Better Education Through Comic Books

I was very lucky as a child to have a mom that was a fan of comic books. Mind you I’m not talking the traditional strong-men in tights comics. Even the coolest of moms are girls, and girls hate that crap. My mom had a large collection of cover-less, water damaged, crumbling Disney and Conan comics. She also had a complete collection of Tin Tin and Asterix comics that were in much better condition, probably due more to production quality then care. When I went to bed at night my mom would lay next to me and read me a random Donald Duck comic, which usually involved Donald, Huey, Dewey and Louie and an adventure in a foreign land. Donald would get himself in some sort of trouble and it would be up to his nephews to pull his fat out of the fire. More often then not Donald would reward them by chasing them around with a homemade switch, because he’s a bastard. A hilarious bastard.

At four years old, I was reading on my own, and started wading through Tin Tin and Asterix. Both followed a similar theme of adventures in foreign lands and colorful if not politically incorrect characters. Tin Tin often featured Captain Haddock, a raging alcoholic who would spit out water as if it were poison and scream nearly incomprehensible insults at people. Asterix comics featured the adventures of a tribe of Gauls (Celts) fighting Roman influence as it slowly took over their way of life. Both taught me a lot about European history and culture.

After kindergarten, I was placed in Modified Primary because I had shit-poor organizational skills, and the school district thought I needed more time to develop before I was ready to hit first grade. Modified Primary was what they called it in Alaska, where I was born and raised. I’m not sure what the equivalent is in the other 49 states, but my recollection of my time there was that I got thrown in with a bunch of borderline retards. I was fairly mortified. Even at five years old I could recognize that I was being held back for some reason. Luckily, I was only there for three months. When they finally got around to reading comprehension tests they decided they couldn’t justify keeping me out of the first grade, despite the fact I couldn’t properly sort blocks by shape and color.

To finally get to the point, I believe I owe most of my early education to comics, and argue that they should become a staple of classroom learning.

Most people are visual learners, meaning they associate specific pieces of information with a particular image. Really, comic books are simply an extension of A-B-C picture books (A is for Apple, B is for Bear, C is for Calliope, etc.). Comics simply provide more information as it corresponds to provided text. For instance, when Donald Duck says “I’m gonna whip your tail feathers off” and you see a picture of Donald grimacing, rolling up his sleeve and holding a tree branch, you have a pretty good idea as to his intentions.

I’ll stretch the idea a bit further by touching on cartoons, and use Warner Bros. as a quick example. Most kids have never actually seen an anvil in real life, but they know they’re really heavy. Kids also intuit a certain amount Newtonian physics by watching the coyote getting mushed, lacking only the math involved in said mushing. I personally was never particularly receptive to math, mostly because of the way it’s taught. However, I excelled at high school and college physics, due in no small part to Larry Gonick’s The Cartoon Guide to Physics.

Comic books are also thoroughly entertaining. Most everyone knows through experience, that learning is almost effortless when it’s fun. Take for instance a friend of yours whom you know for a fact doesn’t read anything short of the sports section of the newspaper. Despite what you may call a lack of worldly knowledge, most sports fans are able to dig into a bottomless well of sports statistics, strategy and player knowledge. This is due simply to the fact they have fun learning said facts.

The Nazi’s new full well the power of comic book learning, as can be seen in the WW2 Nazi Tiger Tank Manual, Tigerfibel. The manual is composed of comic (and often racist) cartoons, rhymes and and pin-up art. Having read an English translation of the manual only once, I feel a certain amount of confidence in being able to crew a German Tiger tank (though I’m certain I would be slain by Indiana Jones for throwing my lot in with the evil empire).

I’d like to point out, that I only advocate comic book learning for purposes of science and reading comprehension. I do not, however, think comic books should be looked towards to teach children moral or ethical values. That should fall onto the shoulders of the parent. For instance, many older comics tend to portray minorities as inferior. A common theme from the 30’s 40’s and 50’s is a black or Asian character acting extremely grateful to some kindly, white hero (“Thankee, you no likee other white devils”). Also, the fact that people tend to be visual learners is a major reason for the prevalence of racism in society today. When Average Joe sees (for instance) an orange person being loud, his mind tends work in terms of: This person has orange skin, and this person is loud, so [orange = loud]. Couple this with poor or never learned critical thinking skills, and you get racist stereotypes.

I see no current trend towards comic book learning in schools, but would urge new or prospective parents to consider the benefits of including them in your child’s education.