“What I Learned”

Part 1: Educated Intro Questions

Directions: Answer these questions THOUGHTFULLY. Each will require a thorough explanation.
Take the first 15 mins to write your answers and the next 15 to discuss in groups.

1.What does it mean to be educated?

Educated means having the skills and knowledge necessary to eventually contribute to a
sophisticated and skilled global economy, and provide an ‘enlightened electorate’ for
democracy. Education’s purpose is to allow kids to succeed in their roles as responsible adults
that can be self-reliant in providing for themselves and their families. Education should provide
skills necessary to allow adults to enter well-paying jobs in the workforce. Education should also
give kids the analytical skills necessary to create an ‘enlightened’ electorate, that holds the
standard of democracy and analyzes contemporary issues and political events with multiple
perspectives.

2. What responsibility do parents have in educating their children?

The primary responsibility of parents is to educate their children with beliefs and values and to
reinforce the material that kids learn in school. It is not the school’s job to teach morality- that
is the parent's responsibility. Parents should ensure that kids are motivated to learn and grow
in school by making them do homework, making kids read, and should allow them to grow up
self-reliant and independent. Parents should primarily ensure that their children grow up to be
good people.

3. How important is it to have an understanding of the world around you (street smarts), or is it
important to have formal or informal (learning from family, friends, experiences, etc.)
education?

It is very important to have an understanding of the world around you, and to have
formal/informal education. Part of school is being around other people in the same age group
that allow kids to be exposed to multiple perspectives, cultures, and viewpoints. School
environments foster social experiences, not just education, and teach kids what is acceptable
around other people. Formal education is necessary because it teaches kids skills that they
need to become self-reliant and successful in the world.

4. How much of what you believe is influenced by your parents? What beliefs/values have you
inherited from your family?

Most of what I believe has been influenced by my parents. My parents raised me to become a
good person, and my most important values stem from them or their examples. Some beliefs
that I have inherited are open mindedness, hard work, kindness, honesty, and more. They also
raised me in my religion, which has influenced my beliefs.

5. Should family values and beliefs go unquestioned or be accepted at face value?

Family values and beliefs should go unquestioned to an extent. If the parents are raising kids to
become good people, then beliefs should go unquestioned. However, if parents are neglectful,
don’t believe in being kind, or raise kids to become terrible people, then beliefs should
definitely be questioned.

Part 2: “What I Learned”

Directions: Use the cartoon linked on the canvas page for the following questions. Be sure to
read the context information on the first page.

1.Identify one part of this cartoon, a single frame or several, that you find to be an especially
effective synergy of written and visual text. Why do you think the section you chose works so
well?

One part of this cartoon that was an especially effective synergy of written and visual text was
the middle frame and bottom right two frames on page two. The middle frame on page two
was a massive frame where lists and lists of knowledge were drawn and listed. The frame was
dotted and there were various drawings about the things she had supposedly learned. Then,
the bottom right frames were smaller but combined the chaotic lists of the middle frame and
began to question them. This synergy of the chaotic but rigid order of learning in elementary
school showed that learning in elementary school can be useless. The haphazard arrangement
of knowledge and drawings later come to a head in the bottom right two frames where the
author questions why the knowledge had to be learned. It works so well because the text and
drawings show why the author begins to question school.

2. On the second page, the middle frame is a large one with a whole list of what Roz Chast
learned “Up through sixth grade.” Is she suggesting that all these things are foolish or
worthless? Explain your response.

She is suggesting that many of these things are worthless and foolish. She seems to think
banking, Johnny Appleseed and stitching are especially worthless because she satirizes them
significantly in her drawings. The sheer quantity of things she learned in the years through sixth
grade indicate that she viewed many of them as useless since she had a great long list and said
“and lots, lots more”.

3. The three-page cartoon presents a narrative, a story. Discuss the extent to which Chast uses
the techniques of a fiction writer, such as plot, character, and setting.
Chast uses the techniques of a fiction writer significantly throughout this cartoon. She uses
conflict, plot, humor, and some character development. She begins with a background on her
earliest school memory, then develops conflict between her and the school systems. She also
uses detailed visual descriptors of the setting instead of textual descriptions. The main
character is characterized as being unenthused with school throughout the plot. This comic is
also written in chronological order, which is characteristic of novels.

4. Chast subtitles her cartoon “A Sentimental Education…,” which is a reference to a French

novel of that title written by Gustave Flaubert in 1869. The American writer Henry James
described Sentimental Education as far inferior to Flaubert’s earlier and more successful novel
Madame Bovary; in fact, he characterized the 1869 work as “elaborately and massively dreary.”
Why do you think Chast uses this reference to Flaubert’s novel? Or do you think that she is not
specifically alluding to Flaubert but, rather, to more generalized “sentimental” notions of
education? Consider her audience as you respond to these questions.

I don’t think that Chast is alluding to Flaubert since she is critiquing useless knowledge found
from public education. Chast instead is referring to the sentimental notion of education, where
people think that certain things should be taught because it was tradition. She doesn’t approve
of random information, so she would not allude to an obscure author.

5. What, ultimately, is Chast’s critique? What is the relationship she sees among learning, K-12
school, and education?

Chast’s critique was that the education system taught useless information. She sees the
relationship that learning is good, but education teaches random knowledge that won’t be used
in life. She thinks that education should be focused on areas of interest rather than typical
sentimental education.