Teaching the Creatively Gifted
by Sharon Jeffus
After recently giving a workshop on Creativity and Invention / Teaching the Creatively Gifted Child, I had a request to write an article on this topic. Many parents are frustrated and discouraged by their child's behavior. They look at their child sometimes and think they have a genius on their hands, then the child will do something irresponsible, rude or just plain unthinking. They won't focus on the task at hand and seem unable to do the work so diligently laid out for them. "I went to a curriculum fair and bought a whole year's worth of school books and I can't get him/her to complete one page!" Sound familiar? Frustrated, they take their child to a doctor for professional help. Now the child has been perhaps misdiagnosed as ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) and treated for that problem. They are placed on ritalin. The child starts doing better work. He isn't himself anymore, but he can finish a page. Why don't you feel better about it?
An interesting quote from The Gifted Child, by Kimberly Shwab, (a highly recommended book) is: "Marie says the most tragic aspect of giftedness is how frequently gifted children are prescribed drugs because they tend to be overactive. Due to insatiable hungers for knowledge, gifted children don't sit quietly in the classroom and are sometimes disruptive."
Many parents are frustrated and discouraged because they either have not recognized their child's giftedness, and consider them rebellious, or the child has been misdiagnosed as ADHD and treated for that problem. God cares so much for each child individually, in the homeschool movement and out, that I believe he has raised up people to meet their needs. Creativity is good. The book, The Hidden Art of Homemaking, by Edith Shaeffer is full of wonderful ideas to bring out that creativity in not only our children, but also ourselves. Maybe you were creatively gifted in school but that part of you was discouraged and never developed.
In its very nature, creativity marches to a different drummer. Albert Einstein said, "He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt." Thomas Alva Edison said, in an article from the New York Herald, Dec. 31, 1879: "Have faith in science books" They are mostly misleading. I get mad at myself when I think I have believed what was so learnedly set out in them (science books). There are more frauds in science than anywhere else... take a whole pile of them that I can name and you will find uncertainty if not imposition in half of what they state as scientific truth. They have time and again set down experiments as done by them, curious out of the way experiments that they never did. I tell you I'd rather know nothing about a thing in science, nine times out of ten, than what the books tell me. ...Professor this or that will controvert you out of the books and prove out of the books that it can't be so, though you have it in the palm of your hand and could break his spectacles with it."
What would it have been like to be the mother and teacher of these men? One even wanted to throw away the books! How marvelous that this is the attitude they had, and even more remarkable that it wasn't pushed out of them by well meaning educators who want everyone to march in step. If God has given you one of these creatively gifted children, the one thing you don't want to do is make them march in step. This God given creativity is fragile.
There are several different lists that help parents recognize giftedness. Reading some of the many excellent books; going over lists of characteristics and searching out information on the subjects is needed. Go to the web sites:
http://www.nfgcc.org/53.htm
http://www.nfgcc.org/30.htm
http://www.ctgifted.org/faq_problems.html
Just one of many excellent books is, Growing Up Gifted by Barbara Clark. ERIC Clearing House on Disabilities and Gifted Education has wonderful resources online at the following URL:
gopher://ericir.syr.edu:70/11Clearinghouses/16houses/ERIC_EC
Be sure to get on their mailing list.
The Council for Exceptional Children, 1920 Association Drive, Reston, VA 22091-1589. Fax: 703-264-9494. They have excellent resources, information on summer programs, and articles on recognizing giftedness.
A list by George Kneller in The Art and Science of Creativity, gives the following traits of creatively gifted children:
1. Intelligence...For high creativity, one needs to be highly intelligent but the reverse is not true. A high IQ does not guarantee high creativity.
2. Awareness...sensitive to their environment
3. Fluency...the number of ideas one can produce per unit of time.
4. Flexibility...trying a variety of approaches.
5. Originality...uncommoness of response.
6. Elaboration... The creative person not only has novel ideas, but follows them through to creative achievement.
7. Combination of skepticism and credulity.
8. Persistence
9. Withdrawn and aloof (although I believe this is not always the case)
10. Independent thinking
11. Self-critical
12. Humor
13. Nonconformity
14. Self-confidence/self esteem
15. Willing to take risks.
16. Not time bound.
17. Sustained curiosity
18. Emotional stability (the editor of this newsletter disagrees with this one)
A quote I really appreciate by him in the book, The Art and Science of Creativity is, "...some of the uncomfortable traits that make creative children less attractive to teachers are:
They are often difficult to handle, being more independent
they are less friendly and communicative, being more self absorbed; they are often less studious and orderly, being more interested in their own ideas than their assigned work."
Another great quote from Norine Kerber, president of the St. Louis Association for Gifted Education is, "Researchers have documented that many gifted people do not have equally high ability in all areas. They may be poor spellers or have illegible handwriting. A learning disabled gifted child is not uncommon. Still, a teacher who lacks proper training may say, "This child can't be gifted. He/she is terrible at spelling, handwriting, paying attention, following directions, etc." Spelling and handwriting (a function of dexterity), are not measurements of thinking skills, creativity and intellectual talent."
The following ideas are found in Gifted and Talented An Introductory Booklet by Dr. Anne B. Crabbe, Supervisor, Programs for Gifted, Lincoln, Nebraska.
I. Personality
A. Values and attitudes of the gifted/creative are likely to be divergent and different from the norm.
B. The highly imaginative are prone to fantasy.
C. Gifted children will at times become highly frustrated when they confront subjects or situations they cannot handle.
D. Bright students have more latent ego strength to channel - this sometimes comes out in the form of disruptive behavior.
An ADHD student will not focus on anything, but your gifted student may become extremely focused on the things that interest him - sometimes to the irritation of mom and dad. That little command to "Pick up your socks!" never even got through. Creatively gifted children have trouble with not being time bound. They tend to become so focused on what they are doing, they lose and awareness of time.
If you have a creatively gifted child and he/she is rebelling against the canned curriculum that you have chosen for them, perhaps you need to step back and ask yourself what are you accomplishing forcing them to learn in the way you have decided is appropriate" The Way They Learn by Cynthia Tobias is an excellent book on learning styles. As long as you are teaching children Godly behavior and social skills, if you give them a lot of the rein in their studies, you may be amazed at the result. I have homeschooled my oldest son Jonathan since the fifth grade. He definitely has all the characteristics of the creatively gifted. He has not completed a workbook since he was in the fifth grade in public school. He has studied many things with his own initiative and started taking college classes at age 15. I was going to make him take junior and senior high classes in a purchased homeschool curriculum. He said he didn't want to and wasn't interested. I had him tested; put him in college classes; and he has been motivated and doing well ever since.
I remember being a very creative youngster. I skipped a grade in school, but always felt out of step with the traditional academically oriented students. I was interested in all of the creative arts to a very high degree. God had planned for me, I believe, to encourage people to develop their own creative gifts and the gifts of their children.
Why, we ask ourselves, is the secular world in control of most of the media and creative arts? We, as Christians, see this independence and creativity as rebellion against authority. If Edison had submitted to the authority of the science books of the time, we would all be lighting our houses with candles! Allowing this creativity to flourish is important to our society and a positive message. A great example of this is the Stout family.
Karen Stout is a fabulous writer and educator in the homeschool movement. When her son exhibited an interest in movie making at a young age, I believe she said 7, her husband worked with him and they made a movie with their home camcorder. This father/son relationship continued and culminated in the son getting a thirty thousand dollar scholarship to one of the best film schools in California. His goal is to make Christian movies, and he will have the technical ability to do it! If the parents had told the son to go back to his books "the prescribed plan they had for him to learn, the son would have probably never developed his talent and we would have lost a great communicator of a positive and not a negative visual image.
Another wonderful family with a creatively gifted 14 year old son have allowed the son to develop his own comic book company. His first comic book is truly professional quality. They could have quelled his intense interest and steered their son back to more traditional learning experiences, but they had the foresight to allow him to develop this gift to the maximum. If this article has one message, it is to loosen the reins on these gifted children with respect to allowing their creative interests priority. If this is the way God has planned and gifted them, then we as parents and educators can do no less than allow them the freedom to excel.
