Creative needs of Gifted Children

Posted on March 16, 2012 by livewire

Jan Piirto, Ph.D. in Understanding Creativity (2004) she says of creativity:

• What is unnatural and sad is for it to be repressed, suppressed, and stymied through the process of growing up and being educated.

• What happens to most of us is that somewhere along the way, and often necessarily, we begin to distrust our creative self. Survival dictates that we subordinate our creative poetic self to a more practical, self. We go along and forget who we are or who we were.

So it is a worthwhile exercise to recapture some of our lost creativity and rejuvenate the energy and enthusiasm that comes from fostering creativity. It takes a commitment and practice. We can all hope that the next generations of kids will be able to experience more encouragement to develop their creativity.

Creative thinking is inherent in all humans, but research has shown that in many (maybe most) gifted children this drive is even more intense and this need to be creative is more fundamental to their basic needs. In terms of the special needs of gifted and talented children:

• A gifted child’s view of the world is often non-traditional and divergent; he sees numerous possibilities hidden to others (Webb, Meckstroth, & Tolan, 1982)

• Being able to see, hear, feel and experience aspects of life that most people miss is a necessary part of creative production (Dixon, 1983)

• High levels of sensitivity may be what drives intellectual giftedness; they allow the child to pick up on vast amounts of input from his environment (Freeman, 1985).

• Generally, when children are allowed to learn creatively, we unlock powerful and amazing learning potential (Rivero, 2002)

Creativity Projects

Posted on February 23, 2012 by livewire

Video-production

My kids are writing and producing a video of an advertisement for their favorite toys. They get very excited about this. It was much easier to get my son to write about his Nerf Blaster and how wonderful it is, than to do some of the other writing exercises in their textbook. Writing comes easier, even when a few drafts are needed. They have learned a lot about what commercials are designed to do, how to stage the actions, write the script and direct the video shots. And, it was done with enthusiasm and increasingly more creativity as we went through several versions. I just had to manage my own feelings of the inevitable chaos (from my perspective) when the toys took over our sessions. I have plans to use video more in the future for science and research projects.

Night Story Telling

One of the best creative projects we have ever taken on was started as a way for my kids to calm down before bed. We tell stories at bedtime. When we started, about two years ago, we told stories about what different animals may do with their day. Anything we wanted to share. No big deal, but a chance for my kids to create stories about animals – because that is what they were interested in. It was cute to hear them, sometimes they repeated themselves over and over, sometimes the animals were irritating, but it was a fun time for us together.

A few months into this routine, I started creating the character of Brownie the Bear, who was a marshmallow-eating bear, lived in the woods and stole marshmallows from all the campers. They absolutely loved this character, and now we have been talking about Brownie and all of his friends in the woods for well over a year. The campers loved Brownie so much that they now leave marshmallows for him and his friends to take and the animals leave presents for the campers in return.

He has had lots of adventures, developed many friendships, the animal community has regular celebrations, they create art from the marshmallows, play tricks on each other and several animals with special powers go to a school of Hogwart’s for animals. In the autumn, the animals celebrate their harvest season of collecting marshmallows from the campers with a giant bonfire to roast them. They keep the marshmallows deep in caves to keep them fresh for the entire winter. They take the extras, dye them different colors, cut off one slice to get them sticky and stick them to the cave walls to make big beautiful mosaics.

Through this storytelling process, I have been able to take our writing lessons and make them come alive, learning what makes a story compelling. They have found toy animals to play the parts, created props and a stage to act out the scenes.

And, I have also used some of the characters in these stories to re-create some of their real-life events with friends or difficult situations to discuss what the animals would do in similar situations. We discuss how they would feel, what they would do and what their options are. It is easier to discuss because they can externalize the situations using characters they know well and really care about.

[excerpt from my Minnesota Council for the Gifted and Talented State Conference presentation: Don't Fence Me In - Mastery, Creativity, and Adventure in the Home Education of Bright Children]

The Case for Working With Your Hands – NYT article

Posted on May 29, 2011 by livewire

: Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

One of the best articles on the connection between education and work:

The Case for Working With Your Hands

There are many gems, among them:

“It is a rare person, male or female, who is naturally inclined to sit still for 17 years in school, and then indefinitely at work.”

“A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic rather than to accumulate academic credentials is viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive.”

“For anyone who feels ill suited by disposition to spend his days sitting in an office, the question of what a good job looks like is now wide open.”

“An economy that is more entrepreneurial, less managerial, would be less subject to the kind of distortions that occur when corporate managers’ compensation is tied to the short-term profit of distant shareholders. ”

“A good job requires a field of action where you can put your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world. Academic credentials do not guarantee this.”

The article is full of them. Read and enjoy.

Should Gifted Children be Educated Differently?

Posted on May 7, 2011 by livewire

: Image by foreversouls via Flickr

Some educators believe that “bright children don’t need any special help; after all, they already have so many things going for them. The reality is that gifted children’s educational needs arise directly from their strengths; it is precisely because these children are rapid and advanced learners that they need specialized learning opportunities. They are exceptional children, and they need exceptional services in the same way that children with learning difficulties are exceptional children and need special services and attention. A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children, James T. Webb, et.al. (2007).

It is most often up to the parent to educate themselves and advocate for the best educational alternatives for their gifted children. Each school has different options, from differentiated classrooms, acceleration, grade-skipping, cluster grouping, enrichment in the classroom and in resource rooms, and self-contained full-time gifted programs. Some states allow children to go to school part-time and to homeschool part-time. Some families choose to homeschool full-time.

The research that goes into deciding how to educate your gifted child can be overwhelming. And, you may need to evaluate your choice on an ongoing basis to determine whether your current plan is still working.

Creativity in Gifted Education Starts with You

Posted on May 1, 2011 by livewire

: Image by mikebaird via Flickr

It is important to see that YOU are already your own coach and you can enhance your own personal creativity each day.

The positive experience of the educator can be modeled by YOU as you provide for your students a mentor and coach to inspire creativity in gifted children’s lives.

Creativity is a decision, a commitment and it requires continued attention, study and practice. But, I guarantee that the results will be invaluable in your own life and in the lives of your students.

After all the study and practice, our goal is balance.

Robert Sternberg has a great statement to that effect:

• Successful individuals are those who have creative skills, to produce a vision for how they intend to make the world a better place for everyone; analytical intellectual skills, to assess their vision and those of others; practical intellectual skills, to carry out their vision and persuade people of its value; and wisdom, to ensure that their vision is not a selfish one.

In the midst of personal, economic and global turmoil, we are all feeling more limitation and constraints, more challenges, stresses and pressures.

But, we do not have to contract our energies and give up, we can make the DECISION to forge our way into a life of greater creativity and create a culture of mastery, creativity and adventure in our world of influence.

We all have the spark inside that guides us to greater things.

And, together, I am confident, we will rise to the challenge of greater creativity.

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Category Archives: Creativity