Cubism or Children’s Art?

I am always amazed by how neatly my four year old captures the essence of things in his drawings.
There was a time, not too long back, when he drew people without bodies – hands and legs jutting out of the head – but he never left out the fingers.

 

Made total sense – it is his fingers that he uses more than any other part of the body, and their size merely represents their importance.
His two year old brother can barely draw basic shapes, but when you ask him to draw a person, he makes sure the circle contains eyes, nose and a big smiley mouth.

Picasso took years to understand something that both my sub-five year olds know instinctively- that unlike a photograph, a painting need not capture the exactl likeness of an object. For what is Cubisim but what my sons do – show things as they perceive them, not necessarily as they actually are.

Isn’t it incredible how we will now spend years knocking that inherent knowledge out of our children, and then force them to unlearn all that we have taught them, so they can learn something they knew before the had the advantage of an Education?
Is that a waste, or what?