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When I was in the fifth grade,

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I bought an issue
of DC Comics Presents #57

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off of a spinner rack
at my local bookstore,

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and that comic book changed my life.

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The combination of words and pictures
did something inside my head

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that had never been done before,

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and I immediately fell in love
with the medium of comics.

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I became a voracious comic book reader,

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but I never brought them to school.

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Instinctively, I knew that comic books
didn't belong in the classroom.

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My parents definitely were not fans,

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and I was certain that my teachers
wouldn't be either.

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After all, they never used them to teach,

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comic books and graphic novels were never
allowed during silent sustained reading,

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and they were never sold
at our annual book fair.

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Even so, I kept reading comics,

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and I even started making them.

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Eventually I became a published cartoonist

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writing and drawing
comic books for a living.

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I also became a high school teacher.

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This is where I taught:

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Bishop O'Dowd High School
in Oakland, California.

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I taught a little bit of math
and a little bit of art,

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but mostly computer science,

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and I was there for 17 years.

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When I was brand new teacher,

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I tried bringing comic books
into my classroom.

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I remember telling my students
on the first day of every class

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that I was also a cartoonist.

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It wasn't so much that I was planning
to teach them with comics,

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it was more that I was hoping comics
would make them think that I was cool.

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(Laughter)

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I was wrong.

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This was the '90s,

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so comic books didn't have
the cultural cache that they do today.

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My students didn't think I was cool.
They thought I was kind of a dork.

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And even worse, when stuff
got hard in my class,

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they would use comic books
as a way of distracting me.

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They would raise their hands
and me questions like,

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"Mr. Yang, who do you think
would win in a fight,

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Superman or the Hulk?"

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(Laughter)

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I very quickly realized I had to keep
my teaching and my cartooning separate.

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It seemed like my instincts
in fifth grade were correct.

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Comic books didn't belong
in the classroom.

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But again, I was wrong.

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A few years into my teaching career,

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I learned firsthand
the educational potential of comics.

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One semester, I was asked to sub
for this Algebra 2 class.

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I was asked to long-term sub it,
and I said yes, but there was a problem.

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At the time, I was also the school's
educational technologist,

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which meant every couple of weeks

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I had to miss one or two periods
of this Algebra 2 class

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because I was in another classroom
helping another teacher

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with a computer-related activity.

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For these Algebra 2 students,
that was terrible.

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I mean, having a long-term
sub is bad enough,

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but having a sub for your sub?
That's the worst.

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In an effort to provide some sort
of consistency for my students,

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I began videotaping
myself giving lectures.

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I'd then give these videos to my sub
to play for my students.

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I tried to make these videos
as engaging as possible.

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I even included these
little special effects.

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For instance, after I finished
a problem on the board,

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I'd clap my hands,

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and the board would magically erase.

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(Laughter)

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I thought it was pretty awesome.

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I was pretty certain
that my students would love it,

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but I was wrong.

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(Laughter)

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These video lectures were a disaster.

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I had students coming up to me
and saying things like,

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"Mr. Yang, we thought
you were boring in person,

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but on video, you are just unbearable."

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(Laughter)

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So as a desperate second attempt,
I began drawing these lectures as comics.

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I'd do these very quickly
with very little planning.

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I'd just take a sharpie,
draw one panel after the other,

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figuring out what I wanted
to say as I went.

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These comics lectures would come out to
anywhere between four and six pages long,

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I'd xerox these, give them to my sub

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to hand to my students,

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and much to my surprise,

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these comics lectures were a hit.

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My students would ask me
to make these for them

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even when I could be there in person.

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It was like they liked cartoon me
more than actual me.

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(Laughter)

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This surprised me, because my students
are part of a generation

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that was raised on screens,

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so I thought for sure they would like
learning from a screen

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better than learning from a page,

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but when I talked to my students

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about why they liked
these comics lectures so much,

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I began to understand
the educational potential of comics.

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First, unlike their math textbooks,

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these comics lectures taught visually.

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Our students grow up in a visual culture,

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so they're used to taking in
information that way.

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But unlike other visual narratives,

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like film or television
or animation or video,

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comics are what I call permanent.

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In a comic, past, present, and future
all sit side by side on the same page.

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This means that the rate
of information flow

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is firmly in the hands of the reader.

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When my students didn't understand
something in my comics lecture,

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they could just reread that passage
as quickly or as slowly as they needed.

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It was like I was giving them
a remote control over the information.

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The same was not true of my video lectures

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and it wasn't even true
of my in-person lectures.

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When I speak, I deliver the information
as quickly or slowly as I want.

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So for certain students
and certain kinds of information,

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these two aspects of the comics medium,
its visual nature and its permanence,

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make it an incredibly powerful
educational tool.

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When I was teaching this Algebra 2 class,

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I was also working on my Masters
in Education at Cal State East Bay,

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and I was so intrigued by this experience
that I had with these comics lectures

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that I decided to focus
my final Masters project on comics.

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I wanted to figure out
why American educators

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have historically been so reluctant
to use comic books in their classrooms.

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Here's what I discovered.

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Comic books first became
a mass medium in the 1940s,

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with millions of copies
selling every month,

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and educators back then took notice.

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A lot of innovative teachers began
bringing comics into their classrooms

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to experiment.

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In 1944, the Journal
of Educational Sociology

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even devoted an entire issue
to this topic.

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Things seemed to be progressing.

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Teachers were starting
to figure things out.

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But then along comes this guy.

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This is child psychologist
Dr. Fredric Wertham,

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and in 1954, he wrote a book
called "Seduction of the Innocent,"

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where he argues that comic books
cause juvenile delinquency.

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(Laughter)

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He was wrong.

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Now, Dr. Wertham was actually
a pretty decent guy.

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He spent most of his career
working with juvenile delinquents,

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and in his work he noticed
that most of his clients read comic books.

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What Dr. Wertham failed to realize
was in the 1940s and '50s,

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almost every kid in America
read comic books.

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Dr. Wertham does a pretty
dubious job of proving his case,

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but his book does inspire
the Senate of the United States

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to hold a series of hearings

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to see if in fact comic books
cause juvenile delinquency.

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These hearings lasted
for almost two months.

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They ended inconclusively,
but not before doing tremendous damage

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to the reputation of comic books
in the eyes of the American public.

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After this, respectable American
educators all backed away,

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and they stayed away for decades.

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It wasn't until the 1970s
that a few brave souls

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started making their way back in,

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and it really wasn't
until pretty recently,

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maybe the last decade or so,

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that comics have seen
more widespread acceptance

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among American educators.

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Comic books and graphic novels are now
finally making their way

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back into American classrooms,

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and this is even happening
at Bishop O'Dowd, where I used to teach.

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Mr. Smith, one of my former colleagues,

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uses Scott McCloud's
"Understanding Comics"

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in his literature and film class,
because that book gives his students

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the language with which to discuss
the relationship between words and images.

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Mr. Burns assigns a comics essay
to his students every year.

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By asking his students to process
a prose novel using images,

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Mr. Burns asks them to think deeply

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not just about the story

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but also about how that story is told.

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And Ms. Murrock uses my own
"American Born Chinese"

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with her English 1 students.

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For her, graphic novels
are a great way of fulfilling

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a Common Core Standard.

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The Standard states that students
ought to be able to analyze

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how visual elements contribute
to the meaning, tone and beauty of a text.

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Over in the library, Mr. ??
has built a pretty impressive

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graphic novel collection
for Bishop O'Dowd.

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Now, Ms. ?? and all
of her librarian colleagues

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have really been at the forefront
of comics advocacy,

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really since the early '80s,
when a school library journal article

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stated that the mere presence
of graphic novels in the library

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increased usage by about 80 percent,

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and increased the circulation
of non-comics material

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by about 30 percent.

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Inspired by this renewed interest
from American educators,

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American cartoonists are now producing
more explicitly educational content

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for the K-12 market than ever before.

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A lot of this is directed
at language arts,

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but more and more comics
and graphic novels

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are starting to tackle
math and science topics.

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STEM comics graphics novels
really are like this uncharted territory,

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ready to be explored.

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America is finally waking up to the fact
that comic books do not cause

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juvenile delinquency,

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that they really do belong
in every educator's toolkit.

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There's no good reason to keep
comic books and graphic novels

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out of K-12 education.

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They teach visually,

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they give our students
that remote control.

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The educational potential is there

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just waiting to be tapped

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by creative people like you.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)