’t resist.
I mean OK, I get the gag, but honestly who cares HOW she knows it, so long as she does. It also makes me wonder exactly how many WHS students through the years were cheated out of a halfway decent education by these wry cynical assholes. I’d say it’s dozens at the least.
This was exactly my thought! Why does it matter whether a student learns something by reading it in the textbook, or by reading it on a reputable website? If the information is correct, she’s still learned it. The only difference is that with the phone you can look up information you’d need a hundred different books for.
What does Kablichnik teach anyway, Random Science Words 101? His last classroom appearance was a forced gag about an obscure astronomical body named Ultima Thule. Now he’s shocked that a student knows the word joule, which strikes me as an absolutely fundamental term for any study of physics.
Good recall, Banana Jr.! Also note the punchline of that strip was that Jim was ready to retire.
By the way: real teachers have had to conduct classes via the internet for almost a year now because of COVID. So where do you get off pissing and moaning about the Internet, Kablichnik? In 2020, the Internet is the only thing keeping your worthless ass employed. You’d better pray people don’t figure out the Internet is a better teacher than you are. Or that number of days until retirement might not be as many as you think.
“No, I didn’t google it, Mr. Kablichnik. Did you have to google ‘SI’ before you asked that question?”
Notice how there are no units of work energy that share a name with any character in Funky Winkerbean. The scientific community knows…
Covid provides a rich source of material for this strip but Batty is too lazy or perhaps too incompetent to use it.
I may be dating myself here, but even in this Digital Age don’t teachers still have occasion to assign students chapters of textbooks to read, and then ask them questions based on those readings? Otherwise, Mr. Krabappel should be more surprised that one of his charges seems to have just cracked open a book on her own, then read and memorized a random definition.
Oh, well, at least Mr. Tabatchnick didn’t come out with groan-inducing “joule/Jewel” pun about the pop singer, in a failed attempt to appear “hip.”
Here was my take on the twins. A day late…
“Why did you think there were no birds in our yard?” is a truly Batuikian sentence.
But at least you’re doing it for love of the craft.
1.) It doesn’t matter if she got it from the textbook or google, you nonce. What matters is that she had to look up the information and thus hasn’t really processed and internalized it.
2.) Textbooks are a massive scam.
Yeah, they sure are. Back in my day the only options to save money was the campus used bookstore or share a book. Batty probably hates it that kids just pirate the textbooks and post them online.
Now lots of kids don’t use textbooks at all. I wonder what effect this will have on the textbook scam– er, the legitimate textbook business.
So what’s the point of today’s strip? That students go online rather than read textbooks? (I have news for TomBa – many high school texts are supplemented with web sites from the publishers and there are even texts that come in a digital format with built in hyperlinks.) And the punchline is that she read her textbook? Where is the joke?
And as some here have already commented, what subject does Kablichnik teach? It certainly doesn’t appear that it’s a high school science course. At various times he’s discoursing on climate change, sometimes chemistry, and today it may be some kind of introduction to physics (and it’s December. What have they been doing since September?)
He’s got a Master’s degree, in SCIENCE.
“Work energy”? Work or energy, sure, but the term “work energy” implies a careless Google effort.
Btw, using the name Logan is no doubt a tribute to TomBats favorite comic book heroes. Logan is The Wolverine from XMen
I thought everything in Funkytown is measured in lisas, such as the destructive force released in a post office bombing.
Maybe Kablichnick is crying because Logan just randomly blurted that out while he was in the middle of one of his drunken rants about the Moon landing.
“I was willing to say anything to make him stop screaming ,” Church would later tell the assembled press. “But I never thought he would cry at being replaced by a computer after all that crap he pulls about his precious retirement date. Oh, sorry Mr. Moore, I forgot that you said we can’t say ‘crappy’ on TV.”