Comics and Education Converge!

Lynn Johnston may have just become my hero. She writes and draws the popular daily comic strip For Better or Worse about the various highlights and misadventures of the Patterson family. Like G.B. Trudeau Johnston has used her daily platform in hundreds of newspapers to raise awareness of various issues. She will writes comics about solemn and important topics like the death of a parent with grace and candor. Her willingness to raise these issues has long drawn attention, and her deft skill at dealing with them with sensitivity and insight have long earned her admiration well beyond the comic community. Recently she turned the gaze of her strip on the difficulties disabled children face in education. She even mentioned some of the technology they use to help them handel daily tasks. Hopefully this widespread exposure will help raise awareness of just how many challenges with which the disabled must contend. I always have believed that comics have a special power to get into our minds through their combined visual and lingual presence. When both the words and pictures team up to bounce around your head, it boosts the chances of your subconcious mind remembering and your concious mind being forced to digest it. In my current projects I am trying to do as much as I can to accomodate students with disabilities, but true change won't occur until more people realize just how much we take for granted. If you want to check out the strip go here.