Parents of gifted children may not always know what drives their child or motivates them to learn. Interest inventories are for the student and their parents/guardian. Once the inventory is completed and given to the teacher, it may give the teacher, student, and parent a more comprehensive understanding of the gifted child’s emotional and cognitive needs. They can then be used to develop a more creative program for the gifted child and enhance the self-actualization process at home and at school. In the previously cited article, Dr. Jane Piirto believes that parents and teachers can enhance creativity in children and offers twelve ways they may do so:
- Provide a private place for creative work to be done.
- Provide materials (e.g. musical instruments, sketch books).
- Encourage and display the child’s creative work and avoid over evaluating it.
- Do your own creative work and let the child see you.
- Pay attention to what your family mythology is teaching.
- Value the creative work of others.
- Avoid emphasizing sex-role stereotypes.
- Provide private lessons and special classes.
- If hardship comes into your life, use the hardship positively to encourage the child to express him/herself through metaphor.
- Emphasize that talent is only a small part of creative production and that discipline and practice are important.
- Allow the child to be “odd”; avoid emphasizing socialization at the expense of creative expression.
- Interact with the child with kind humor. Get creativity training.
In Summary
As we move through the course we will expand upon definitions of creativity and begin to form our own definition as well. For now, however, it is important to understand the relationship between self-actualization and creativity, and consider how the development of both impacts our gifted students. You will have students of varying abilities in your classroom, and distinguishing who among them is creative may prove to be a difficult task. Bertie Kingore provides a reference to assist teachers in her article High Achievers, Gifted Learners, Creative Thinkers. As teachers of the gifted it is our responsibility to nurture the whole student, helping them become self-actualized individuals so they can reach their greatest creative potential in all aspects of their life.