Brains.

I've been thinking about creativity lately. I used to teach at a school which had a GATE program. The method for sorting elementary students into this program was dubious, at best. It was interesting to see the effect that being labeled as "gifted" had on children. These were not child prodigies. They were students of slightly above average intelligence. They were students who could function independently in a classroom. Once they were told that they were "gifted", they no longer wanted to interract with other "non-gifted" children. It was as though the rest of the children at the school, even former playmates, were now the great unwashed. 

A tragic social consequence, was that the other children felt that they were "not gifted" and "not talented". They started to see themselves through the lens of the label. Strangely, some of the most talented kids, were actually not in the GATE program. 

A few weeks ago, an older student came into my classroom and told me that he was like a young Leonardo da Vinci. He was explaining how smart he was, compared to other students. I was completely shocked, and had no answer. I explained to him that da Vinci was a doer, not a talker, so he'd better get started producing a journal and a sketchbook. Today, this student again returned, and told me something very interesting. He said that sometimes he worries about the quality of his school work, but then he looks at the work of other students, and he sees that his work is so far beyond theirs, and he feels relieved. He knows that he is smarter.

This mode of thinking and overconfidence is completely alien to most children.

I forced this student to sit down and to watch the David Bowie short talk about making work, and about being creative. Then I told this student that he isn't competing with other students, he's competing with himself. I explained that artists and creative people constantly mine their own territory. They try to better their own ideas and theories. As I was talking, I could tell that I was making him kind of mad. He kept changing the subject.

But, I know that I am right about this. Think about Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs, if you don't want to think about artists. Neither of them worried too much about others. They were constantly trying to top themselves. Most of the creative people that I know are above the common fray, because they are knee deep in their own personal fray.

Picasso started by doing his own work. When he moved to Paris, he copied the work of other painters, using their exact styles. He wanted to see what they were doing, he wanted to learn from them. This period of copies didn't last long. Eventually, he moved on to working from pure inspiration. It's interesting to read his thoughts about creativity in his conversations with famous photographer Brassai.

Back to my original thinking about labeling and classifying children. We often feed kids messages about themselves, and sometimes these are extremely limiting. They cause a child to study peers and to try to compare and to jockey for position in the herd. Truly gifted people don't give much thought to the herd at all. They perform with self-absorption on their own tasks, and in their own way.