Thomas Karrer

Composition (Dr. Hundt, Winter 2022/23, 8:30-10:00)

Writing Exercise 3
Universität Regensburg

In the process of learning how to analyze a picture, most students will have come across a variety of
this very cartoon in front of you, drawn by any of its, in this case unknown artists, and even though
it might seem generic at first, the real meaning behind it is sadly often overlooked by the very
system it is criticizing. The true implications of this cartoon have, at least in my instance, been
completely ignored by our teacher. She never even implied for just a little while that there was
something wrong with our current school system, sure, our class did analyze this cartoon, but
without any significant objective. At this point, we were just going through the motions and without
the assistance of a teacher, how could a 14-year-old come up with the courage to find fault with
something the German Department of Education was so sure about? These events had lingered
somewhere within my conscious for far too long, only for me to rediscover the picture over five
years later within the context of a visual analysis task. As it only serves as a means to introduce
younger students to the world of visual analysis, the cartoon always includes the same set of
elements, no matter the artist.
In the middle of the picture, there are different animals lined up right next to each other. Starting
from the bottom left side, there is a small bird, a chimpanzee, a penguin, an elephant, a goldfish
inside a bowl, a seal and a dog. Judging from the grassland in the background and the big tree
behind them in the top left corner of the picture, the scene seems to be located in an open savanna.
All animals are facing towards the right side of the cartoon, where an office desk with a chair is
located. There is a middle-aged, balding man sitting on the chair, slightly hunched forward with his
hands folded. An open book is lying right in front of him. He is looking at the animals and speaking
to them, the speech bubble reads: ''FOR A FAIR SELECTION EVERYBODY HAS TO TAKE THE
SAME EXAM: PLEASE CLIMB THAT TREE''. The cartoon focuses on the way education and
mainly special education has been shaped since the beginning of the 21 st century, allegedly to be
more inclusive. The different animals represent different kinds of students with different abilities.
The bird can fly, the monkey can climb, the penguin and the seal can dive, the elephant is a really
imposing animal without many natural predators, the goldfish can swim, but might need special
attention, because it would be on dry land without its bowl and the dog can run fast. Yet despite all
these different abilities, an older human, who is not even an animal, or dressed like someone who
works with animals, all forces them to do the same task of climbing a tree, all in the name of
fairness and inclusion. Of course all but two animals actually have abilities that let them accomplish
this task, without climbing or flying it is going to be unachievable. The human does not seem to
care, most animals are not even in their natural habitat, he even further alienates them, by placing
himself at an office desk in the middle of nowhere which in return could probably be called his
habitat.
A task so inclusive that most students can not achieve it applied by a clueless teacher onto students
with many different backgrounds and hidden potentials that can thus never be fully realized while
they are all trapped within an environment that does not even suit the majority of people in the
classroom. Who in their right mind would want such a system to be realized, where did it come
from? Together with the demand for equal education, the question of how to include differently
abled students in the school system has been a constantly growing topic within the German
Department of Education since the early 2000s. While such an objective may seem entirely positive
on paper, this concept sadly features a distinct lack of foresight. Their plan is focused too much on
how to forcibly integrate students with different abilities into one classroom and not on the second
step of proper classroom management. This results in an unfair learning environment for both
teachers and students of all abilities that can hardly be called inclusive.
This lack of inclusion starts even before special education is introduced. Our school system is meant
to grant everyone equal chances at society, but nobody seems to realize how diverse the current job
market that the system is so desperately trying to prepare us for has become over the years. While it
is certainly difficult to find out each student's strengths and weaknesses, the time that could be used
for such an endeavor is instead being wasted by a system that is trying to teach its students as if
little has changed since the 1950s. It has worked for countless generations, so why should it not
hold up today? This thinking results in an insanely overgeneralized pool of ideas within the current
curriculum. This idea is also represented within the cartoon, which includes both land and sea
animals and even a bird that is able to fly. Now of course our school system would not start by
teaching the bird how to fly, since there already is another bird which has appendages similar to
wings, but does not fly, in this case the penguin. It would make the other bird dive and swim as
well, or look at the fact that it has feet like the dog or the elephant, teaching it how to walk first, but
then immediately forcing it to run. This would definitely frustrate the bird and halt its development,
making the bird go through torturous running and diving exercises for many years, until it realizes
by itself that its strength is its flying speed and airborne maneuverability that comes from its hollow
bone structure. Could the system not have spent the time organizing the bird's swimming exercises
to take a closer look at the animal and found out about its flying ability? An overall very annoying
situation, but one that has unfortunately become reality for too many students. Do you need to
understand the intricacies of pottery in arts and crafts to become a carpenter, do I have to write a
thousand text analyses before I can realize that I am not going to study Germanistik, or should have
the countless lessons of fooling around with Shakespearean English rather been used to actually try
and make the whole class comprehend even the most common grammatical forms of today's
English?
Now that it is established that the current system is already a mess by itself, special education needs
to be addressed within the context of the cartoon. Not all animals in the picture fit into the
surrounding area, neither a seal nor a penguin or even a goldfish have anything to do with the dry
grasslands of a savanna. Because of their blubber, the first two would probably suffer a heatstroke
within a few minutes of arriving at the location, while the goldfish must have had someone carry
him in front of the desk. All three of them would also need extra attention from humans, like
zookeepers, to help cool and feed them, since their food can not be found on dry land. Not to
mention all the carnage these human keepers and their attention for the marine animals might cause
amongst the rest of the bunch. Another environment, like the arctic sea, would of course be more
suited to them, but then what would everyone else do other than freeze to death? These keepers
would need to be someone other than their teacher behind the desk, since he already seems
occupied enough with having his classroom desk and chair moved to Africa in the middle of
nowhere and not even being bothered by the fact that he is wearing a suit in this hot climate. He
seems to be hopelessly unprepared, yet he is trying his best, introducing the animals' task without
even braking a sweat. But in other words, what would happen if a class of special needs students
was introduced into a regular classroom? These children are now in a completely new environment
with a vastly different curriculum, yet still need help from workers that are educated on how to deal
with these kinds of students and help them understand their new tasks without completely
overwhelming them. A regular teacher would have to be educated on how to deal with these
students separately, when this new system is introduced. But he still needs to focus on all the other
students which is already difficult enough, depending on the individual class. These students now
have less supervision from their regular teacher and must now also adapt to their new curriculum,
entirely dedicated to teaching both special needs and them, while constantly being distracted by the
new students and their helpers who would be better off reliably receiving individual attention in a
learning environment specifically dedicated to their needs.
As shown previously, the current school system wants to provide equal opportunities to everyone,
even if the final result of this approach might be equally terrible for all students, which is also
perfectly represented in the cartoon. A task is given to all the animals in the picture, just as with
German Department of Education's plan it might sound simple at first, they each need to climb the
tree behind them. So after being forced into an unfamiliar environment with animals assistants they
have never seen before and having to endure tasks presented by an out of touch teacher, it is finally
time for them to be graded by this very system. Most who have paid attention will have realized by
now that this kind of task is perfectly suited for the monkey with its thumbs and general ability to
climb. So while the monkey can climb that tree in seconds, even the dog with its claws is hardly
going to accomplish anything with the verticality of that tree. The Elephant might be able to knock
the tree over, but what good use does that have for the future of the task? The Marine animals and
their helpers will obviously be completely dumbfounded, who could have paid such little attention
when designing an important exam? The bird was purposefully left out until the end, climbing the
tree must mean to get on top of it, so not even a difficult task for the bird right? One must not forget
to read the task carefully, flying would be the perfect solution, even though the bird could never
even attempt to climb that tree, its clever solution to the task would be wrong, the truth is, the game
was rigged from the start. While a task might be suited for some, especially in the terrible learning
conditions described in argument two, it is really difficult for many students to approach a certain
task the right way. Some might try and fail while others, without the right attention, might give up
right at the start and begin to believe that they themselves are the issue. Even if you have an
elephant's memory, learning for an exam by heart is not helpful either, if it is forgotten only a few
days later, to make room for the next questionably useful piece of information. And worst of all,
students with an innovative idea might be robbed of their success by a lack of ability to understand
their trains of thought on the teacher's side. Must there even be an objectively correct way of
teaching, or should school rather focus on providing education on an individual level to each
student? The truth is, there will never only be one approach or solution to a problem, especially if it
is as complex of a topic as discussing and possibly solving this issue within our school system.
In general, many people know that there is something wrong with how students are being treated by
the school system, there is a lot of talk, with no actions taken. That might be, because there never is
a perfect solution to a problem, even if an entirely new system were to be introduced, people would
be once again quick to point out some flaws. However, there is always hope, maybe not for a
universal reform of the system, but rather for some great improvements that would make the lives
of students significantly easier. If special education is introduced on a comprehensive level, teachers
need to be heavily trained for those new situations and to focus on each student on an individual
level, but most of all, no matter the student, a teacher needs to understand the trouble each and
every one of them faces in their live, as this is less of an issue of training, but rather of empathy,
something we need more than anything in the coldness of today's society.
 Works Cited

WordPress.com, https://alexraphael.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/education-system-joke.jpg.
28.12.2022.