The Parents’Role in the Development of Their Creative Children

1. The Parents’Role in the Development of TheirCreativeChildren Professor Bonnie Cramond Department of EducationalPsychology Director of the Torrance Center The University of Georgia

2. Parents ShouldUnderstand • Whatcreativityis. • Whoiscreative. • Whycreativityis important. • How to nurturecreativity in theirchildren.

3. Creativity is the generation of novel, useful ideas.

4. Creativity • canbeexpressed in anythingthat people do—mathematics, language, art, sports, business, inventing, cooking, parenting, etc.

5. According to Torrance, “When a person has no learned or practiced solution to a problem, some degree of creativity is required”

6. Creativity is Like Intelligence in Several Ways • Everyone has some • It can be developed or stifled • There are levels Bonnie Cramond The University of Georgia

7. People WhoStudyCreativityOften Look At4 Ps

8. SomeCharacteristics of CreativeChildren

9. In some cases the very qualities that cause creative individuals to have problems are the same ones that may facilitate their creative accomplishments.

10. We Should Be Interested in Developing Creativity for the Good of the Individual and the Society

11. Creative Expression Fosters Mental Health

12. By teaching children to express their emotions creatively, we help them… • Learn to express themselves in positive ways • Become more resilient to the stresses of modern life

13. Creativity Engages Children in Their Learning To Keep Them in School

14. Creativity is Necessary for Our Society Recent reports warn that our nation cannot retain its economic and scientific position in the competitive world with a work force that has mastered only minimum competencies Cramond UGA

15. In a Recent Poll Conducted by 1,500 CEO's identified creativity, defined as the ability to make innovative decisions, as the single most important area of "leader competency."

17. Creativity helps prepare our children for their future…without knowing what it will be

18. Individuals At the Top of Their Fields are Both Intelligent and Creative • They are imaginative and analytical • They consume and produce knowledge • “Imagination is more important than knowledge” • Albert Einstein

19. How Can WeNurtureCreativity? • Learn about creativity. • Recognize the characteristics of creativechildren. • Value creativity. • Help childrenthink.

20. We need to teach students how to think, not what to think

21. The 13 Thinking Tools Sparks of Genius Based on the book by Robert & Michele Root-Bernstein Of the World’s Most Creative People Bonnie Cramond UGA

22. SPARKS OF GENIUS • Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein interviewed artists and scientists at the top of their fields • They used thirteen thought processes across disciplines • That can be learned and practiced.

23. 1. Observing

24. What is it? Canteloupe Lily

25. What is this? Teeth--3D computed tomography Ice in a drink http://gizmodo.com/5435880/what-is-this-the-years-most-mysterious-images

26. What is it? Roads and circular fields in the Egyptian desert, as photographed from the International Space Station. Thermal image of passing gas

27. What is it? • These are Martian dust devils--miniature wind vortices—running over the soil of the Red Planet..

28. biochemist, Szent-Györgyi “Discovery consists of seeing what everyone has seen and thinking what nobody had thought”

29. Burrs Velcro http://z.about.com/d/inventors/1/0/V/7/velcro.jpg

30. 2. Imaging • Imagine a day at the beach • Close your eyes and try to conjure vivid images as I read this passage

31. 3. Abstracting Memoir in six words • Sum up your life (to date) in six words • Crawl, step, run, step, crawl, lay. • Broke. Payday. Broke. Payday. Broke. Payday ... • Didn't do what I should have. • California, Pennsylvania, Jersey, Manhattan, Vancouver, Seattle. • Half over but feels like new. • Child, adult, wife, mom, widow, me. • Don't even try to plan it.

32. 4. Recognizing Patterns "Recognizing patterns is one of humanity's greatest abilities. It is the basis of conscious awareness that brings cohesion to a chaotic world by allowing us to see contrast as well as similarity." -Maggie Macnab in "Decoding Design"

33. Mathematics in Art

34. Golden Section The Golden Section is a ratio based on a phi The Golden Section is also known as the Golden Mean, Golden Ratio and Divine Proportion.  It is a ratio or proportion defined by the number Phi = 1.618033988749895

36. 5. Forming Patterns

38. 6. Using Analogies to Solve Problems

39. 7. Body Thinking If you play a sport or a musical instrument, what happens if you think about what your body is doing? When stuck on a problem, Darwin walked, Einstein played the violin. Many great thinkers have used body movement to stimulate thought.

40. 8. Empathizing Einstein’s experience of riding a beam of light enabled him to con- ceptualize relativity. riding a light beam to conceptualize relativity IsamuIs Isamu Nogushi “Core” invited visitors to, “Put your hand inside and you will know what the inside of a stone feels like.”

41. Synectics One step in the creative problem solving process of synectics is creating a personal analogy. For example, to solve the problem of how to ship apples without bruising them, an individual might think about how s/he would want to be shipped if s/he were an apple.

42. 9. Dimensional Thinking • I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. Michelangelo An exotic n-sphere is a sphere from the point of view of topology. But it is not equivalent to a standard n-sphere from the point of view of differential calculus.

43. 10. Modeling • he Borromean rings consist of three topological circles which are linked and form a Brunnian link, i.e., removing any ring results in two unlinked rings. The Borromean rings consist of three topological circles which are linked and form a Brunnian link, i.e., removing any ring results in two unlinked rings

44. 11. Playing • Keri Mullis, nobel prize winner for discovering the Polymerase Chain Reaction, a technique which allows a small strand of DNA to be copied almost an infinite number of times, said that he discovered it while playing. He was driving along the California coastline, thinking of molecules like Tinkertoys, and they fell into place

45. 12. Transforming • Take a strip of paper, give it one twist and glue the ends together. • Draw a line along the middle of the strip the entire length. Is the shape 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional? • Cut the strip along the line in the middle. What do you get? • Cut the new strip down the middle, what do you get? • Investigate what happens when the strip has an odd or even number of half twists before joining and is then cut. • Möbius strip

46. M.C. Escher’s Artistic View of theMöbius Strip

47. 13. Synthesizing • Creative people combine thoughts, fields, senses, modes, etc. in the process and the result is experienced as a whole.

48. How Can You Best Advocate for Your Child? • Begin by trying to partner with the school to meet the needs of gifted students (don’t begin with being adversarial). • Recognize that multiple voices have a greater impact (as long as they are not shrill). So, joining or starting a parent group can have long term benefits. Bonnie Cramond, UGA

49. NAGC is AResource for Advocacy: http://www.nagc.org Bonnie Cramond, UGA

50. Hoagie’s Gifted Education Pagehttp://www.hoagiesgifted.org/parents.htm Bonnie Cramond, UGA