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7 - The Role of the Knowledge Base in Creative Thinking
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- By John F. Feldhusen, Department of Educational Psychology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
- Edited by James C. Kaufman, California State University, San Bernardino, John Baer, Rider University, New Jersey
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- Book:
- Creativity and Reason in Cognitive Development
- Published online:
- 19 January 2010
- Print publication:
- 29 May 2006, pp 137-144
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Summary
Creativity is adaptive behavior. At a low and simple level it is exhibited by 2-year-old Mary, who, deprived of her pacifier, sees her thumb as an acceptable substitute. Later it is 6-year-old Christopher who wants to play Santa Claus on Christmas Eve but does not have access to a commercial Santa Claus outfit. However, he sees how to adapt some cotton for a beard, some shiny black paper for boots, and some red cloth he has seen in a closet for a coat. What emerges, with a bit of help from his mother, is a credible creation of Santa and of a Santa Claus suit. It is a problem or need that causes Mary and Christopher to seek and create a solution as opposed to simply crying or doing nothing. Later there is a teenager who plans a costume party for his friends or the graduating senior who has designed an attractive vita to enhance her summer job search. Wherever there is need to make, create, imagine, produce, or design anew what did not exist before – to innovate – there is adaptive or creative behavior, sometimes called “small c.” On the other end there is “big C” in the invention of a new automobile that runs on both gasoline or electricity, the composition of a new symphony, the discovery of a new drug that reduces the dementia of Alzheimer's disease, or the production of a new work of art.
5 - Giftedness, Talent, Expertise, and Creative Achievement
- Edited by Robert J. Sternberg, Yale University, Connecticut, Janet E. Davidson, Lewis and Clark College, Portland
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- Book:
- Conceptions of Giftedness
- Published online:
- 02 December 2009
- Print publication:
- 16 May 2005, pp 64-79
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Summary
Giftedness, talent, expertise, and creative achievement are inextricably linked concepts. As we seek to understand the development of abilities in youth and the rise to high-level achievement in adulthood, these concepts may guide our efforts to nurture and establish conditions for their full fruition. The purpose of this chapter, then, is to examine the basic nature of giftedness, talent, expertise, and creative achievement and their interrelationships as they affect and guide the education of gifted and talented youth and to delineate guidelines for the development of high-level and creative achievement in adulthood.
What genetic potentials and facilitative conditions combine and interact to produce expertise and/or high-level creative achievement? From exhaustive study of the lives of creative achievers, Gardner (1993) and Simonton (1997) offer some insights based on in-depth analysis of the lives of high-level, creative achievers. At first one is struck by the diversity among very high achievers: staid Albert Einstein, flamboyant Picasso, isolated Georgia O'Keefe, scholarly Darwin, and adventurous Ernest Hemingway! Are there common characteristics that might account for their genius or serve as predictors of creative achievement? Or are they too unique as examples of high-level achievement? Insights derived from research on the lives of great achievers are examined later in this chapter.
GIFTED AND PRECOCIOUS
Gifts come from people. Nature gives no gifts, but it does transmit some genetic potentials (Bouchard, 1997; Plomin, 1997; Scarr, 1997). Genetic potentials unfold in interaction with stimulating experiences structured by parents, family, home, schools, teachers, and curricula.