Children Picture Battle in the Gulf as Mean, Sad, Scary : Schools: Teachers try to ease the tension by having pupils put their feelings on paper.

The assignment in Janice Copple’s combination first- and second-grade class at Olivewood Elementary School in El Toro was simple: Express your feelings about the Persian Gulf War in a drawing.

Afterward, Copple showed the class two of the pictures: one drawn by a girl showing hearts and a teary-eyed girl’s face that said, “I love all of you. Get home safely please!”; the other by a boy showing Americans overpowering the Iraqis in the air and on the desert.

“One drawing was very sympathetic to having our soldiers overseas and how the people feel because we miss them, and the other had the other perspective, the need to defend freedom,” Copple said. “We basically talked about how the two (drawings) showed the conflicting emotions that all of us feel and that it’s a matter of getting them in balance.”

Like their parents, children have faced an unprecedented barrage of war news since Operation Desert Shield became Operation Desert Storm on Jan. 16.

But for many children the fears and anxieties created by their first glimpses of war linger long after the TV images have faded .

Throughout Southern California, educators have been doing their best to allay student fears. And having them draw pictures of their impressions of the Persian Gulf War is just one way some teachers are helping to ease the tension.

“It helps them get out their feelings and I think that’s the most important thing, to be a catharsis,” said Copple, whose pupils, along with other Olivewood first- and second-grade classes, have made murals in support of the troops that will be sent to the nearby Marine bases.

Ron Lauder, school psychologist at Cordillera Elementary School in Mission Viejo, agrees that the drawings can be beneficial.

“Young children sometimes have a hard time expressing their feelings and concerns in words,” he said. “Drawing can be pretty helpful in terms of giving them an avenue to express them.”

By coincidence, the day the Gulf War broke out, the Saddleback Valley Unified School District had scheduled a meeting between a social worker from the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and the district’s school psychologists and guidance specialists. On the agenda was a discussion of the trauma children may experience by having loved ones involved in the war and to establish crisis intervention procedures.

The next day district administrators and school principals met to discuss the intervention plan. The principals also were given a list of their school’s pupils who had immediate family members in the Middle East. The teachers got information on dealing with grief and trauma in the classroom, in addition to maps and a history of the Middle East.

Says Jim Hamilton, the district’s director of pupil services: “We tried to approach the situation from two distinct angles: to deal with the potential trauma and grief but also to have our teachers armed with facts about the Persian Gulf situation. We also sent out tips for parents on how to deal with the war situation in the home and a newsletter going over everything the district had done.”

One of the district guidelines for teachers was to not air live news broadcasts in the classroom. Teachers also are advised to use discretion in expressing any opinions about the war and to give students an opportunity to talk about the war.

“Naturally, kids are going to ask questions, especially in the upper grades,” said David Whitcher, principal at Olivewood. “Those can be answered, and it’s an opportunity to teach geography and some history (using) the background information everyone was given.

“Beyond that, we’re supposed to keep the regular (school) program going and proceed as we would normally.”

In Copple’s classroom, the children have colored maps of the Middle East. They learned how small Kuwait is, with Copple providing the “big bully” analogy.

“We talk about (the war) some, but we don’t overdo it because I think overdoing it does the same thing it does for the rest of us: It’s overkill.” Primarily, she said, she answers questions about the war as they arise.

Bruce Baron, principal of Los Naranjos Elementary School in Irvine, said he also encourages classroom discussions of the war.

“It varies at different (grade) levels, but it’s very important,” he said, adding, however, that “it’s not something that we’re obsessed with.”

Forty-five percent of the school’s pupils are the children of active Marines from the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station.

At the start of each school day, Baron said, the children are able to share experiences with the rest of the class. It’s an opportunity to talk about letters from the gulf or impending departures.

“There’s a huge range of reactions to the situation,” Baron said. “There are some children who will tell you outright that that’s all they hear or think about when they go home so they actually don’t want to talk about it that much when they go to school.

“A lot of the children basically participate in classroom discussions about what they’re hearing in the news. There are a few that clearly have shown some real signs of anxiety and fear, that become perhaps very clinging to Mom and don’t want to come to school, but those are very few.”

Baron said about 80 children at the school have parents who are deployed in the gulf. An even higher number of the school’s 500 pupils have parents who are deployed in other overseas bases.

Currently, 27 students are participating in four different support groups run by the school’s psychologist during the day.

But rather than just provide support groups, he said, “what we try to do is give support during the regular framework of the day--to let them know others are thinking about this and give them positive thoughts.”

At Cordillera Elementary in Mission Viejo, school psychologist Lauder said 18 children have immediate family members in the gulf.

“We just had our second (support group) meeting,” he said. “At this point we are more or less dealing with factual, non-threatening kinds of material”--talking about who they have in the gulf, bringing in pictures of loved ones and writing letters: “In other words, pretty safe stuff at this point in time.”

For those who are not coping well with the war situation or are showing signs of anxiety, individual counseling is offered.

So far, Lauder said, only one or two students have needed counseling.

Said Baron: “What we’re doing is just trying to build a safe, consistent and predictable environment for the children. Right now there is enough confusion in their life. They need to make sure school is a very secure place.”