CSotD: Practice makes stupid
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The issue of internships came up here Saturday in the comments section, and it's a hot topic I had already intended to take up, which I'll do now, starting with Heart of the City, where Dean is no longer up to the task of fulfilling Heart's every whim and she seeks a new go-fer.
The punchline in Heart gets to the point: It is humorous in a comic strip to say that "personal assistant," "slave" and "unpaid intern" are synonyms. Not so humorous in real life.
Matt Bors took up the topic in the debut strip at his new gig curating and providing cartoons at The Medium.
I didn't feature it here because, pleased as I am that one of my favorite cartoonists has a paying job, I find his self-confessed extremism on this topic a case of throwing a potentially valuable baby out with the admittedly polluted bathwater.
You should go read it, but here's an excerpt and it's where Matt and I part ways:
Specifically, we part ways over the "college credit" issue, but, more generally, over the definition of an "internship."
Earlier in that long strip, he had listed examples of millionaires and major companies that, like Heart, advertised for unpaid go-fers, and I'm 100 percent with him on that. And I'm also horrified at the idea of college graduates or any non-students taking unpaid jobs.
But, for instance, student teaching is nearly always an "unpaid internship," and, as flawed as our preparation of teachers often is, that's the one requirement that is rock-solid necessary. There are a lot of ed majors who carry straight A's in class but flame out in front of a classroom of students.
In fact, it's too bad the student teaching segment can't come sooner, so they wouldn't waste a year or two taking classes for a career for which they are fundamentally unsuited, though there isn't much point in tossing them into a classroom until they have some theory of what to do there.
And there is also the occasional problem of the mentor-teacher being a control freak, such that the student teacher ends up doing a lot of photocopying and not very much teaching, but that's why oversight is critical.
But you won't see ads in papers for "Student Teachers Wanted." Quite the opposite: Education schools have people whose job is to find placements for their students, and it's not always easy, even when the mentor is getting a stipend.
Yes, not only is the student teacher unpaid, but the teacher being followed around by that duckling is getting paid. However, if you view an "intern" not as an unpaid go-fer, but as an apprentice, there are precedents.
I had to read up on apprenticeships for a story set in the War of 1812, at the conclusion of which the plucky lad is set up with an apprenticeship to a cartographer.
The term applied to a couple of situations:
1. Indentured servant — The most easily abused level was that a person could earn his transportation to the colonies in return for a period of service, not learning a craft but simply as a servant. There were also non-travel-oriented apprenticeships in this class in which the family got paid a lump sum, which appealed to the very poor who, if they could place their elder children, could then feed their younger ones.
The ads in the paper seeking the return of runaway "apprentices" generally referred to this group. It was slavery with an end date and was abolished along with slavery, in several states and finally nationwide.
2. Paid — There were apprenticeships in some crafts where the apprentice was given room and board and a small bit of spending money.
3. Paid-for — There were also apprenticeships in which the master was paid to impart his craft. The master, in this case, was generally highly skilled and worth studying under.
I agree that the first class of "intern" above should be illegal because it already is, and the law should be applied to businesses seeking unpaid or under-paid interns outside a credit-granting, instructional situation with strict oversight.
One of the points in a legal unpaid internship is supposed to be that the business accepting the intern gets no benefit from their work. This is, at first, second and eighth glance, pretty damned stupid. Why else would they do it?
When I worked at the paper in Plattsburgh, we accepted interns from the local college because they asked us to, but I'd say, if you tracked the semester-long internship and quantified the loss represented by having them there throughout their duckling phase and subtracted that from the value gained by having them around for the three or four weeks at the end when they were actually capable of doing something valuable without someone standing over them who could have done it faster and better themselves, we were covered.
Which brings us to today's Luann:
I've learned over the years not to parse Luann too closely, but having Bernice do a year-long internship in the guidance office is either leading to an important story arc or is simply unrealistic.
We'd get requests to place interns in our business office, but it couldn't happen: There was too much confidential and proprietory information flowing through there, particularly in a small market where faces quickly attach to names.
When I was in college, a high school student from town went from working the dininghall the year before to working part-time as a secretary in the dean's office. I had been delighted to have a very cute, very smart girl sling hash, especially when she worked the cash register and would ring up an entire meal at 35 cents and wink at me.
Once she gained access to my records in the dean's office, I wasn't so comfortable and I'm noted for not really caring about that stuff.
But real-life Julie knowing my grades, my IQ and the results of my MMPI seemed kind of not-okay, and placing cartoon Bernice as an intern in the school guidance office is pretty far out of bounds, I think.
However, for now, given (A) the improved plotting since Greg Evans added his daughter as a ghostwriter and (B) the fact that Wally's senior year was the best part of "Leave It To Beaver," I'm content to wait and see where this is going.
Disagreeing with Matt is quite enough conflict for me anyway.
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