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 išao u peti razred, kupio sam 57. izdanje „DC Comics Presents“ sa stalka u lokalnoj knjižari i taj strip mi je promenio život. Kombinacija reči i slika je uradila nešto u mojoj glavi što se nikad do tada nije desilo. Momentalno sam se zaljubio u stripove i postao sam halapljivi čitalac stripova, ali ih nikada nisam donosio u školu. Instiktivno sam znao da stripovima nije mesto u učionici. Moji roditelji definitivno nisu bili ljubitelji stripa, pa sam bio ubeđen da ni moji nastavnici ne bi bili. Uostalom, nisu ih nikad koristili za predavanje, stripovi i grafički romani nikad nisu bili dozvoljeni tokom ekstenzivnog čitanja, i nikada nisu bili prodavani na našem godišnjem sajmu knjiga. Uprkos tome, ja sam nastavio da čitam stripove, čak sam počeo i da ih pravim. Vremenom sam postao crtač stripova, koji je zarađivao pišući i crtajući stripove.
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.
Takođe sam postao i nastavnik u srednjoj školi. Ovde sam predavao: srednja škola „Biskup O'Daud”, u Oklandu u Kaliforniji. Predavao sam malo matematiku i malo umetnost, ali većinom informatiku, i tamo sam radio 17 godina. Kada sam tek počinjao raditi, pokušao sam da uvedem stripove u učionicu. Sećam se kako bih prvog dana škole učenicima svih razreda govorio da sam ja takođe i crtač stripova. Nisam time planirao da počnem da ih učim iz stripova, nego sam se više nadao da će zbog stripova smatrati da sam kul.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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?"
Pogrešio sam. Ovo su bile '90-e, tako da stripovi nisu baš imali onaj kulturološki status koji imaju danas. Moji učenici nisu smatrali da sam kul. Mislili su da sam neka vrsta autsajdera. Još gore, kada bi gradivo postalo teško, koristili bi stripove da mi skrenu pažnju. Podizali bi ruke i pitali me pitanja tipa: „Gospodine Jeng, šta mislite, ko bi pobedio u borbi, Supermen ili Hulk?”
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
Veoma brzo sam shvatio da moram razdvojiti predavanje od stripova. Izgledalo je da je moj instikt iz petog razreda bio ispravan. Stripovima nije bilo mesta 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.
Ipak, pogrešio sam. Nakon par godina predavanja, saznao sam iz prve ruke koji je obrazovni potencijal stripova. Jednog polugodišta, zamolili su me da predajem na zameni algebru 2. Zatražili su da predajem na duži rok, i ja sam pristao. Ali postojao je problem. U to vreme, ja sam takođe bio i školski obrazovni tehnolog, što je značilo da bih svakih nekoliko nedelja morao da propustim par časova algebre 2, zato što bih bio u drugoj učionici pomažući drugom nastavniku sa njegovom aktivnosti vezanom za kompjutere. Za učenike koji su pohađali algebru 2, to je bilo užasno. Ionako je dovoljno strašno imati dugoročnu zamenu, ali imati zamenu za zamenu, to je bila najgora opcija. Da bih obezbedio makar neki kontinuitet svojim učenicima, počeo sam da snimam svoja predavanja. Tada bih ove snimke dao mojoj zameni da ih pušta mojim učenicima. Trudio sam se da ovi snimci budu što zanimljiviji. Čak sam uključio i specijalne efekte. Na primer, kada bih završio zadatak na tabli, pljesnuo bih rukama, i tabla bi se magično izbrisala.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
I thought it was pretty awesome. I was pretty certain that my students would love it, but I was wrong.
Ja sam smatrao da je to baš fenomenalno. Bio sam prilično siguran da će se dopasti mojim učenicima, ali sam pogrešio.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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."
Ova video-predavanja su bila katastrofa. Učenici su mi dolazili i govorili: „Gospodine Jeng, mi smo mislili da ste uživo dosadni, ali na snimku ste nepodnošljivi.”
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
Kao očajnički, drugi pokušaj, počeo sam da crtam predavanja kao stripove. Radio bih veoma brzo, sa malo planiranja. Uzeo bih olovku i crtao jednu scenu za drugom, stvarajući koncept u hodu. Ova predavanja u vidu stripova su imala od četiri do šest strana. Kopirao bih ih i dao mojoj zameni da ih podeli učenicima. Na moje iznenađenje, ova predavanja u obliku stripa su bila pun pogodak. Moji učenici su tražili da ih pravim čak i kada sam bio prisutan na času. Izgledalo je kao da im se ja u stripu više dopadam nego stvaran ja.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
Ovo me je iznenadilo, zato što su moji učenici deo generacije koja je odrasla uz ekrane, pa sam bio ubeđen da će pre želeti da uče sa ekrana nego sa stranice. Ali kada sam pričao sa mojim učenicima zašto toliko vole ova stripovna predavanja, počeo sam da shvatam obrazovni potencijal stripova. Prvo, za razliku od njihovih udžbenika iz matematike, ova predavanja u obliku stripa su ih učila vizualno. Naši učenici su odrasli u vizualnoj kulturi, pa su navikli da primaju informacije na taj način. Za razliku od ostalih oblika vizualne naracije, kao što su film, televizija, animacija ili video, stripovi su, kako ja volim da kažem, trajni. U stripovima prošlost, sadašnjost i budućnost sede na istoj stranici. Što znači da je brzina protoka informacija čvrsto u rukama čitaoca. Kada moji učenici nešto ne bi razumeli u mojim predavanjima u obliku stripa, mogli su jednostavno ponovo pročitati pasus onom brzinom koja im je potrebna. To je bilo kao da sam im dao daljinski upravljač za informacije. Što nije bio slučaj sa mojim video-predavanjima, pa čak ni sa mojim predavanjima uživo. Kada predajem, ja informacije iznosim brzinom kojom ja želim. Za određene učenike i za određene informacije, ova dva aspekta stripa kao medija, njegova vizualna priroda i trajnost, su ga učinile neverovatno moćnom obrazovnom alatkom.
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.
Dok sam predavao algebru 2, pohađao sam master studije obrazovanja na Kalifornijskom univerzitetu Istočnog zaliva. Toliko sam bio impresioniran iskustvom sa predavanjima u obliku stripa da sam odlučio da tema mog master rada budu stripovi. Želeo sam da shvatim zašto su američki nastavnici toliko dugo protivili upotrebi stripova na svojim časovima. Evo šta 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.
Strip se kao medijum pojavio 1940-ih, kada je prodavano milion primeraka mesečno, što su tadašnji nastavnici primetili. Mnogi inovativni nastavnici su počeli donositi stripove na svoje časove, kao eksperiment. Godine 1944, „Časopis sociologije obrazovanja” čak je posvetio čitavo izdanje ovoj temi. Stvari su naizgled napredovale. Nastavnici su počeli da shvataju. Ali onda se pojavljuje ovaj čovek. Ovo je dečiji psiholog, dr Fredrik Vertam, koji je 1954. godine napisao knjigu „Zavođenje nevinih”, gde iznosi tvrdnje da su stripovi uzrok maloletne delikvencije.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
Pogrešio je. Dr Vertam je u suštini bio veoma pristojan čovek. Veći deo svoje karijere je proveo radeći sa maloletnim delikventima, i u svom radu je primetio da većina njegovih klijenata čita stripove. Ono što je dr Vertamu promaklo je da je u 1940-im i '50-im skoro svako dete 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 Vertam prilično neuverljivo iznosi svoju tvrdnju, ali je ova knjiga inspirisala Senat Sjedinjenih Američkih Država da održi niz saslušanja kako bi proverili da li stvarno stripovi prouzrokuju maloletničku delikvenciju. Ova saslušanja su trajala skoro dva meseca. Završila su se bez zaključka, ali ne pre nego što su naneli ogromnu štetu reputaciji stripa 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 ovoga, ugledni američki nastavnici su se povukli, i držali su se decenijama po strani. Tek 1970-ih nekoliko hrabrih duša ih je počelo vraćati natrag. A tek odnedavno, možda od prošle decenije ili tako nekako, stripovi su malo bolje prihvaćeni među američkim nastavnicima.
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 se sada konačno vraćaju natrag u američke učionice, čak i u Biskupu O'Daudu, gde sam ja predavao. Gospodin Smit, jedan od mojih bivših kolega, koristi knjigu „Razumevanje stripova" autora Skota Maklauda na svojim časovima književnosti i filma, zato što ta knjiga uči njegove učenike o vezi između reči i slika. Gospodin Berns svake godine učenicima dodeljuje esej u obliku stripa. Tražeći od njih da prepričaju roman koristeći slike, gospodin Berns od njih traži da razmišljaju dublje, ne samo o priči, nego i o načinu na koji je ona ispričana. A gospođa Marok koristi moj strip „Kinez rođen u Americi” sa učenicima engleskog 1. Po njoj, grafički romani su odličan način da bi se ispunili Zajednički državni standardi. Po ovim standardima, učenici bi trebalo da imaju sposobnost da analiziraju kako vizualni elementi doprinose značenju, tonu i lepoti 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 biblioteci, gospođa Kaunts je izgradila prilično impresivnu kolekciju grafičkih romana u Biskup O'Daudu. Gospođa Kaunts i sve njene kolege bibliotekari su zaista bili na prvoj liniji odbrane stripova, još od ranih '80-tih, kada je članak školskog bibliotekarskog časopisa potvrdio da je sama prisutnost grafičkih romana u biblioteci povećalo upotrebu za oko 80 procenata i povećalo cirkulaciju materijala koji nisu bili stripovi za oko 30 procenata.
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.
Inspirisani ovim ponovnim interesom američkih nastavnika, američki crtači stripova sada proizvode mnogo jasnije obrazovni sadržaj namenjen osnovnoškolskom i srednjoškolskom uzrastu. Mnogi su namenjeni jezičkim predmetima, ali sve više stripova i grafičkih romana počinju da se fokusiraju na matematiku i nauku. NTIM grafički romani su, u stvari, kao neotkrivena teritorija, spremna za istraživanje.
America is finally waking up to the fact that comic books do not cause juvenile delinquency.
Amerika konačno prihvata činjenicu da stripovi nisu uzrok maloletničke delikvencije.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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 oni zaista treba da budu deo alata svakog nastavnika. Ne postoji dobar razlog za držanje stripova i grafičkih romana podalje od osnovnoškolskog i srednjoškolskog obrazovanja. Oni uče vizualno i daju našim učenicima onaj daljinski upravljač. Obrazovni potencijal je tu, samo čeka da ga iskoristi neko od kreativnih ljudi kao što ste vi.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)