What if it was "draw" instead of "write?"

Rather on a glowing computer or an old fashioned sheet of paper, you write a lot in school. And I mean a lot. Essays, poetry, lab reports, paragraphs, random blog posts, slideshows. At the end of a typical school day you will probably have started at least two rough drafts, finished your essay about that one book you can’t even remember the name of, and have a really bad hand cramp. But what if school wasn’t like that? What if it was different? What if instead of this:

The girl sat in the emerald green grass

The wind rustling her hair

As a shooting star flew past

It was this:

Graphite

What if instead of a teacher telling you to “write an essay”, a teacher would tell you to “draw an illustration?”

For starters, the school supplies list would look a little different:

Digital

And it would probably cost more than the usual school list, because art supplies can be fairly expensive. Yet you don’t have to buy a pack of pencils that costs one hundred dollars, you could get the cheaper brands, like Crayola.

Instead of kids holding their pencils like this to write their ABCs:

They would hold them like this, to draw the ABCs:

But most importantly, drawing in school inspires and nurtures creativity. I believe that we don’t incorporate enough art into day’s curriculum. That doesn’t mean that we necessarily need to replace writing with drawing, but I think that we definitely should integrate more art into our everyday school lives. Art can inspire and motivate people, and we need something that will do that in our world right now.