The articles in this issue of "New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development" nicely summarize recent findings about creativity and development. This commentary underscores some of the key ideas and puts them into a larger context (i.e., the corpus of creativity research). It pinpoints areas of agreement (e.g., the need to take…

This article attempts to address the question of how to make gifted education more equitable and productive by shifting priorities to talent development for all rather than confining itself to the "gifted." I first present an overview of political and ethical considerations in selecting a few for talent or creativity development. I then…

From an early age, so much emphasis goes into teaching children the fundamentals of color theory, in particular the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue. Toys, building blocks, furniture, and so many other items used in a preschool environment are manufactured in these three colors. Yet, recent research has uncovered that babies as young as…

Background: The high school production offers our students a creative way to develop their literacy, numeracy and social skills to mention a few. Why then do we permit anyone to teach the production and usually expect teachers to volunteer? Purpose: To do research into why the school production should be adopted as an integral part of our…

Mitchel Resnick is a researcher, inventor, and professor at MIT's Media Laboratory in Cambridge, MA, and the founder of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at MIT. He is the lead innovator behind many cutting-edge learning technologies and projects for children, including the Computer Clubhouse, PicoCrickets, and the wildly successful consumer…

In this article, Boldt considers decisions teachers must make about the value of children's writing as a form of play in primary classrooms. She offers a brief history of the framing of this question at 1966 Dartmouth Conference on English, focusing particularly on the perspective of Jimmy Britton. She highlights the relationship between Britton's…

In this article, the author discusses the poetics of teaching. She states that a poetics of teaching privileges not only mastery but innovation--not only the transmission of existing knowledge, but also productivity and change. As their media for experimentation and expression, poetic teachers can employ all of the many materials at their disposal…

The authors' recent theoretical work has focused on developing the construct of mini-c creativity and illustrating how all levels of creative performance follow a trajectory that starts with novel and personally meaningful interpretations (mini-c), which can then progress to intrapersonally judged novel and meaningful contributions (little-c) and…

In this article, the author focuses on the development of a young poet from Bulgaria, Indiana Pehlivanova, who experienced an explosive growth as a poet. Activating memory, myth, and reality, Pehlivanova's imagination wove together what the author terms as "the finest lines I have ever witnessed in youth poetry."

Many graduate creative writing programs depend on "star" faculty who have been hired more because of their professional reputation as writers than because of their commitment to teaching. As a result, such programs often fail to provide reflection on teaching that would truly serve their students. One step toward alleviating this problem is to…

This article, which is speculative in outlook and emerges from an extended literature review on this subject, takes as its basic premise the notion that the idea of "creativity"--whether in relation to literacy, schooling or the economy, is constructed as a series of rhetorical claims. These rhetorics of creativity emerge from the contexts of…

In this article, the author provides a concise discussion on creativity, defining the term, sharing theoretical background information and offering insights into promoting creativity in online university classes. Emphasis will be placed on relevant ways to integrate creativity into instructional activities across the academic disciplines. He…