Creativity scholar Michele Root-Bernstein discusses her work exploring the playful imaginative worlds of children and their correlation with creativity. Scott and Michele tease out the implications of imaginary worlds on education, giftedness, vocation, self-perception and more. Some other topics include the importance of play, technology’s effects on self-expression and high-level creative achievement.
In this episode you will hear about:
- How the presence of imaginative worlds in children may predict adult creativity
- The vital importance of creativity in the sciences
- Whether or not play is a skill that can be developed
- The value of unstructured playtime in education
- How visualizing your future self can help you realize your dreams
- Video games as they relate to imaginary worlds
- The presence of imaginary worlds in Macarthur fellows
- The distinction between intellectual giftedness and creative giftedness
- The correlation of self-identifying as a creative person with creativity
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Resources:
- Michele’s book: Inventing Imaginary Worlds
- Michele’s book: Sparks of Genius
- Michele’s column for TheCreativityPost.com
- Scott’s article: Conversation on Daydreaming with Jerome L. Singer
- A summary of E. Paul Torrance’s research
- “Scratch” creative children’s program
- An explanation of Robert Silvey’s “Paracosms”
- Information about the Bronte family
“Michele Root-Bernstein is an historian, a haiku poet, an independent scholar in creativity studies affiliated with Michigan State University and a teaching artist associated with the John F. Kennedy Center. Co-author of the book Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World’s Most Creative People, she researches, lectures, workshops, writes and blogs on the practices and processes of creative imagination in all walks of life.” –Blurb taken from Amazon.com
