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American Morning

Spirit of America: In Wake of Disaster, Children's Art Speaks to Adults

Aired October 16, 2001 - 11:56   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Many times, in the wake of disaster, children have a lot to tell us grownups.

CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: They certainly do. So it is with the events of September 11.

CNN's Kathy Slobogin has an example for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHY SLOBOGIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the day of the attack, at PS 154, in East Harlem, teacher Dawn Brooks Decosta was at a loss -- how to calm her students when she herself was afraid.

DAWN BROOKS DECOSTA, TEACHER, PS 154: I had my own feelings as I saw the parents rushing in, that I really wanted to rush home and get my own children.

SLOBOGIN: In the next few days, the public was drenched in images of destruction. By the time the children returned to school, two days later, Brooks Decosta realized they were frightened and confused.

BROOKS DECOSTA: They kept seeing the instant replay on the news. They didn't know if it was still going on downtown -- how many times is this happening? I just felt like they needed to express whatever it was what they had had on their minds.

SLOBOGIN: Brooks Decosta, an art and reading teacher, asked the children to draw, to help them unlock their emotions. Their drawings are of death, destruction and helplessness, but also of hope.

BROOKS DECOSTA: A lot of them weren't able to verbalize what they were feeling. They just didn't have the vocabulary to say that they were horrified.

Looking back at the pictures, the ones that didn't say as much, those were the pictures that were most visually moving.

SLOBOGIN: One child who didn't speak much drew the two towers crying, holding on to each other.

BROOKS DECOSTA: He sort of personified the Twin Towers as brothers. That was the most moving for me, because I hadn't thought of that at all.

SOLBOGIN: Dr. Paramjit Joshi, a child psychologist, told us the drawings were probably the best thing the teacher could have done.

DR. PARAMJIT JOSHI, CHILD PSYCHOLOGIST: Here it's both not just the sheer sadness and horror, but also some hope and some help on the way.

SOLBOGIN: Where many might see a child's scribbles, Dr. Joshi sees feelings that are out of control.

JOSHI: Here the child is really quite anxious and quite in anguish, because you can see all of the scribbles all over the page.

SOLBOGIN: One child wrote, "A piece the world has gone away. But God has them in a special place where nothing can go wrong any day."

(on camera): Have you observed that this is a reaction of children, to sort of reach for something beyond this world.

JOSHI: Yes, and only because this is one where they can comfort themselves, by knowing that perhaps these people are in Heaven and God is taking care of them. So it is somewhat of a solace to them, that they have just not just disappeared, but they are in a safe place.

SOLBOGIN (voice-over): Some of the children tried to make a safe place themselves for the Twin Towers. This one in a heart. Their teacher says the children's images comforted her.

BROOKS DECOSTA: A lot of it was reassuring for me. And it really changed my whole perspective of just the fear and the danger that I was feeling. In some kind of way, they were trying to pull something positive out of what had happened.

Kathy Slobogin, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLAWAY: Some of us are still trying to find the right words to explain the events to our children. It turns out they are comforting us.

HEMMER: Giving us things to consider.

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