Baldwin, A. Y. (2001). Understanding the challenge of creativity among African Americans. Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, 12(3), 121-125.
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Clark (1988) outlined an integrated concept of creativity that includes: thinking (can be developed and measured); sensing (creation of new products or talent in a particular area); feeling (emotional energy from the creator); and intuition (high consciousness or high awareness of elements in the environment). Torrance, on the other hand, titled his book The Searcher Satori & Creativity. The Japanese meaning of satori translates into what Americans might call an "a-ha" experience. Torrance (1979) explained satori as the highest point attainable, a sudden flash of enlightenment. Satori evolves when there has been "intensive, long-term, one-to-one relationship to a 'sensei'" (teacher). Above all, satori requires persistence, hard work, self-discipline, diligence, energy, effort, competence, expertness" (p. ix). This fits into what Clark called the thinking part of creativity.
Historical reports of the last decades are revealing more and more about the creative endeavors of African Americans. Unique problem-solving skills helped members of this population survive in the face of many inequities. Little attention, however, has been paid to the relationship of these skills to creativity and, thus, to intelligence.
Hughes (1969), Kurtzman (1967), Stein (1962,as referenced in Clark, 1988) subscribed to several traits for the rationally thinking creative individual. Although the traits listed could apply to all populations, there are several that can be found most often among African American students. These are:
Clark's (1988) explanation of sensing, feeling, and intuition draws attention to similar characteristics or traits that also coincide with those found among African American children. These include:
Baldwin (1985) has listed some common characteristics and indicators that reflect creative traits. Her list coincides with those given above and reflects the integrated concept suggested by Clark (1988). Baldwin's list includes:
These traits are often exhibited in unusual and unacceptable classroom behaviors. Consequently, many teachers do not capitalize on these qualities to develop appropriate classroom activities that can develop new ideas through many media, become a catalyst for enhancing academic weaknesses, be a means for developing leadership skills, and promote a positive self-concept (Baldwin, 1985).
A negative self-concept has been a big issue that has been discussed over and over again as an important deterrent to the expression of giftedness or creativity among African American students. Torrance (1968) warned about discontinuity that can occur among children of minority groups when they lack a positive self-concept or are not seen as having true potential. He referred to this as a disruption of a child's experiences, thus causing him or her to feel out of place and creative activities to cease or become diminished.
Vygotsky's (1978) writings have caused psychologists to focus on the influence that environmental stimulation has on cognitive capabilities such as the language and intellectual development of children. Drawing upon this position, helping African American students to develop their creativity should also include providing environmental supports such as a stimulating environment, continual guidance, critical judgments of creative efforts, the use of manipulative or other nonverbal materials, and a chance to work independently or in small groups.
Piirto (1992) has reviewed several authors' concept of creativity. As a way of pulling together ideas that affect the rationale for placing creativity at a much higher level of importance for African American students, I have selected only a few to reference in this article.
In their 1976 ground-breaking study of problem finding in visual artists, Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi thought that creativity was an attempt to reduce tension that may not be perceived consciously. The way artist did this was to seek problems that could be solved symbolically through human imagination. When the problem was identified and a temporary solution found, the tension was released, but this differed from the simple concept of equilibration, which Piaget had described years earlier (Piirto, 1992, p.20).
Gardner's book, Frames of Mind (1983), has given educators another way of looking at the traits that can be classified within a wide range of intellectual abilities. These abilities or intelligences are: (1) linguistic intelligence (use of language); (2) musical intelligence (thinking in musical terms); (3) logical-mathematical intelligence (thinking in terms of manipulation of numbers); (4) spatial intelligence (thinking and responding to the concept of space); (5) bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (use of the body to communicate ideas or concepts); (6) inter-personal intelligence (sensitivity to, and the ability to, relate to other people); (7) intra-personal intelligence (awareness of self with assurance); and (8) naturalistic intelligence (sensitivity to the features of the natural world). Creativity is an aspect of each of these intelligences. In addition, according to Gardner, creative individuals are often marked by an anomalous pattern of intelligences, by a tension between intellectual and personality styles, and by a striking lack of fit between personality and domain, intelligence and field, and biological constitution and choice of career. Indeed, it sometimes appears as if the very lack of fit served as a primary motivation for the individual to strike out in a new direction and, ultimately, to fashion a creative product (Gardner, 1988). Perhaps, as Gardner has theorized, "to conceptualize lifetime achievements of great magnitude, a new approach to the study of creativity [is] necessary" (Gardner, 1993 p. 299). Gardner has argued that it is important for educators to recognize the different ways in which individuals can express their mental processing abilities. For creativity to flourish with students presently enrolled in our classes, as well as those of generations to come, attention must be paid to the connections that creativity has with intelligence in general and Gardner's intelligences in particular.
Sternberg (1997) has listed in his triarchic view of giftedness three individual differences that might be found in a classroom. These are: analytic giftedness (the ability to dissect a problem and understand its parts); synthetic giftedness (reflected in a show of insight, intuition, or creativity and the ability to effectively handle new situations); and practical giftedness (the ability to apply analytic and synthetic intelligence to the solution of problems in various context). Those students who would score high in synthetic giftedness would probably do poorly on traditional intelligence tests. This applies significantly to many African American students, especially males.
Gardner and Sternberg have both emphasized the presence of creativity in all aspects of our daily lives and those of the children we teach. The inherent benefit of these positions is the recognition and the development of links from creativity to all-aspects of our lives.
A study by Clasen, Middleton, and Connell (1994) sought to assess artistic and problem-solving performance in minority and nonminority students. In one part of the assessment, the researchers involved the students in problem-solving scenarios. They found that fluency and flexibility were the two constructs of problem solving on which minority students scored much higher than their nonminority peers. Peer identifications were a part of the total assessment technique, and the results were consistent across the home and school problem-solving scenarios. Several talented minority art students were discovered through the process that these authors used. However, it is meaningful for teachers to know the depth of feeling these students had about art. They all thought art was "fun," but also that it didn't matter in the whole scheme of school activities. They reasoned that the other subjects they studied were considered real "work" and more important to school performance. The researchers noted that, "At a time when school dropout rates of minorities, especially minority males, is of national concern, it would seem that systematic recognition and development of diverse talents is one way of convincing students that education can be meaningful" (p. 31).
As Piirto (1992) suggested, although theories of creativity have been proposed by many different philosophers and theoreticians, very little has been done to synthesize these theories. And, few individuals have had recommendations or insights about creativity among African American youngsters.
Torrance (1971) has been most prolific in his discussion of creativity among minority children (at the time of his writings referring to Black children). His work has been a guide, and he has provided significant exposure to both the quality of creativity and the lack of understanding about its presence in minority students. He used the statement of a 5-year-old Black student as a title of one of his conference papers: "I was a Block and Nobody Builded Me!" From this title, Torrance built a case for providing minority youth an educational program based upon their creative positives. His list of creative positives is one that has been presented over and over because it does not fall prey to the typical focus on deficits and negatives. Torrance's list includes:
Whereas Torrance called these positives, many teachers would see them as deficits because there are no state-wide evaluation tools to assess these qualities or textbooks that refer to these as proper content or behaviors. As a beginning teacher, I failed at first to see the creative giftedness in one of my students. Leonard was a child who did not fit (in my mind) the qualities of the gifted child. His homework was never finished, he was never on time to school, he was never selected first for participation on the baseball team, and his assignments were torn and generally unpresentable. After rejecting many of his assignments with a mark of "unsatisfactory," Leonard decided to do something different--not what I wanted, but what he wanted. When I saw that he had illustrated all of his language assignments in cartoon form with characters portraying the answers, I knew that I had a "block" that needed to be built. My eyes were opened to the many faces of giftedness and the importance of teachers allowing these faces to be shown. Leonard became a track star (competing singularly instead of in groups) and finished his senior year at the Sorbonne in France before returning to Georgetown University to complete a degree in international relations. There are many more cases out there where teachers fail to recognize the positives and build on them in the classroom.
Creativity will continue to be a difficult construct to define accurately, as is the case with its close associate, intelligence. Piirto (1992) has tried to give her readers a list of theoretical thoughts from 50 or more philosophers, psychologists, psychoanalytic theorists, and domain specific theorists (pp. 318-321) about creativity. This long list shows how uncertain the field is about a definition of creativity. However, it is an important variable to be considered when we think of parenting, teaching, testing, and rewarding excellence. The culture of an individual can influence his or her approaches to stimuli. For the African American student, expressions of creativity can be similar to those shown by children of other ethnic groups, but the interpretation of these behaviors will vary according to the ingrained opinion of what behaviors can be considered creative positives instead of deficits.
Piirto (1992) has offered several suggestions to help parents and teachers nurture creativity. They include parents providing a private place for creative work to be done. The place might be very small, but it belongs to the child even if it is for a short period of time. In the classroom, there should be a corner designed for a quiet get-away. Children should have an opportunity to have some musical experience with an instrument or in participatory activities. A sketch pad, crayons, and other art tools should be available. At school, the classroom should be filled with books, music, posters, and miscellaneous objects with which children can experiment. There should be a display of the child's work and encouragement to continue. Parents and teachers should show students that they appreciate creative activities and serve as role-models for them. Historical information about those African Americans who have been or are creative in various fields should be included in the curriculum for all children but especially for African American students.
The future, with new and ever expanding technological sources, will provide an avenue for African American students to experiment with their ideas without the stigma that might be attached to their behaviors in class. Teachers must be ready to channel this energy by incorporating creative explorations as part of the content to be studied. Locating information on the Internet is just one step toward channeling this creative energy. Inventing challenges and counterarguments as part of the strategy for learning is another. Lynch and Harris (2000) have suggested that refutational processes be used to stimulate creativity for the teacher and the student. An example of this technique could be to give students in a social studies class a story about the Civil War with several errors included (such as the Civil War was fought to protect the South's interest in the stock market, especially the markets in Europe and Asia). Students can be encouraged to refute this statement with a rationale for doing so. Lynch and Harris cite scholars who claim that teachers who have been able to understand this concept and work with their children in such a manner help students take risks, challenge ideas, and experiment with creative hypotheses.
Torrance's early concerns in the 1960s about creativity in minority students and his continuing concern in the 1990s about the lack of understanding and the manner in which creativity in minorities is recognized and enhanced highlights the slow recognition of this aspect of ability among African Americans. Hopefully, during the next century, educational theories will include as part of its facts and generalizations these creative positives that educational planners must recognize.
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Banks, J. (1988). Multiethnic education: Theory and practice (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
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Clasen, D., Middleton, J., & Connell, T. (1994). Assessing artistic and problem-solving performance in minority and nonminority students using a nontraditional multidimensional approach. Gifted Child Quarterly, 38, 27-32.
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Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.