Ch. 5 Reflection--The Image: In Reading, Desktop Publishing and Networking

I think it is important to understand and respect the origins of association between images, oral language and written word. This history provides perspective into the education of early man. However, beyond this, and seemingly more relevant to current everyday life, these origins are at work in every infant born to this earth. Before oral language can be achieved, and certainly before reading and writing, a child learns to identify the images in his life that have meaning to him. Such a human and shared process should be considered in any discussion of what makes a particular image meaningful to a group or individual.

Though this chapter includes the author’s personal experience of his sons’ experience, or lack of experience, with image reflection in writing assignments, I would like to focus on a school setting that is placing images at a higher priority. The middle school where I work engages in Paideia seminars on a monthly basis. These seminars encourage respectful conversation between students, without hand raising, based on a specific text which is often an image (or series of images). The seminars are guided b teachers with probing open-ended questions, but the students are the real drivers of the discussion. I have sat in on multiple class discussions of this sort in which students are breaking apart the images within a Picasso painting, projected onto the wall for all to see, and copied on paper for all to have in their hands. This I think is an important step toward maintaining the connection between images, text, and thinking. It is also important to note that the first time students engage in this type of seminar the flow of conversation is usually low and lacks energy. It seems as though they need time to develop the specific intelligence that comes with making connections between image and text. By the end of the year their ability is much more refined and their comfort level with disagreeing with classmates about a topic or defending their positions, increases greatly.

Houghton quotes Burke saying, "We cannot learn to read (images) if we do not have some practice in making images" (Burke, 2001). Specific to image making with a Paint program, I wonder what sort of resistance exists amongst teachers who already feel as though they are working with an overloaded curriculum. How can these teachers be convinced to encourage image creation in their content area and practice using such programs as Paint? What types of resources exist for them to assist in integrating this type of skill building into their content teaching? I could imagine that for a seventh grade science teacher like myself assigning students to choose a cell organelle to create and label in Paint would be one way to integrate my human body systems unit with image creation on the computer.

I suppose one could argue that modern-day students are inundated with images at an unprecedented level when compared to their counterparts from past generations. I think it is telling to consider the nature and origin of these images compared to those images that surrounded early man. What does it do to one’s ability to make meaning from images when the images one sees are all computer generated? What happens when these machine made images outnumber the images one sees from nature? How does it affect the human psyche when the last sunset one saw was a jpeg file and not an outdoor experience? Is there a way to make a balance between the natural image and the digital? And, does it matter? These questions are those that intrigue me within this discussion of images and text. As an educator the best I can do is give students the opportunity to experience both and the tools necessary to evaluate images, no matter their origin, for themselves.