This chapter discusses creativity from several perspectives. It is defined as the ability to see things in new ways and think unconventionally. Creativity can be explained as an attitude, process, product, skill, set of personality traits, and is influenced by environmental conditions. The chapter also discusses nurturing creativity in children, potential obstacles to creativity, the relationship between creativity and intelligence, and Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences.

1. Chapter 1:
Understanding
Creativity

2. Objectives
Yani: Art Prodigy
Creativity
Explaining Creativity
Creativity Is an Attitude Not an Aptitude
Creativity as a skill
Creativity As a Set of Personality Traits
Creativity As a Set of Environmental Conditions
Nurturing Creativity at Home
Obstacles to Creativity
Children Need Adults who Facilitate Creative Expression
Creativity vs. Intelligence
Multiple Intelligence

3. Yani: Art Prodigy
Daughter of Chinese oil
painter Wang Shiqiang
Began painting at age 2
Had her first exhibit at age 4
At age 6, she completed
4,000 paintings

4. Creativity
The ability to see
things in new ways
Boundary breaking and
going beyond the
information given
Thinking unconventionally
Making something unique
Combining unrelated
things into something
new

5. Explaining Creativity
1. Attitude
2. Process
3. Product
4. Skill
5. Set of personality
6. Traits
7. Set of environmental
conditions

6. Creativity Is an Attitude
Not an Aptitude
Try out new ideas and different ways
of doing things.
Push boundaries and explore
possibilities
Manipulate and transform ideas and
materials.
Take things apart and put them back
together in different ways.
Physically play with objects.
Imagine, engage in fantasy, or just
day dream.
Solve problems or try to figure
things out.
Ask questions or challenge accepted
ways of thinking or acting.

7. Creativity As a Skill
The skill of creativity
requires exercise to
grow.
“I’m just not creative”
Research on creativity

8. Creativity As a Set
of Personality Traits
Curiosity
Flexibility
Sensitivity to Problems
Redefinition
Self-feeling
Originality
Insight

9. Creativity As a Set of
Environmental
Conditions
Creative expression, the
greater the one’s
background of experience
with people, places, and
objects, the greater the
range of possibilities to
draw from in creative
activity.

10. Nurturing Creativity
at Home
Children will be creative on
their own
Allow children to make
mistakes
Mothers of highly creative
young children

11. Obstacles to
Creativity
Four environmental Factors that
provide potential obstacles to
creativity:
1. Home
2. School
3. Gender Roles
4. Society, culture, and tradition

12. Children need adults
who facilitate
creative expression
1. Celebrate Creativity
2. Value Children’s Creativity
3. Be a Creative Partner
4. Provide Time and Space for
Creative
5. Provide Toys and Materials
Conductive to Creativity
6. Provide a Psychological
Climate Conducive to
Creativity
7. Weave Creativity and Creative
Expression Throughout Your
Curriculum

13. Creativity vs.
Intelligence
Four patterns:
1. High intelligence and high
creativity
2. Low intelligence and high
creativity
3. Low intelligence and low
creativity
4. High intelligence and low
creativity

14. Multiple Intelligence
1. Bodily-kinesthetic
2. Musical-rhythmic
3. Interpersonal
4. Visual-spatial
5. Verbal-linguistic
6. Logical-mathematical
7. Intrapersonal
8. Naturalist