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.
当我上五年级的时候, 我在我当地的书店里买了一本 “DC Comics Presents”系列57话, 那本书改变了我的人生。 那些文字和图片在我的脑海里 打下深深的烙印, 我在那时爱上了漫画。 我成为了一个狂热的漫画读者, 但是我从未把它们带到学校去过。 我有一种直觉,漫画书不属于课堂。 我的父母都不是漫画的粉丝, 可以肯定的是,我的老师们也不是。 总而言之,他们从未使用漫画书来教学, 在静读课上漫画书 和视觉文学都是不被允许的。 它们也不会出现在每年的书展上。 即便如此,我坚持阅读漫画, 我甚至开始自己创作。 最终,我成为了一个出版漫画家, 通过写作和绘画漫画为生。
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.
我也成为了一名高中老师。 这是我教书的地方: 加州奥克兰的O'Dowd天主教高中。 我教一点数学,一点艺术, 大部分时间教计算机, 我在那儿工作了17年了。 当我还是一名新老师的时候, 我试图将漫画书带进我的课堂。 我记得我会在上课第一天 告诉我的学生们 我也是一名漫画家。 我计划用漫画进行教学并不是重点, 重点是这样做会显得我很酷。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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?"
但是我错了。 那时是90年代, 所以说漫画书并没有 像是当代那种漫画文化。 我的学生并没有因此觉得我很酷, 他们觉得我很蠢。 更糟糕的是,教学变得很难。 他们会用漫画书来捣乱我的教学, 他们会举手并提问我问题,像是: “杨老师,您觉得要是打一场谁会赢, 超人还是浩克?”
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
我很快就意识到,我必须 要把我的教学和漫画区分开来, 就好似我五年级时候的直觉是正确的。 漫画书不属于课堂。
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.
但又一次的,我错了。 我开始教学后的几年当中, 我亲自体会了漫画教学的潜力。 有一个学期,我被安排 代上了一节代数2的课。 他们让我长期上这门课, 我也同意了,但是出现了一个问题。 在那时,我也是学校的教育技术人员, 这也就意味着每隔几周, 我就必定要错过一两节代数2的课, 因为我可能要 在另外一个教室帮助其他老师 从事电脑相关的活动。 这对于上代数2的学生来说 是极其糟糕的。 我的意思是,长期代课就会很糟。 代课再找人代课 那就是最糟糕的情况了。 为了能帮助我的学生们 找到一定的连续感, 我开始给上课的自己录像, 然后我将这些视频交给 我的代课老师,让他们播放视频。 我尽可能的让视频课变得有趣。 我还专门加了些小特效。 比如说,在我在黑板上 解释完一道题目之后, 我就会一鼓掌, 然后黑板上的字就会魔术般的消失。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
I thought it was pretty awesome. I was pretty certain that my students would love it, but I was wrong.
我认为那还挺神奇的, 我很确定我的学生们会很喜欢的, 但是我又错了。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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."
视频讲座就是一场灾难。 我有学生来找我,然后这样说: “杨老师,我们觉得您挺无聊的, 但是视频上,那就真的是不能忍了。“
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
所以作为一个绝望的第二次尝试, 我开始把我的讲座画成漫画。 我在很短的时间里 也没有过多的计划, 我就是找了只记号笔 一个一个板子的画, 一边想一边写。 这些漫画式的讲座一般都会是 四到六页纸的长度。 我会复印这些,并把它们给我的 代课老师来分发给我的学生们。 让我吃惊的是, 这些漫画讲堂十分受欢迎。 即使当我在的时候, 我的学生也会要求我 为他们制作这些漫画, 就好像比起真人,他们还是 更喜欢漫画中的我。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
这样我很震惊,因为我的这一代学生, 他们是看着银屏长大的。 所以我就想当然,相比纸质材料, 他们一定能够从银幕上学的更好。 但是当我与我的学生交流时, 问及他们为何如此喜欢这些漫画讲堂, 我就开始意识到漫画的教育潜力了。 首先,不同于数学课本, 这些漫画讲堂是一种视觉形式。 我们的孩子在一个视觉文化中长大, 所以他们习惯于以这种方式接受信息, 但是又不同于其他视觉形式。 像是影片,电视或者是动漫,视频, 漫画书,让我说,就是永恒的。 在漫画当中,过去、现在和未来 都可以并排出现在同一页当中, 这就意味着信息接受的速度, 完全是由读者掌控的。 当我的学生不理解 我漫画讲堂中的内容时, 他们可以根据需求快速的或是 缓慢的重新阅读那部分文段, 这就像是我给他们提供了远程的 信息操作能力一样。 但是我的视频课就不是这样了, 甚至是我的真人课也无法做到这一点。 当我说话的时候,传递信息的快慢 是由我自身决定的。 所以,对于某些学生和特定的信息, 漫画所具有的两种特质: 视觉效果和持续性, 让它成为了一个异常强大的教育工具。
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.
当我教授这门代数2的课的时候, 我也同时在加州州立大学东湾分校 攻读我的教育学硕士学位。 因为这个经历 我被这种漫画课堂的形式深深吸引, 最终决定在研究生毕业项目中 专注于漫画。 我想要知道为什么历史上, 美国的教育者们总是不情愿 在他们的课堂上使用漫画。 这就是我所发现的。
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.
漫画书最先普及于上世纪40年代, 每月都有几百万份的复印本售出, 当时的教育者们就注意到了这点, 很多具有创新精神的老师 都将漫画书实验性的 带进了他们的课堂。 在1944年,《教育社会学周刊》 甚至为这个话题出了专栏, 事情似乎在进步着, 教师们开始悟出一些道理。 但是随后,出现了这样一个人, 儿童心理学家,弗雷德里克·魏特汉。 在1954年出了一本书 叫做《对纯真的诱惑》。 在其中他辩及了漫画书 会导致青少年犯罪。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
他错了, 事实上,维特汉博士 其实是个不错的人, 他大半生都在从事 和青少年犯罪相关的事业。 在他的工作中,他注意到了 他大部分的客户都读漫画书。 但是维特汉博士错在在四五十年代, 几乎每个美国孩子都读漫画书。
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.
维特汉博士的论证工作令人怀疑, 但是他的书的确给了美国参议院灵感, 举办了一系列的听证会 来研究是否漫画会导致青少年犯罪。 这些听证会持续了将近两个月。 他们就不了了之了,但是这也 已经对于美国大众眼中 漫画书的形象造成了巨大的伤害。
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.
在此之后,著名的 美国教育家们就都不干了。 他们躲了几十年。 直到1970年, 几个勇敢的人开始重新使用漫画, 但是真正的尝试也是直到最近, 也许是最近10年这样, 漫画书终于在美国教育家之中 得到了更加广泛的认同。
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.
漫画书和视觉文学现在终于重新进入了 美国的教室当中。 转变甚至发生在了O'Dowd天主教学校, 就是我曾经工作的学校。 史密斯先生,我以前的一个同事, 使用了斯科特·麦克劳德的 《理解连环漫画》, 在他的文学和影视课上。 因为那本书提供了 帮助学生讨论文字 与图像关系的词汇和表达。 伯恩斯先生则是每年都布置一篇 漫画论文给他的学生。 他要求他的学生们用图像 来解读诗和散文。 伯恩斯先生要求他们深入思考, 不仅仅是关于故事, 也是关于故事的叙述方法。 莫洛克小姐则是借鉴了我的ABC的情况 来教导她英语1的学生。 举个例子,视觉文学, 在很大程度上满足了“共同核心标准”, 标准提出学生应该能够分析出 视觉因素是如何帮助理解 文章的深意,语气和唯美感。
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.
在图书馆中,康茨女士更是 为O'Dowd天主高中 建了一个很大的视觉阅读区。 现在,康茨女士和她的 所有的图书馆同事们 都已经在漫画宣传的前沿了。 特别是在80年代早期 学校图书周刊一篇文章指出 仅仅是视觉文学在图书馆的出现, 就增加了图书馆近八成的使用量, 同时也增加了非漫画书籍流动量, 。
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.
受到了美国教育家们 对于漫画新一轮的认识, 美国漫画家们已经开始越来越明显的 将带有教育意义的漫画 投入12岁以下儿童市场, 大部分的是针对语言艺术学科的, 但是越来越多的漫画和视觉文学, 也开始进入数学和科学领域。 STEM领域的视觉艺术 就仿佛一面未知领土, 有待探索。
America is finally waking up to the fact that comic books do not cause juvenile delinquency.
美国终于觉醒了, 意识到漫画书 是不会导致青少年犯罪的。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
它们确实应该被放在 所有教育工作者的工具箱中, 把漫画书和视觉文学 从12岁以下儿童教育中拿走 是不合理的。 它们做到了视觉教学, 给了我们的学生们远程控制。 教育的潜力就在那里, 就等着在坐的富有创造力的你们 去揭晓了。
Thank you.
谢谢大家。
(Applause)
(掌声)