The Importance of Words without Pictures

I was reading an article on the importance of words over pictures. We think in words, we do not think in pictures. And indeed, if we don't have the words to describe something, we can't think it.

The article was putting forward the idea that if an education relies heavily on pictures, photos or videos then the mind is actually crippled. By excessively focusing on images over rich language, the depth of our thoughts and understanding are impoverished.

We say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but we can seldom fully interpret a picture without a caption to put it into context, and moreover, even though a picture can have "an emotional impact that words can't, the impact is determined by the words we use to describe it". So words trump images.

Also, an image which has been made in the minds'-eye by words, will form a longer lasting memory than a picture we have seen with our eyes.

This gave me great food for thought:

"I think pictures do help clarify things, but they work better if they are shown after a verbal, or literary, description. Miss Mason acknowledges that the pictures can help--to correct rather than inform the imagination. I think this is significant. I know we personally found it wildly successful to do some geography by first reading a description of a geographical term (from the book Geography, A to Z), then having the children illustrate what they thought I'd read (they used blocks to make a model of the geographical feature I'd described), and only after they'd heard the reading and tried to reproduce it somehow, did I permit them to see the picture. They would compare the illustration to their model to see if they'd gotten it. They really looked at those pictures in a way they weren't looking at them before we did this. I feel very strongly about this (as some may remember), but I think using pictures first is harmful rather than helpful. We trust much to pictures, as Charlotte says, but the mind doesn't really internalize anything that it doesn't have to work over. Those nice, shiny, glossy, full color photographs by professional photographers are gorgeous, and so slick that they glide effortlessly off our minds as we turn the pages to look at the next one. No thinking required to deal with them at all. It is not so easy to glide through verbal descriptions without letting them actually touch our minds - not well written ones, at least."

"The Importance of Words without Pictures" Any activity that helps children use their brains to separate from the "here and now," to get away from pictures and use words to manipulate ideas in their own minds, also helps them with the development of abstract thinking . . . Even more important, however, is understanding words alone as the main source of meaning. Because the words do not come with pictures attached, the child must come to grips with "the symbolic potential of language . . . Experiences with pictures attached, even when they involve looking at picture books and learning new words, are not as valuable, says Wells, because the child needs to learn "sooner, rather than later" to go beyond just naming things that can be seen. He concludes: 'For this, the experience of stories is probably the ideal preparation . . . Gradually, they will lead them to reflect on their experience, and in so doing, to discover the power that language has, through its symbolic potential, to create and explore alternative possible worlds with their own inner coherence and logic. Stories may thus lead to the imaginative, hypothetical stance that is required in a wide range of intellectual activities and for problem-solving of all kinds.'" Endangered Minds (p. 91-92)

Full article here