Learning via comics

Comics – for most children the word is inextricably associated with the idea of leisure reading – Archie, Asterix and the like. But can comics become a part of the education process? As a learning tool? Sharad Sharma, an artist and activist who has been leading a 'Grassroots Comics', movement under the motto – anybody can draw – has been trying to do something along these lines for the past eight years in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Mizoram, Assam, and Delhi.

In Chhattisgarh, where he has been working for two years, Sharma has trained 120 teachers from government schools in Dhamtari, Ambikapur and Narayanpur districts, to convert lessons and academic topics into comics. As a result, comics have been introduced in the classes 6,7 and 8 curriculum at these schools. It used as a medium of instruction and students are taught how to create their own comics. These schools use the two comic books published by UNICEF and Sarva Siksha Abhiyan on chapters from English, Maths, Science, Sanskrit and Social Science textbooks. Both classwork and homework are done in the form of comics, making it engaging for students in government schools in these backward areas which have high dropout rates and poor learning levels.

Sharma, who started out as a cartoonist and print journalist in the early 1990s, was actively involved in reporting on development issues from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and the Northeast. He began 'Grassroots Comics' sometime in the mid-1990s and through it, has started national and international campaigns against corporal punishment, the stereotyping of Northeasterners, gender bias, encouraging children's participation in local governance. Forty-four-year-old Sharma's objective is to inculcate the habit of reading and writing in children. The kids, for their part, are so enthusiastic that many of them have begun buying the black gel pen and sketch pen required to make the comics.

"Sometimes they drew comic strips on chapters that weren't even taught in the class."

Teachers, too, are enthusiastic. "A child named Majnu who used to run away from class and fail in exams passed every exam this time and I showed his marksheet to everyone," says Ranjita Sengupta, a school teacher. It's more fun, after all, to draw than to simply read and cram.