I once wrote a paper on gender role reversal for college that included references to anime and manga.

But that was college.

I think you can bring it up as a topic of discussion about why it is growing in popularity or why people (not only children) like watching it, or the economics behind it or the benefits of japan because of it, but not as a way of learning history or culture, although I think you will be really outnumbered.

No.
Hell no.
Sweet Jesus baby bits no.

I learned from reading the Sonic comics that if I run fast enough, I can beat a megalomanic. No. Lawd no.

Pick up a novel. Read it. Be amazed at how much it can teach you in so few pages. Then go back to reading manga and watching anime and realize that they're there for entertainment purposes only.

Don't even get me started on the lil' tyke who killed himself trying to mimic Naruto.

That made me sad when I heard about it.

I don't really think a lot can be learned from anime/manga except for the fact that I knew more about Japan than my history teacher did when we were goin over it (but only cus he's gay and kept talkin about how hot the guys in our books were)