What do you make of this illustration?

we will know a lot more when Boomer tells us what the article was about. I am 70% confident that I have this right.

We could look it up, but I'm having more fun knowing nada re the article.

Now we've got some ideas flowing! Thank you everyone!!

I especially like hawkeye's ideas about agriculture and the disconnect with nature.

I was going to add context by showing more illustrations but my camera battery is dead and the adapter seems to be missing so I'll add some context by saying...

This article deals with high school graduation rates in my city.

Does knowing that change the way you see the picture?

no, that fits with my theory......the whole Michelle obama innercity farming in the schools program and all, which predictably did not go anywhere but Portlanders are certain to approve of the sentiment.

I'm interested. I haven't community gardened (since I had my own and designed others places thus was busy), but in my old neighborhood, spaces were precious in the cg place, and I think that is true for some places but not all. In some places they have been salvations, or touted as salvations - there are probably a zillion articles about that, or there were, and I'd guess it would depend on the energy of all participating over time contrasted or working with neighborhood happenings. I've had a friend who worked with schools to set up gardens and associated info (she's a major cook and a keen landarch) and don't know if she is still whacking away at that as she's also an artist, but I think she stayed with it for a bunch of years.

Re getting kids to get interested and then shape up and graduate - or prison folk to find new or regained interests - I've read that gardens work, but my reading is from quite a while ago now.


So........ re the drawing, maybe it is true to life, beginners beginning.

I should have said that gardens can work, not to sound like they do all the time.

Redolent with impressionism this peinture sur le motif munchs an eclectic chiaroscuro dichotomy.

One side turns from convention vaguely perceiving direction through the haze, a green outside the "plot" in the metaphorically otherwise barren ground if you will. This post post-modernist cerebration is the apogee of counter culture comprehension and portentous apprehension and without pretention as we know it.

Maybe he is already finished with the work in his corner garden patch and is doing a little victory garden dance while waiting for her to catch up.

Perhaps he hired her to do his gardening work and he is supervising with hand gestures.

I wish your theory was right.

The article is really a hatchet job on our school superintendent because of her ongoing commitment to alternative schools -- the type of school that might include such things as a community garden.

I'm still not sure what the illustration is supposed to represent. Maybe soz is right and the girl is the good student tending to her life and the boy is the slacker ignoring his responsibilities, maybe they're both goof ups who left school and can't get good jobs (which would be a strange message in an area where agriculture is a huge part of the economy). I really don't know.

Here's the article: http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-21514-flunk_factories.html

Read the article, the illustrations seem…. loose. There is only one with the online version, you can see the garden in the background (through the window):



Taken together they seem to be illustrations of kids kind of left to their own devices, not disciplined. Some go ahead and work hard anyway, others just goof off.

That makes sense with the article then.

I dont think the super was the the target here, it was liberalism and portland mythos. I would like to more from this author to prove it but regardless this argument was unimpressive. the one nice thing mentioned is a telling flaw in the argument, that portland schools are highly unusual in that they still have the support of the community, that the best and the most wealthy are not bled off to private schools. it is hard to argue that the schools suck to a community that uses them and sends them a lot of money.

an educator with 23 years in alt ed was not brought in to dismantle alt ed as the author wants, but rather to support it. this is not about her, it us about what the community wants, and I dont appreciate a "journalist" who does a big dance around a red herring.

Whole bunch of stuff to look at and consider here.

Teacher’s clothing…dungarees…rolled up yet.

Apple with worm visible.

Boy student knitting.

Boy passing note.

Girl sleeping.

Several serious students…paying attention and taking notes.

Two prominent left handed people.

Somebody had something in mind…and that person is the only person who can answer your question.