Montessori first discovered that children learn to express themselves during a session with normal kids at San Lorenzo in Rome where her first children’s house was formed. She had asked a child to draw a chimney which was near where she was seated. She had offered the child a chalk, to which the child took and started to draw on the ground. The child exclaimed, “I can write! I can write!” His shouts sent many others to join him. He also began to write words next to the drawings he made, camino (chimney) and tetto (roof). His friends gathered around him in a circle looking at his drawings in astonishment. A few of the kids asked Montessori for chalk and they began to write words as well.

Reference: Maria Montessori, Discovery of the Child, Page 221, “The Mechanism Of Writing.

This story might ring a bell for many parents and teachers who have been around children and observed literacy development of kids. Writing of alphabets or characters is essentially a skill which expresses a knowledge already known, like how a chimney looks like (visual understanding), how a word might sound like in writing (like mama), and how an alphabet looks like. The explosion of writing could not have arrived to the child or even to any language learner without prior knowledge of how his environment feels, looks or sounds like. Henceforth, it is not impossible for people not to be able to draw anything.

The fear of not being able to produce a drawing that is clear and harmonious, comes from the lack of training in motor and sensorial skills of the hands, eyes and muscular senses. Reading words take priority over the understanding of the dynamics of the living environment. Learning therefore becomes a pursuit academic excellence. When it comes to art and drawing, the result is strange scrawlings know as ‘free drawings’ which shows the person is lacking in emotional and visual stimulus.

Mandarin characters, which has evolved from pictorial writing, is a form of art of drawing, also proves that people have always enjoyed communicating with one another through pictures. The cavemen drew pictures to leave behind history of their existence earth. Drawings, however primitive or childlike, will grow and evolve to become knowledge for others.

Drop everything and start to draw on June 6 2009.