When I was in the fifth grade, I bought an issue of "DC Comics Presents #57" off of a spinner rack at my local bookstore, and that comic book changed my life. The combination of words and pictures did something inside my head that had never been done before, and I immediately fell in love with the medium of comics. I became a voracious comic book reader, but I never brought them to school. Instinctively, I knew that comic books didn't belong in the classroom. My parents definitely were not fans, and I was certain that my teachers wouldn't be either. After all, they never used them to teach, comic books and graphic novels were never allowed during silent sustained reading, and they were never sold at our annual book fair. Even so, I kept reading comics, and I even started making them. Eventually I became a published cartoonist, writing and drawing comic books for a living.
Kada sam bio u 5. razredu, kupio sam izdanje "DC Comics predstavlja #57" s vrtećeg stalka u lokalnoj knjižari i taj strip mi je promijenio život. Zbog spoja riječi i slika, u mojoj se glavi dogodilo nešto što se nikad prije nije dogodilo i odmah sam se zaljubio u stripove. Počeo sam proždrljivo čitati stripove, ali nikada ih nisam nosio u školu. Instinktivno sam znao da stripovima nije mjesto u učionici. Moji roditelji to nisu podržavali i bio sam siguran da neće ni moji profesori. Ne koriste ih za poučavanje, stripovi i grafički romani nikada nisu bili dopušteni kao štivo za čitanje i nikada se nisu prodavali na godišnjem sajmu knjiga. Unatoč tome, nastavio sam čitati stripove, a čak sam ih počeo i izrađivati. Postao sam objavljivani crtač karikatura, pisanjem i crtanjem stripova zarađujući za život.
I also became a high school teacher. This is where I taught: Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland, California. I taught a little bit of math and a little bit of art, but mostly computer science, and I was there for 17 years. When I was a brand new teacher, I tried bringing comic books into my classroom. I remember telling my students on the first day of every class that I was also a cartoonist. It wasn't so much that I was planning to teach them with comics, it was more that I was hoping comics would make them think that I was cool.
Postao sam i profesor u srednjoj školi. Evo gdje sam predavao: Srednja škola Bishop O'Dowd u Oaklandu, Kalifornija. Predavao sam malo matematike i malo likovnog, ali najviše informatiku i radio sam tamo 17 godina. Kada sam tek postao profesor, pokušao sam donijeti stripove na sat. Sjećam se da sam prvog dana svim učenicima govorio da sam također i karikaturist. Nisam ih mislio podučavati pomoću stripova, samo sam se nadao da će zbog stripova misliti da sam kul.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
I was wrong. This was the '90s, so comic books didn't have the cultural cachet that they do today. My students didn't think I was cool. They thought I was kind of a dork. And even worse, when stuff got hard in my class, they would use comic books as a way of distracting me. They would raise their hands and ask me questions like, "Mr. Yang, who do you think would win in a fight, Superman or the Hulk?"
Bio sam u krivu. To su bile 90-te i stripovi nisu imali takav kulturni pečat kakav imaju danas. Moji učenici nisu mislili da sam kul. Mislili su da sam nekakav šmokljan. Još gore, kada bi došlo do problema na satu, koristili su stripove kako bi mi odvukli pažnju. Digli bi ruke i pitali me nešto poput, "G. Yang, što mislite tko bi pobijedio, Superman ili Hulk?"
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
I very quickly realized I had to keep my teaching and my cartooning separate. It seemed like my instincts in fifth grade were correct. Comic books didn't belong in the classroom.
Brzo sam shvatio da moram odvojiti predavanje i stripove. Izgleda da su moji instinkti u 5. razredu bili točni. Stripovima nije mjesto u učionici.
But again, I was wrong. A few years into my teaching career, I learned firsthand the educational potential of comics. One semester, I was asked to sub for this Algebra 2 class. I was asked to long-term sub it, and I said yes, but there was a problem. At the time, I was also the school's educational technologist, which meant every couple of weeks I had to miss one or two periods of this Algebra 2 class because I was in another classroom helping another teacher with a computer-related activity. For these Algebra 2 students, that was terrible. I mean, having a long-term sub is bad enough, but having a sub for your sub? That's the worst. In an effort to provide some sort of consistency for my students, I began videotaping myself giving lectures. I'd then give these videos to my sub to play for my students. I tried to make these videos as engaging as possible. I even included these little special effects. For instance, after I finished a problem on the board, I'd clap my hands, and the board would magically erase.
No, opet, bio sam u krivu. Nakon nekoliko godina predavanja, iz prve ruke sam naučio obrazovni potencijal stripova. Jedno polugodište morao sam mijenjati kolegu iz matematike. Trebala je to biti dugotrajna zamjena na koju sam pristao, ali postojao je problem. U to vrijeme bio sam i školski edukator za tehnologiju, što znači da sam svakih nekoliko tjedana morao propustiti sat ili dva tih sati matematike, jer sam u drugoj učionici pomagao nekom profesoru u odrađivanju aktivnosti na računalu. To je bilo grozno za učenike na satima matematike. Dovoljno je grozno što imaju zamjenu, ali imati zamjenu za zamjenu? To je najgora stvar. Kako bih učenicima dao osjećaj kontinuiteta, počeo sam se snimati kako predajem. Zatim bih te snimke dao svojoj zamjeni da ih pusti učenicima. Pokušao sam te snimke učiniti što zanimljivijima. Čak sam dodao i male specijalne efekte. Primjerice, nakon što riješim problem na ploči, pljesnuo bih rukama i ploča bi se sama obrisala.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
I thought it was pretty awesome. I was pretty certain that my students would love it, but I was wrong.
Mislio sam da je to super. Bio sam prilično siguran da će se to učenicima svidjeti, ali bio sam u krivu.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
These video lectures were a disaster. I had students coming up to me and saying things like, "Mr. Yang, we thought you were boring in person, but on video, you are just unbearable."
Te snimke predavanja bile su katastrofa. Učenici bi mi prilazili i govorili, "G. Yang, mislili smo da ste dosadni uživo, ali na snimkama ste nepodnošljivi."
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
So as a desperate second attempt, I began drawing these lectures as comics. I'd do these very quickly with very little planning. I'd just take a sharpie, draw one panel after the other, figuring out what I wanted to say as I went. These comics lectures would come out to anywhere between four and six pages long, I'd xerox these, give them to my sub to hand to my students. And much to my surprise, these comics lectures were a hit. My students would ask me to make these for them even when I could be there in person. It was like they liked cartoon me more than actual me.
U očajničkom drugom pokušaju, počeo sam predavanja crtati kao stripove. Radio bih to jako brzo i bez previše planiranja. Uzeo bih flomaster, crtao sliku za slikom, u hodu odlučujući što želim. Ta predavanja u stripu imala bi između četiri i šest stranica, kopirao bih ih i dao svojoj zamjeni da podijeli mojim učenicima. Na moje veliko iznenađenje, ta predavanja u stripu bila su pun pogodak. Učenici bi me tražili da ih crtam čak i kada sam bio na nastavi. Kao da su me više voljeli u stripu nego u stvarnosti.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
This surprised me, because my students are part of a generation that was raised on screens, so I thought for sure they would like learning from a screen better than learning from a page. But when I talked to my students about why they liked these comics lectures so much, I began to understand the educational potential of comics. First, unlike their math textbooks, these comics lectures taught visually. Our students grow up in a visual culture, so they're used to taking in information that way. But unlike other visual narratives, like film or television or animation or video, comics are what I call permanent. In a comic, past, present and future all sit side by side on the same page. This means that the rate of information flow is firmly in the hands of the reader. When my students didn't understand something in my comics lecture, they could just reread that passage as quickly or as slowly as they needed. It was like I was giving them a remote control over the information. The same was not true of my video lectures, and it wasn't even true of my in-person lectures. When I speak, I deliver the information as quickly or slowly as I want. So for certain students and certain kinds of information, these two aspects of the comics medium, its visual nature and its permanence, make it an incredibly powerful educational tool.
Iznenadilo me jer su moji učenici generacija koja je odrasla pred zaslonima pa sam mislio da će im se više sviđati učenje preko zaslona nego s papira. No, kada sam s učenicima razgovarao o tome zašto toliko vole ta predavanja u stripu, počeo sam shvaćati obrazovni potencijal stripova. Prvo, za razliku od udžbenika iz matematike, uz stripove su učili vizualno. Naši učenici odrasli su u vizualnoj kulturi i naviknuti su tako primati nove informacije. No, za razliku od ostalih vizualnih priča, poput filma, televizije, animacije ili videa, stripovi su nešto što ja zovem trajnim. U stripu, prošlost, sadašnjost i budućnost nalaze se zajedno na istoj stranici. Znači da je brzina protoka informacija u rukama čitatelja. Kada učenici ne bi nešto razumjeli u mojim predavanjima u stripu, mogli su opet pročitati taj dio željenom brzinom. Kao da sam im dao daljinski upravljač za upravljanje informacijama. To nije vrijedilo za snimke mojih predavanja, čak ni za moja predavanja uživo. Kada govorim, dijelim informacije brzinom kojom ja to želim. Dakle, za neke učenike i neke vrste informacija, ove dvije karakteristike stripa, vizualnost i trajnost, čine ga nevjerojatno moćnim obrazovnim pomagalom.
When I was teaching this Algebra 2 class, I was also working on my master's in education at Cal State East Bay. And I was so intrigued by this experience that I had with these comics lectures that I decided to focus my final master's project on comics. I wanted to figure out why American educators have historically been so reluctant to use comic books in their classrooms. Here's what I discovered.
Kada sam podučavao matematiku, radio sam i diplomski rad iz obrazovanja na sveučilištu Cal State East Bay. Toliko me očaralo to iskustvo predavanja u obliku stripa, da sam odlučio pisati o stripovima u svom diplomskom radu. Želio sam otkriti zašto su američki profesori povijesno toliko neskloni upotrebi stripova u učionicama. Evo što sam otkrio.
Comic books first became a mass medium in the 1940s, with millions of copies selling every month, and educators back then took notice. A lot of innovative teachers began bringing comics into their classrooms to experiment. In 1944, the "Journal of Educational Sociology" even devoted an entire issue to this topic. Things seemed to be progressing. Teachers were starting to figure things out. But then along comes this guy. This is child psychologist Dr. Fredric Wertham, and in 1954, he wrote a book called "Seduction of the Innocent," where he argues that comic books cause juvenile delinquency.
Stripovi su 1940-ih postali masovni medij, kada su se mjesečno prodavali milijuni primjeraka i tadašnji profesori su to primijetili. Oni inovativniji počeli su uvoditi stripove u učionice u svrhu eksperimentiranja. 1944. godine, "Časopis o obrazovnoj sociologiji" čak je jedan cijeli broj posvetio toj temi. Činilo se da dolazi do napretka. Profesori su počeli shvaćati. No, onda se pojavio ovaj tip. Ovo je dječji psiholog Dr. Frederic Wertham, koji je 1954. napisao knjigu pod nazivom "Zavođenje nevinih", u kojoj govori da stripovi uzrokuju delinkvenciju kod maloljetnika.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
He was wrong. Now, Dr. Wertham was actually a pretty decent guy. He spent most of his career working with juvenile delinquents, and in his work he noticed that most of his clients read comic books. What Dr. Wertham failed to realize was in the 1940s and '50s, almost every kid in America read comic books.
Bio je u krivu. Dr. Wertham je, zapravo, bio prilično dobar tip. Većinu karijere radio je s maloljetnim delinkventima i u tom radu primijetio je da većina njegovih klijenata čita stripove. Ono što dr. Wertham nije shvatio, bilo je da je u 40-ima i 50-ima skoro svako dijete u Americi čitalo stripove.
Dr. Wertham does a pretty dubious job of proving his case, but his book does inspire the Senate of the United States to hold a series of hearings to see if in fact comic books caused juvenile delinquency. These hearings lasted for almost two months. They ended inconclusively, but not before doing tremendous damage to the reputation of comic books in the eyes of the American public.
Dr. Wertham je prilično nejasno dokazao svoju tvrdnju, no njegova knjiga potaknula je Senat SAD-a da održi nekoliko saslušanja kako bi vidjeli utječu li stripovi doista na delinkventnost maloljetnika. Ta saslušanja trajala su gotovo 2 mjeseca. Završila su neodređeno, ali su nanijela ogromnu štetu reputaciji stripova u očima američke javnosti.
After this, respectable American educators all backed away, and they stayed away for decades. It wasn't until the 1970s that a few brave souls started making their way back in. And it really wasn't until pretty recently, maybe the last decade or so, that comics have seen more widespread acceptance among American educators.
Nakon toga su se povukli svi američki profesori koji su držali do sebe i desetljećima se držali podalje. Tek je 1970-ih nekoliko hrabrih duša počelo raditi na povratku stripova. I zapravo su tek od nedavno, možda u zadnjem desetljeću, stripovi šire prihvaćeni među američkim profesorima.
Comic books and graphic novels are now finally making their way back into American classrooms and this is even happening at Bishop O'Dowd, where I used to teach. Mr. Smith, one of my former colleagues, uses Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" in his literature and film class, because that book gives his students the language with which to discuss the relationship between words and images. Mr. Burns assigns a comics essay to his students every year. By asking his students to process a prose novel using images, Mr. Burns asks them to think deeply not just about the story but also about how that story is told. And Ms. Murrock uses my own "American Born Chinese" with her English 1 students. For her, graphic novels are a great way of fulfilling a Common Core Standard. The Standard states that students ought to be able to analyze how visual elements contribute to the meaning, tone and beauty of a text.
Stripovi i grafički romani konačno se vraćaju u američke učionice, a to se događa i u školi Bishop O'Dowd gdje sam prije predavao. G. Smith, jedan moj bivši kolega, koristi knjigu Scotta McClouda "Razumijevanje stripova" na satu književnosti i filma, jer knjiga učenicima daje jezik pomoću kojeg mogu raspravljati o vezi između riječi i slika. G. Burns svake godine učenicima zadaje esej o stripovima. Tražeći od učenika da prozno djelo obrade koristeći slike, g. Burns traži od njih da duboko razmisle ne samo o priči, nego i o načinu na koji je priča ispričana. A gđa. Murrock koristi moju knjigu "Američki Kinez" na svom satu engleskog. Za nju su grafički romani odličan način da se ispuni Osnovni standard. Osnovni standard kaže da učenici moraju znati analizirati kako vizualni elementi doprinose značenju, tonu i ljepoti teksta.
Over in the library, Ms. Counts has built a pretty impressive graphic novel collection for Bishop O'Dowd. Now, Ms. Counts and all of her librarian colleagues have really been at the forefront of comics advocacy, really since the early '80s, when a school library journal article stated that the mere presence of graphic novels in the library increased usage by about 80 percent and increased the circulation of noncomics material by about 30 percent.
U knjižnici je gđa. Counts napravila prilično impresivnu zbirku grafičkih romana za školu Bishop O'Dowd. Gđa. Counts i njezini kolege u knjižnici bili su, zapravo, prvi zagovornici stripova, još od ranih 80-ih godina, kada je jedan članak u školskim novinama iznio podatak da je sama prisutnost grafičkih romana u knjižnici povećala promet knjižnice za oko 80% te posudbu ne-stripovske građe za oko 30%.
Inspired by this renewed interest from American educators, American cartoonists are now producing more explicitly educational content for the K-12 market than ever before. A lot of this is directed at language arts, but more and more comics and graphic novels are starting to tackle math and science topics. STEM comics graphics novels really are like this uncharted territory, ready to be explored.
Potaknuti ovim obnovljenim interesom američkih profesora, američki karikaturisti, sada više nego kada prije, stvaraju obrazovne sadržaje za škole. Većina je usmjerena na jezike, ali sve više stripova i grafičkih romana počinje se baviti matematikom i znanošću. STEM stripovi i grafički romani su, zapravo, neistraženi teritorij koji čeka da bude otkriven.
America is finally waking up to the fact that comic books do not cause juvenile delinquency.
Amerika konačno prihvaća činjenicu da stripovi ne uzrokuju maloljetničku delinkvenciju.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
That they really do belong in every educator's toolkit. There's no good reason to keep comic books and graphic novels out of K-12 education. They teach visually, they give our students that remote control. The educational potential is there just waiting to be tapped by creative people like you.
Da im je stvarno mjesto među nastavnim materijalima. Nema opravdanog razloga da se stripovi i grafički romani ne uvedu u sustav školskog obrazovanja. Poučavaju vizualno, daju našim učenicima daljinski upravljač. Obrazovni potencijal postoji i čeka da ga iskoriste kreativni ljudi poput vas.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)