Comics, as well as cartoons, are an integral part of today’s world. It’s
almost impossible to walk a mile without our eyes getting stuck on some ad
featuring a comic or a character. Modern world has grown so much in its use of
pictures (moving or still) that we find ourselves embedded in a virtual reality
most of the time. So much is the importance of graphics and pictures that now a
days it is an essential part of the education systems all over the world. It is
one of the basic facts of education that children can be taught through the
medium of cartoons and comics both essentially the same because they tell
things using pictures. But, at the same time, the puritans in the academic
world run a silent campaign against this newly found importance of the pictures.
Whatever those debates may be, it has become an established fact that the use
of pictures could be an easier way of teaching things to children since they
seem to be paying more attention to these rather than the boring bunch of words
in lessons.
In my opinion, comics and cartoons should also be incorporated in the book
reading sessions in schools so that the students will get a better chance to
understand the importance of the ‘picture culture’ prevailing around us and how
new studies revolving around this new culture has been established in the
academic circles.The whole new field of animation and advertising had been in
the top of all the creative fields that we enjoy it almost every day without
even realizing it.
Cartoons can be used as ‘visual aids’ in classrooms by teachers as an
easier way of explaining concepts. For example, editorial cartoons from a
particular period in the past could be used as an interesting way of looking at
the history of that period.
The above given picture shows a student giving a reason for his
inability to solve a mathematical problem due to his lack of the ‘math gene’
from his DNA.
Napoleon Bonaparte had once said that a picture is worth a thousand
words. But, I believe that one cannot exist without the other. So, comics and cartoons
could be a medium for an easier acquisition of knowledge.
