Separate Vocations - Analysis

Analysis

In the last scene of the episode, Bart is seen writing "I will not expose the ignorance of the faculty" on the blackboard as a punishment for exposing the ignorance of the teachers by removing the Teachers' Editions. In his book The Small Screen: How Television Equips Us to Live in the Information Age, Brian L. Ott describes this scene as one of the "key ways The Simpsons appeals to audience, which tends to be younger, by critiquing authority figures, and in particular educators." Toby Daspit and John Weaver write in their book Popular Culture and Critical Pedagogy: Reading, Constructing, Connecting that the writers of The Simpsons are "particularly interested" in questions about authority and the abuses of powers in school. Another scene from the episode sees Ms. Hoover telling the students to stare at the blackboard for ten minutes until class is over. Daspit and Weaver write that it is "the absolute power that teachers have over students' every action that allows for the image to be presented on The Simpsons. It would be comforting to tell ourselves that this is simply parody run amok, that the writers are stretching reality to make a point, but the discussants in the study had memories of a reality very much like the one presented in this program." One of the discussants said she believes everyone has experienced similar situations in their school years, and she thinks the thought that "an educator could ever do something so useless and pointless with the children's time" is "frightening".