Books vs. Comics

By Shin Chul-ho

Long ago, when I was a first grader at an elementary school in my hometown of Cheoron, in Gangwon Province, I was struck by a serious illness.

The symptoms got worse rapidly and couldn't be treated in the small village. My father took me to a big hospital in Seoul, which determined the cause of my illness. Father carried me on his back to the hospital almost every day for more than half a year. One day, the foreign doctor in charge of me allowed my father to take me back to my hometown to be treated at a small clinic there, where I continued to receive treatment for the rest of the year.

I became a second grader without studying for a full year, so I didn't know how to read or calculate. I was completely illiterate in all subjects until the third grade. The only reason I went to school was to play with my classmates.

Then I rose one more grade, and three months passed. My teacher told seven or eight boys and girls, including myself, to remain in the classroom after school. We were all illiterate. The teacher taught us the Korean alphabet and how to pronounce words and, later, sentences. Only after two weeks did I have no problem reading and a little difficulty writing. King Sejong, the inventor of the Korean alphabet, hangeul, seemed really great.

Shortly, I became addicted to comic books because no others were within my reach. My school had a small number in a room but it was always locked. That year, my elder brother came home during summer vacation. He was studying at a high school in Seoul, as my hometown had no high school at the time. He gave me a book titled ``Arabian Nights" he had bought in Seoul. It consisted of about 10 stories shortened for children from ``A Thousand And One Nights." It was the first book I'd read. I was absolutely mesmerized by it.

It goes without saying that reading books, I mean real books, is far more effective for developing our minds than reading comics in terms of so-called ``neuro-plasticity,'' even though comic books contain educational and informative content.

In my elementary school days, I read countless comic books, but I've all but entirely forgotten them. In sharp contrast, all the details of ``Arabian Nights" are still fresh in my memory. Why? Because I used my imagination while reading the book ― while reading comic books didn't require any imagination. Comic book artists unfolded their imaginations on paper instead of my mind. I think comic books can be worthy of being enjoyed ― as soap operas, movies and other forms of entertainment are ― but can also retard the learning process.

I ask my students to read a book in the morning before starting lessons. Most of them take out comic books and biographies of great men and women in world history. I question how helpful these books are in boosting creativity and expanding knowledge.

Dr. Norman Doidge states as follows in his recent book ``The Brain That Changes Itself": ``Mark Rosenzweig of the University of California at Berkeley had studied rats in stimulating and non-stimulating environments, and in postmortem exams he found that the brains of the stimulated rats had more neurotransmitters, were heavier and had better blood supply than those from the less stimulating environments. He was one of the first scientists to demonstrate neuro-plasticity by showing that activity could produce change in the structure of the brain."

I sometimes ask my comic book-addicted students, ``Which are more stimulating ― books or comics? But which are more helpful for your study?"

The writer teaches at an elementary school in Gyeonggi Province. He can be reached at heemy123@hanmail.net.

[출처 : 코리아타임스]