Comics can teach history: Educators

Comics can teach history: Educators

JAKARTA (JP): Educators on Saturday discussed ways to make
history lessons pleasant for children, suggesting that comic
books may be the breakthrough needed.

Frans M. Parera, a lecturer at the University of Indonesia's
School of Letters, said comic books could be an important and
interesting media for teachers to transfer historical values and
facts. "They can deliver serious messages without making the
readers bored," he said.

"Besides, it takes people more time to read text books. Modern
people are just too busy and don't have enough time to read books
full of text," he said at the How to Learn History Easy and
Pleasant seminar held by the Grasindo publishing house.

"Comics may not provide complete information, but an adequate
amount of information needed by busy people," he said. "If the
readers want to seek further and complete information, they can
look it up in books."

Parera rejected the suggestion that comics were for children
only.

"Comics are for all ages. In Japan, people make serious
comics, namely comics on business, politics and other
disciplines," he said.

Parera and the other speakers at the seminar, Anhar Gonggong
of the Ministry of Education and Culture and psychologist Sartono
Mukadis, agreed that history lessons in schools should improve.

Anhar said poor teaching methods were part of the reason that
students had a poor grasp of history: "There are too many
teachers who only read facts."

He suggested that teachers read as many books as possible to
broaden knowledge: "They should improve themselves, they should
not only read the books they are going to present in class."

Anhar called on teachers to be creative and experiment with
ways to transfer history lessons' messages, and to be brave at
interpreting materials. "History without interpretation leads to
history without vision," he said.

Sartono stressed that history lessons must be linked with
other disciplines so that students find them easier to digest.

"Teachers should do more than give historical facts without
making references to real life," he said.

Teachers must also encourage students to ask questions, he
said. (05)