Judy Bruce
After a glorious holiday season, one I hope you enjoyed, our thoughts turn to the new year and ways that we can improve our own lives and the lives of those we love. In this column I will be defining creativity and explaining traits that the high creative exhibits, whether it be a relative, friend or yourself.
While teaching, I discovered after several years conferencing with bewildered parents of highly creative students, that these kids often struggle to be understood and appreciated. I began research on creativity to help these divergent thinkers who often danced to a different drummer, were highly sensitive and empathetic, sometimes unorganized, but very special artistic students. I was able to offer, after years of research, suggestions, tricks, and practices that helped me and my gifted students become more accomplished, function more comfortably in life and conform to the role society expects in school, in work, and family life. Hopefully, those of you who are highly creative souls can benefit from the columns coming up and even if you feel you are not especially creative, creative thinking can be reinforced, and grown. This is true for children, teens, and adults.
I define creativity as awareness (sensitivity to problems), fluency (many ideas), flexibility (ability to change and or go in different directions), originality (unusual responses) and redefinition (ability to improvise and adapt).
First, let’s decide whether you or ones you love are highly creative. The following traits are often shown by the especially creative children and adults—or even YOU!!
- Occupies time without boredom,
- Asks complex questions,
- Goes beyond complex tasks,
- Comes up with different ways of doing things,
- Takes risks,
- Draws (doodles) constantly,
- Experiments with the familiar,
- Doesn’t mind the consequences of being different,
- Shows heightened aesthetic awareness.
The creative child or adult can also be: - Sensitive,
- Gullible,
- Temperamental,
- Show lack of concern,
- Have a sense of humor,
- Rebellious,
- Independent,
- Will tolerate great discomfort to achieve a goal.
Today we see what constitutes a highly creative mind. In my next columns I will discuss each of the ways that one can be creative and how to increase creative thinking in even the most linear thinker! Do stay tuned, as CREATIVITY CAN BE ENCOURAGED AND TAUGHT!
I am including photos of Picasso’s art, as he is one of the artists that is truly , uniquely creative.
And, remember “You Gotta Have Art!”
