If it seems like Mina’s letting them off light, remember this IS the second time they’ve all gotten in trouble for ganging up on other kids. Their parents are maaaaaaaad.
In an earlier draft of this, the conversation happened before recess ended and Mina's deal was that if they all wrote out "I will never hit people again" two hundred times before recess ended they'd be off scot free. They all pulled it off but had severe hand cramps from all the speed-writing. I like scary blood-voice Mina better. :3
That’s pretty fair all in all, considering what we had waiting when we got home as kids… hooo boy!
My poor pop had it the worst– his dad was the principal.
So was mine. I went to a different school, but he had worked at that school, so all of the staff knew him. There’s even a pic of me as a baby sitting on the lap of my assistant principal. Needless to say, I stayed pretty straight and narrow during High School.
I love scary blood-voice Mina. *G*
And it doesn’t seem like she’s letting them off lightly; if any of them mess up, she’s made it clear she’s going to come down on the rulebreaker like an avalanche.
no, no, no… she’s going to come down on ALL of them like an avalanche… if even ONE of them breaks the promise… they ALL get triple the current parental-enacted punishment for this offense… that way she gets THEM to look out for EACH OTHER, and the staff just has to do “normal” kids-on-recess-oversight, rather than the actively-hunting-them-out to ensure they aren’t doing crap and are no longer properly surveying the REST of the kids, remember, that’s how they got back at the others, they waited until the staff wasn’t nearby… now that these kids promised, i’ll bet that each one of them will actively stop the rest of the group from slacking off, because it’ll come back to bite THEM in the butt… the whole “if X gets in trouble “I” get punished… nuh, huh… Hey, X, remember that promise we made where if YOU get in trouble I get in trouble TOO, and you wouldn’t want THAT, now do you?!… SO do you REALLY want to hit that other kid??”
As I understood, it’s individual, they don’t get any punishment for this one, but if one kid hits another kid again, that kid gets triple the punishment it would normally get for that separate offence.
At least thats how I read it.
I hope that she means it individually. That’s one of the nastier things that some authority figures do. If ONE misbehaves, the ENTIRE GROUP gets punished. Easier on the one in charge – does not have to decide who did it. And since the group knows that they will all be punished, the group as a whole acts as their own internal police force, making sure NO ONE misbehaves.
Sounds good in theory. In practice it’s just mean and lazy.
I think she’s a better person than that.
Having been victimized by that sort of mentality myself, I can promise you it doesn’t work that way. The primary reason my parents are still alive is that I was too small to beat them bloody for beating on me for things my sibs did I had no control over. Creates a lot of resentment and anger towards the asses who were too damn lazy to bother with figuring out who the real culprits are. Particularly since it doesn’t matter to that sort of mindset whether or not a problematic event was an accident or not. Furthermore, the more kids involved in the mass punishment theory, the worse it is on an individual level. Husband had a babysitter who thought that way, he’s not a better person for it. For him, it also went hand in hand with being force fed spaghettios til he vomited and then being force fed the vomit after. If you think any of this is a good idea for “controlling” children, you should seriously consider getting abuse counseling. In actuality, it feeds nothing but hatred, particularly of authority figures. Your enthusiastic explanation and endorsement literally makes me sick to my stomach and likely stirs up bad memories for anybody else also terrorized by it.
To clarify, an abusive authority figure with a small group of children under their thumb will have fewer excuses to beat on, excuse me, punish…everyone simply because there are fewer kids to piss them off. Double that number and the risk increases exponentially, not just because there are more children involved but because there are more personality conflicts likely to create incidents that will piss that person off and give them an excuse to punish everyone.
does anyone else get the image of Bill Cosby describing how his Mom yelled at him when he was a kid, about panel 7?
Ugh, sentence writing… I got smacked with that several times back in the 80s. I eventually just started writing “I, I, I, I, I, I, (etc), will, will, will, will, (etc)…” which turned the sentences into meaningless gibberish in my head, a multitude of small tasks to be repeated until objective completed.
Also wrecked my handwriting, I think. I didn’t think schools still used sentence writing for punishments anymore.
They barely teach handwriting any more.
They call it “doing lines” at my kids school, but it was the punishment of last resort– if you got a detention (or a JUG in my son’s Jesuit High School) you WISHED hey would hand out something as simple as lines.
They should make them write a 1,000 word report (And if they just put the same word 1000 times, they start over).
why is it I feel like this will not be the last of one of Mina’s “deals”
Also they should just crack down on handwriting or reading out of the dictionary
That’s what I did, Hell I even written out of it in cursive…..Dam be that I don’t have great handwriting, dam it be…….. I was a “wrong place, wrong time” kid as well as standing up in big dog fights. So I got it good.
Writing a lot in cursive (in a notebook anyway) hurts my wrist a lot less than other types of text. But when I need to speed-write and want to be able to read it afterwards, has to be all capital letters. XD
Omg, yes! I can just imagine her saying “You make me sick!” And the ‘stupid one’ saying “And tired….”
Oopsie, my comment below is in reply to this….
Hello, Dave, great comic, by the way! I had been reading it a couple yeare ago but stopped when my old computer broke. I am caught up again after a few days of intensive reading, I am all caught up now. Thanks so much for all your hard work and your interaction with Selkie fans. Your requests for feedback make it all the more enjoyable to read Selkie, knowing you are genuinely interested in your readers’ opinions.
Above, even -__-;;
I heard about your comic in comments for either Girl Genius or Grrlpower web comics. I read your entire back catalogue in two and a half days. I love it but I just have one thing I need to say;
DAMMIT WRITE FASTER!!!!!
Not seriously I hate to even think the amount of work involved in each page but it is amazingly difficult to go through a page every two minutes and now come up to date and have to wait two or three days for the next line.
Rannith
At least you aren’t ending your archive binge on a massive cliffhanger. XD
Welcome!
Well no but ongoing story lines are better when they go on.
So they can still harass each other as long as they don’t hit each other?
Surprising no one has cried out “It’s a trick! Don’t do it!”
That was me when in trouble. Just give me the punishment now, I can take it; don’t make me gamble on my future good behavior.
or if anyone hasten said it yet
ITS A TRAP!
anyone got that?
nooooo! the “i caught up with the latest comic” moment!!!!!!
Cause kids keep promises.
Ten bucks says they hit Truck.
ok I’ll take that bet and raise it to 20$
an F.I.Y to all the comment’s I just made I can’t help but point out to myself
“I am a total dork”
Mmm… How much of this decision about “punishments” or lack thereof, is weighted by her desire to go home early, I wonder? (Or to be a bit fairer, to not have to stay at work later than normal.)
The last panel reminds me of some of my teachers in high school. Same dry, ironic sense of gallows humour when the students are being melodramatic.