Brooke Rowen, a junior at the University of Idaho, recently spoke at the 2026 Idaho Family & Community Engagement (FACE) Conference about the importance of building communication skills in art-specific classroom environments. His talk, which he gave alongside Megan Mack, the educator coordinator at Moscow Contemporary, was titled “Building Youth Confidence: Peer-to-Peer Conversations Through the Lens of Artmaking.”
In a recent interview, Rowen dove into the conference and his beliefs and experience with arts.
“My speech was about how we can get kids to build communication skills and connect with one another through artmaking,” said Rowen.
His speech also stressed the importance of art as a form of expression.
“Kids need to express themselves, and if they don’t have the communication skills yet to express those feelings, they can still get those feelings out through artwork.”
Rowen himself has experience in this area, boosting his overall knowledge and expertise.
“I really struggled with my mental health growing up, and I think that art, especially, was a really great outlet for me to let out a lot of the emotions that I didn’t quite understand yet, and I wasn’t able to verbalize.”
Rowen noted that he feels there’s a correlation between increased mental health struggles in children and the inability to express themselves or take part in the humanities. Without these abilities, children are missing out on important emotional social development in an age where the rise of social media is only leading to greater feelings of isolation.
“I think art specifically helps us look at the development of kids’ social skills, emotional self-awareness and their own sense of self and personality.”
Rowen also feels that when these topics aren’t brought up in schools, there’s a good chance they won’t be brought up elsewhere.
Relatedly, he believes there’s been a rising emphasis on technical learning that’s consequently leading to less focus on the humanities.
“We were the only arts-based organization there. Outside of us, it was all STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).”
The organization that Rowen referenced is Moscow Contemporary, a nonprofit art gallery and education center whose goal is to build communities centered around accessibility and individuality.
“It’s kind of that return to humanity, creation and authenticity, and recognizing that we’re all people and we all have something important to say.”
Rowen himself strives to give kids a safe space to make art, be themselves, make new friends and talk with adults that encourage them to be themselves.
“There are ways to integrate more technical aspects of learning into more emotionally expressive and creative topics, and I think that’s something the education world is really overlooking.”
Rowen is currently majoring in studio art and design. He noted that compared to a grade school and high school environment, college changed the artistic focus from creating art as expression to creating art as a commodity, which has “created a little bit of a disconnect” for him.
However, college has also been a great opportunity for him to focus on his own work, and his internship at Moscow Contemporary has given him a sense of purpose.
“I want to create art as a means of contributing to culture, and create something that people can use as a means to connect with one another.”
He believes that the conference helped him prepare for his future career through listening to others’ speeches, practice with public speaking and opportunities to network and gain valuable resources.
“Young voices are really missing in a lot of teaching spaces… but I was able to share a unique youth perspective.”
The conference, which was on Oct. 28 in Sun Valley, Idaho, is an annual educator training event organized by the Idaho Department of Education in partnership with the Idaho Out-Of-School Network and the Idaho Coalition for Community Schools. This was its 11th conference.
As the only arts-focused organization present, Rowen feels he overall did a great job demonstrating the importance of art in educational environments.
“I think a reprioritization of that would be nice to see… afterall, art is a reflection of life and it’s an expression of our humanity.”
For more information, visit the Moscow Contemporary website.
Melanie Knapp can be reached at [email protected].