Squash Debate

[setsuled]

This is the latest comic I made for students. It's the first one I made for third year, 15 year old, students. I was surprised to find they were a little more reluctant to do it than the first and second year students. I guess hormones are starting to make them too cool for this kind of thing.

A few of them did produce some interesting things, once I explained what a squash is. For the third panel, one student wrote, "This is God's food!"

Third year students are supposed to be learning how to debate, a difficult thing to introduce into Japanese culture. Many of the teachers are also reluctant to broach the subject. I thought this might be a fun, very unconfrontational way to at least get them used to some of the language of debate. I was glad some of the students took to it. I had help from one student whom I regularly have long conversations with about horror movies. I tend to have one or two favourite students in every classroom who seem to appoint themselves my lieutenants and who go about making sure people stay on task.

The students finally prevailed upon me to come up with example dialogue so this is what I came up with on the spot.

1. "Eggplants are great!"

2. "An eggplant is like a baby."

3. "And like a king!"

4. "But eggplants are smaller than pumpkins."

5. "Shouldn't the pumpkin be king?"

6. "That's right!"

7. "Eggplants are too small!"

8. "Pumpkins are fat."

9. "You're a bad man!"

10. "Eeeeeuauuugh!"