Using Art to Open Eyes To Nature, Environment

Carmen Donez, a second grade teacher at Jefferson Elementary in Carlsbad, knows how environmental awareness can be increased by teaching kids how to draw. “Some of my kids (in the class) are at risk. I want them to be good decision makers, and respect themselves and nature, and know how important they are--that they can make a difference.”

In the book “Drawing With Children” by Mona Brookes, Donez found ways to help accomplish many of these goals. After incorporating some of the book’s teaching techniques into her classroom work, Donez noted “a developmental change.”

Specifically, in one particular class assignment--drawing a self portrait--there was quite a difference in what the kids drew before and after they had been given some drawing tips. “At the beginning of the year, without the training, they drew themselves with a lot of parts missing--hands, arms, even clothes.” At the end of the year the assignment yielded complete figures which indicated the kids “felt very special. They had taken ownership. They had become very observant.”

This heightened awareness extended to other things the kids did.

Their drawings from nature became detailed. Their retention of science and reading facts increased. Donez even had these preteens discussing science careers--specifically in environmental work.

Rancho Penasquitos resident Donna Barnes, who teaches education methods at the University of San Diego, said teachers all over North County are adopting methods similar to Donez’s.

Many of them have attended training sessions which author Brookes gives periodically in the Miramar area. School districts in Carlsbad, Escondido, Fallbrook, Oceanside, Poway and Solana Beach have been participating for as long as five years. In all, about 3,000 North County educators have taken the training.

“What happens when the kids develop an artist’s eye is that it shortens the amount of time it takes me to explain the natural sciences. They notice more about nature and its processes,” said Susan Moriarity, a graduate student of Barnes’ and now a teacher at Pomerado Elementary in Poway.

This works across the curriculum, she said. Having given the kids special training in drawing, she notes a change in their choice of reading books. The annual class exercise of writing an essay and doing a picture based on their favorite library book usually produced a lot of work based on fiction titles. The effect of the training in drawing was “astounding”, Moriarity said. “A third of the books chosen this time were nonfiction--lizards, wolves, sea creatures.”

In Fallbrook, Janice Beaucamp, in charge of the School Improvement Program which is a fund for teacher training, has regularly been sending staff members to Brookes’ sessions. “Art provides a non-threatening way to explore new ideas, allowing for more learning. And it’s non-threatening for the teachers who have to learn to draw so they can teach their kids.”

Barnes characterized herself as “the stick figure queen” of drawing until she took the training herself so as to be able to pass it along to her graduate students, who had told her about the book. Her class, in turn, worked side by side with elementary students on a “collaborative book” about cats. “I don’t even like cats, but we (the kids and graduate students) sure learned a lot by drawing and researching them.”

Teri Houghtelin, a second grade teacher in the San Pasqual school district, has her students doing a geography unit drawing an animal suited to its environment. “Geography is a hard concept for them,” she said, “but we’re in the back yard of the Wild Animal Park.” It provided a handy inspiration for students to think about “Journeys Outward,” as the science unit was called.

In the parlance of artists and writers, this approach is called “response to materials.” Educators in North County seem particularly responsive to this sensible approach, especially about kids’ personal and geographical environment.

“People in North County San Diego have an unusually high interest in this,” Mona Brookes said last week. “Teachers, administrators and parents want to improve things here. I think North County is so close to LA that they can see what can happen to the environment and the schools.”

A number of North County bookstores regularly stock two books by Mona Brookes, published by Jeremy Tarcher in Los Angeles, “Drawing With Children” and “Drawing for Older Children and Teens.” Brookes conducts workshops in North County several times a year. For information call Barbara Fox White at 943-1890.