The power of graphic novels and comics

If we go back in human history time, we can see that the old days are an illustration of images which recite each unique event that occurred in our world or in our own lives. If we think, images antedated writing and it is believed that they have served a source for words. Moreover, in the earliest civilisations, nearly most of inhabitants were illiterate for the reason that reading was an activity that just rich people have access to. Alternatively of written announcements, in many cases cartoons and draws were used as a modest way to communicate ideas, feelings and thoughts to the working class populace. Considering that, the act of visualizing and conceiving the world through images by adding colour and shapes it is been a fundamental part of our nature.

 

 Although there is a little doubt about how the origin of comics and graphic novels emerged, we can say that its roots come from the days of pre historic man, when individuals told stories by utilizing images as a substitute of text. 

 Now, looking at our society in the current days, I ask myself why images have lost interest among the people. Why the current societies of the world do not include graphic novels and comics in the curricula? Is there any specific reason why our society has left behind a powerful source which has proved to be beneficial to our people?

 Well, in order to answer these questions, I would like to mention that when I was searching for the history of graphic novels and comics I found that there is lot of evidence of the advantages of including these materials in the educational field, however if we look at the current curricula of our education there is little not to say nothing about graphic novels and comics.

I sincerely believe that this has to do with the society that we live in and the people who control certain aspects and fields of our society such as the educational field. If we look around, we can see that for the elite powers there is no convenience for them to include these types of materials due to its positive impact in young generations. These materials such the graphics novels and comics can be use to educate from little children to adults in order to develop their thinking process, to develop their cognitive abilities and to build complex reading skills. In addition, they do not just promote academic skills, but they also prompt the critical thinking capacity and the abstract thinking capacity.

All in all, as pre-service teachers we need to be aware of how our current education is manipulated by the great powers, but more important we do need to have certain strategies in order to make a revolution inside our classroom. In other words, we need to be able to influence our students by providing them the right materials so our students will be able to think for themselves, we do not need to follow the traditional course, but we can take courage and include useful and powerful material that will make a difference in our students’ lives such as graphic novels and comics.