“Let’s draw!” It was 8:05 in the morning. We had just driven home from school after arriving to the parking lot and discovering a one-hour delay. A hazardous swirl of frosty fog had dictated the delay, but we hadn’t gotten the message.

My grandchildren’s little school lies 4½ minutes from our house. Within 600 seconds I can drive the kids, pop them out the door, and be back in my driveway. Never in decades of volleying children has there been such an auspicious commute!

Rather than wait in the parking lot, we whisked back home. What should we do with this delicious hour of unexpected free time? Charlie proposed making a second breakfast, which I nixed. I proposed reading to them, but that tends to be our evening activity. So Charlie set the course by suggesting drawing. Off they scurried to get paper and colored pencils.

Drawing long occupied a central position in the Western curriculum for both young men and young women. Today we overload preschoolers with crayons, but when the age arrives for them to acquire real artistic skills (form, proportion, perspective, shading), that bridge is rarely crossed. By relegating drawing to child’s play, we ignore not only the wisdom of the ages, but the science that testifies to its cognitive benefits, not to mention the model of those ubiquitous literary passages where so many characters possess the skills of drawing and painting.

So the kids drew. Laughter punctuated the flutter of sketches hitting the floor. Sometimes they free-draw, but to maximize the forty minutes we had, I turned to one of the free art tutorials that populate the internet. All told, the session proved again the value of starting a child’s day with the arts.

Math or memory work tends to occupy the first position in today’s curricula. The reasoning behind that is solid and it’s not wrong. Still, what happens when a child begins each day by opening his or her heart, senses, and intellect through creative expression, internalizing the discipline it requires? In addition to being rewarding, creative expression stimulates nearly every one of a child’s senses. It renders that child more receptive to the principles of mathematics, the rigors of memorization, and every other discipline you can name.

I am not a certified researcher in cognitive development. But I know what I read. I also know what I witnessed across decades as a university professor (not to mention in my own experiences as a student). Students who hit the practice room, or art, theater, or dance studio, at 7:00 a.m. invariably burst into my 8:00 and 9:00 theory and music history classes firing on all cylinders. You could see the energy in their eyes, the satisfaction (or frustration) in their countenance, and a rosy flush on their faces. It is a felicitous pattern and sets a high tone for the rest of the day’s study.

Due to traveling, I am not in a position to homeschool my grandkids right now. If that day comes, I intend to start each day’s studies with an expression of the Fine Arts. I doubt that plan will be hard to implement. The problem will be overseeing the cessation of such creative work to turn to other studies. But that is a good problem to have.

Try it. Start the day with music, drawing, attempting the first sixteen bars of steps for a Baroque gavotte, with proclaiming a speech for one of Shakespeare’s (or A.A. Milnes) iconic characters

Maybe . . .

Try it. Start the day with music or drawing, attempt the first sixteen bars of steps for a Baroque gavotte, proclaim a speech for one of Shakespeare’s or A. A. Milnes’ iconic characters. Creativity can be your warm-up for the daily educational workout.