Real art teachers help young children learn that drawing is an observation skill that they can begin to practice when they are very young. Teachers help them begin to make visual comparisons and represent them in their drawings. Teachers use questions to encourage children to observe more carefully. Students are asked to notice contour, size, texture, value gradations, proportions, and every kind of relationship in the thing, person, or animal observed. Teachers encourage the use of touch, smell, taste, and sound when learning about the real world.
Teachers avoid copy work, formulas, and drawing tricks.
Teachers do not give answers, but they encourage experimentation and exploration to find answers. A fifth grade student in Mrs. Rebecah Short's class uses a viewfinder to assist in learning to frame and see proportions. Copy work is not needed in Mrs. Short's classes. More enlightened art teachers realize that drawing is not a series of learned rules about standard subject matter. Much of good drawing is actually the product of seeing and observational ability.