I'm back, and because I love you all so fucking much, I'm staying up and having horrendous hours just to finish the comics for you all. In all honesty, I'm actually having fun with this. I haven't really talked about the storyline much, nor have I really made any clear-cut distinction about my actual beliefs on the issue here in the blog or explicitly in the strip itself. (Remember, there are plenty of times where I have clear distinctions between Alex's beliefs and my own, even though he is often my mouthpiece.) Although some parts of his rants in this storyline ring true in my mind, and even he can't agree with the extremist backlash at the end of the storyline.

I am not a believer in social promotion. Just because it might make a kid feel bad that he's getting left behind a grade is no reason to move him up and hold the teacher responsible for his lack of intellect, curiosity, or motivation. In fact, this emotional impact might give the lil' dumbass the kick in the pants he needs to get off his ass and actually work. Otherwise, you teach them that they can skate by through life because threatening to be emotionally damaged by administrative action is much easier than real work. Children are like any other group of people, there are a few amazing individuals, plenty of average, and a whole bunch of losers who are not going to go anywhere in life, whether it is out of their own laziness or stupidity.

Normally, I wouldn't have a problem with this bullshit but it brings our education system down when educational policy is made just to cater to these struggling students. Classrooms all become remedial education because they have to play catch-up all the time to get everyone to the same level, even though it is only a few students out of the many who were struggling with the concepts. At that point, they need to go to summer school or repeat the grade again. It didn't used to be such a problem, but ever since the idea of self-esteem got into the school system, things have gone to hell.

Administrators often talk about self-esteem as if it is the end-all be-all grace or deficit for a human being's success in life, like it will do a kid any good to feel good about himself with no marketable skills. I believe that over-confidence is far worse than any other kind of esteem issue. If you feel unnaturally good about yourself and your abilities, you're not very likely to take the time to think about your actions or re-evaluate your situation. People need to operate on a functioning level of understanding where they realize that they can and sometimes will be wrong and have to correct themselves. Sometimes being taken down a peg is a good thing.

Oddly enough, this "bringing people down" concept can also be applied to fandom. Maybe, in fact, by making fun of all these geeky losers, I'm performing a public service by making them realize how unhealthy their activities are. Yeah, there's some good ol' justification for you.