The process of learning and the practice of narrating one’s own story came to an intersection for me at an early age. Please bear with me while I recall some fond and significant memories from long ago. I will, trust me, connect the story I am about to tell with the theme explored in the last two posts of narrating one’s own life.
I always liked stories, and I had a creative bent. From an early age I enjoyed making up characters and the imaginary worlds in which they lived. I also enjoyed drawing, and many of the sketch books of my youth are filled with scenes and actors from these stories.
I was drawn to comic books, and eventually to the related genres of comic strips and the early versions of graphic novels. I was intrigued enough by this peculiar narrative form – this hybrid of pictures and words – that I began to research the origins and history of the comics.
By age 12, I was beginning a collection of books on the subject: Jules Feiffer’s The Great Comic Book Heroes, which included sentimental memories of growing up with the comics as well as reprints of the origin stories of Superman, Batman, Captain America and others; A History of the Comic Strip by Pierre Couperie and Maurice Horn, an account of the development of graphic storytelling that included stunningly beautiful examples of graphic design that had appeared originally in newspaper strips; Comix by Les Daniels, which included the stories of underground comics as well as the usual canon of titles more likely to be approved by parents; and the wonderfully titled All In Color For a Dime, a collection of well-researched and fondly crafted essays edited by Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson.
I also acquired collections of reprints of old comic strips – big books on Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Little Orphan Annie, and Bringing Up Father. I was a sponge for information about the art of making comics, regardless of the subject, and I became fascinated with the cultural context that shaped them. Through these particular books I learned about attitudes towards organized crime during Prohibition, the 20th century fascination with the possibilities of technology, economic and social conservatism during the era of the New Deal, and American attitudes towards immigration and social class.
As my social consciousness matured, I discovered that a similar development was occurring in the comics themselves. Green Lantern and Green Arrow grappled with issues like corporate greed and drug addiction. Spider-Man coped with the death of a loved one. And on the newspaper comic strip page, Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury appeared.
Doonesbury was the first mainstream comic strip that dealt directly with contemporary social and political issues. Characters in the strip struggled with changing sexual mores, used recreational drugs, took stands for or against the war in Vietnam. As the strip became more established, it began to include characters from the real world and more pointed commentary on specific people and events. When one of the fictional Doonesbury characters declared in May of 1973 that the very real Attorney General of the United States, then embroiled in the Watergate scandal was, “Guilty, guilty, guilty!” newspapers across the country yanked Doonesbury from the comics page and began running it on the editorial page. Comics could be not merely the reflection of their times, but also actual participants in the events.
In 1975, the first anthology collection of Doonesbury reprints in book form went on sale. I eagerly purchased it and therein discovered something that, initially at least, did not interest me at all – an introduction by the journalist, historian, and author Garry Wills. I read and re-read the entire collection of strips at least twice before I turned my attention to the six pages of text written by someone I had never heard of at the front of my new favorite book.
But when I did read Wills’ introduction I discovered something I think I had known for a long time, but had never been able to express in words. He pointed out that the Doonesbury characters tend to narrate their own lives. Indeed, the very first words of the strip’s long run are, “Well, here I sit at college awaiting my new roommate. I know he’ll be cool since he’s computer selected.” The obvious joke set up by this line appears two panels later, but the point Wills was making, and the revelation that occurred to me, was that we all do this. We all “create a running commentary on our own lives.” I had been doing it for years without a trace of self-consciousness and I suddenly realized that everyone else must do it too.
I believe this was the first time I ever really considered the idea that the concept of self exists in our minds in the form of a story line. And so I return today (finally – and I appreciate your indulgence) to the theme of the last two posts – that we narrate our own lives with ourselves as the hero of the story. It is important to our sense of self and to our ability to engage the world in a productive manner that we think of ourselves as successful and ultimately victorious. In a school setting, it is counterproductive to learning and personal growth if we pose so many obstacles, and so many opportunities for failure, that young people stop trying to find a way to win in school, and begin to play another game altogether – one in which their hero has a fighting chance.
And I return to this theme in this peculiar and rather personal context in order to weave into the discussion another concept important to learning.
Beginning at about age 12, I turned myself into an expert on the history of the American comic strip and comic book. No one asked me to do this, assigned me to do it, graded me on it, or put anything on my transcript acknowledging it. I don’t think I ever even mentioned to any of my teachers during the years that this was my obsession that I was doing this independent research project. I did it because the subject intrigued me and it gave me pleasure to know a lot about something I enjoyed.
I was not unique by any means. Nearly everybody has some interest that they enjoy enough to have gained some special knowledge about, if not impressive expertise in. I was fortunate enough to be able to pursue this interest in the context of a family that valued education and persistence, that was reasonably nonjudgmental about my choices, and that gave me encouragement even if they didn’t necessarily enjoy the long explanations I gave them about the differences between the Green Lantern of the 1940s and the rebooted version that appeared in the 1960s. I came out of this experience with a life-long belief that I have the ability to make myself an expert on any subject I choose. It is a good thing. I have had to use this ability a number of times.
But not everyone has this kind of support.
There are some obvious ways to give students an opportunity to succeed as scholars. This is an easy one. Encourage them to pursue their own interests. Allow them to choose topics that may not be in the standard curriculum, but that have some personal resonance for the student. Let the motivation to learn be internal rather than the usual fear of a failing grade.
Students want to learn – about a range of subjects far beyond what their teachers can imagine. Students want to succeed, and narrate a story of their own unique accomplishments. Let’s be part of the audience that cheers them on.
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The notorious Doonesbury strip mentioned above was scheduled to run May 29, 1973. Here is a link to a story about how and why it finally appeared in the Washington Post 41 years later.
J. Marcus Patton 