Drawing relfections

Drawing is an important task of the development skills of the children, and for this reason it should be worked and practised at school. The majority of the draws done at class are because the child have finished the activities and he or she does not know what to do like. But, for example, at the school I am going to do the practises of the degree I am studying, I had seen that some children also draw when they arrive at school while the classmates are coming, and while the teacher is writing the date at the blackboard, or in special cases the teacher let them draw if she sees them with a real interest for this task, occasionally looking for an association to the subject.

Including the drawing activity in classes is vital in nursery and primary education, so teachers should promote it every time they could, and not also as something to do when children are bored or they have finished the work. They are children, they need activities of this type, and also they are developing their motor and muscular abilities, and as it is explained at the introduction of this topic, it is important to develop drawing skills because it is a way to develop at the same time the coordination, the movement regulation and the graphic gesture, as well as the imagination, the creativity, the visual communication, the expression (of objects, emotions or thoughts, being real or unreal), the perspective and the point of view of the things… 

If children have more experiences in drawing, their possibilities of drawing during their developmental process are larger because they have more knowledge, they have lived more situations, they have seen, felt, testing and experiment more things and with different points of view, and they can choose how to draw something, being real or not, because people base their drawings on what they have in their mind. Drawings can also be a reflex of the feelings and emotions of the drawer, even when the draw is based on a real object, because these two aspects influence on the drawing. 

In addition to de promotion of the development of drawing skills, teachers should make children discover different materials and techniques, explore and experiment them testing the different options, knowing that there are more things farther from the pencils, pens and colours. They can draw with paintings, watercolours, charcoal, oil paint, making a collage… and with different tools like a brush, with the body, with a toothbrush… They have to explore, know, discover and experiment a variety of options, to play with all they can in order to find what they can do with each material, tool or technique. For this reason the art class is important through schooling, to make possible the exploration and the discovery of the variety of options people have to draw. If children does not do it at school it is difficult that they do in other places (except if they or their family are interested in it, and they can achieve to pay for art classes out of school).

Reading this is possible to see that the importance is in the process, not in the result (it is not mentioned). During thre process children learn a lot, ideas about at (all that is mentioned before), values and skills. But the result is only a material thing that demonstrates that a process have been done. Children should not only be avaluated for their results, the most important avaluation should be during the process of creation. However, when children show their results have de desire of being valued and they expect that adults recognize their effort. This make them to feel understood and acceptes, as well as it gives them security and confidence with theirselves. 

It is important to take in account that, as it was said before, drawing is a way of communication and expression, a draw transmits the point of view of the child, his or her prespective of the real things, or also his or her feelings, emotions or thoughts. So, the drawing imperfections seen by the adults (a draw not similar to the real object) are not mistakes, they are expressions and representations of the reality of the child; they must be respected, and not interpreted, because it is his or her representation, it is created with the child's eyes and thoughts, and we should not make our interpretations. An adult can neigther correct the child's creation, it should say some advises for technical aspects, but if a child is always being corrected, he or she would not develop creativity imagination and self creation (it is also important that children do not recieve always the stimulus, they should draw with freedom).   Then is when adults cut the children's wings. Children follow a process of developing skills as this blog explains at the introduction of the drawing aspect, so let them develop step by step, giving them the chance of creating with liberty.