Chris Whetzel recently created a piece for Education Week titled, "Failing to Learn."  The focus was on how our education system is repeating the same mistakes, rather than learning from errors of the past.

The first sketch was based on the classic tale of William Tell. The art director liked the concept, but the editors felt it may be too obscure.




Sketch #2 was more situational with Sherlock Holmes "examining" education (in this case, a poorly trained teacher).





To show the repeating of past mistakes, Chris felt an ambiguous figure that could be either a student or a teacher with a collection of dunce hats would work well. However, the editors felt this was too harsh and may be seen as downright offensive.





And so, the finish is…