Because of misperceptions about the nature of creativity, many creative children are misunderstood in and out of their classrooms. Based on a close association with creative adults and childrenn, the authors postulate that creativity is a state of being that is challenged by the socialization process in Western civilization. The authors envisage two differing states of being namely, a n essential and a conventional. These states represent end points on a continuum. Creative adults speak of their struggle to try and regain something of their original state of being. Understanding creative children who are closer to the essential state is important for their emotional wellbeing and the nurturing of their creativity.
w w m " l O N
In our association with creative adults we became aware that they share certain feelings and experiences that are infrequently (if ever) mentioned in the literature. They struggle to verbalize these feelings which center around a n sense of being different. This "difference" refers not only to the experience of being unlike fellow adults but also to being unlike themselves as children. Many of them express a striving to reclaim what they feel is their "original creativity." All of them speak in various terms of a tremendous sense of loss, an emptiness, a numbness, a sense of being false, of being irretrievably "programed."
They use different terms to say the s a m e thing. S o m e are investigating how they c a m e to end up in the way they are. Others accept that life will most likely never offer them the same fulfillment they experienced a s children. Their comments inspired u s to review the meaning of being creative in a n attempt to understand what they are trying to say.