Article on Comics and Education from Memeticians

Nice write-up on comics and literacy featuring my friend and colleague Michael Bitz. It actually names some of the contemporary "opposition" to comics and literacy work, namely Diane Ravitch, who may change her mind on the subject one day, as, refreshingly, that's been her m.o. as of late.

The author states, "What I don't need is research to tell me that using comic books in the classroom works or doesn't work (being that most research about education is disconnected from the classroom anyway). I am living, walking proof that it works."

That's good for folks like him and me, but not everyone is as amenable to letting us be sufficient evidence.

I'm sympathetic to being "anti-research" in that some educators and teacher educators define it very, very narrowly, privileging the perspectives and ideas of the few, but I also accept the idea of "research on the go" or "teaching-based research" or "action research" or "research lite" or whatever you want to call it when teachers talk about what they do in their classroom or what they think might work based on multiple knowledge bases they've acquired. I'd like to think at the heart of pure research is creativity and curiosity, the kind that makes rules rather than follows them, the same kind of curiosity and creativity that ought to be at the center of education, which might be why comics work so well in pedagogical settings.

Anyway, the story is a nice little read. Check it out by clicking the title to this post.