Creative Synthesis

Beyond the gifted label.

by Lisa Rivero

Education Reform, One Assignment at a Time

Barbara Clark reminds us that “under the threat of grades, bright students balk at venturing into the unknown or trying any area in which they are not sure they will succeed.” The resulting perfectionism and risk-aversion, far from lessening in college, can cause university students to focus on grades to the exclusion of deep, personal, creative learning. Read More

High School Years: College Prep or Life Prep?

It takes courage for parents to put college prep into a broader perspective during our children’s teenage years, especially when friends and family believe that admission to specific schools is the only validation of potential. Read More

Mister Rogers' Emotional Neighborhood

While there are many different definitions of emotional intelligence, they all include being able to recognize, identify, or perceive one’s own emotions. The idea is simple, but the regular practice of staying with our feelings long enough to know them is often very difficult. Read More

Be More Creative Today

While we individually cannot do much to change our educational system or paradigms right now, we can change our approach to creativity today in our homes and classrooms, including these five mindsets and habits that parents and teachers can to use encourage children of all ages, and ourselves, to hang on to and nurture our innate creative capacity. Read More

The Self-Education of Oscar Micheaux

Whether his achievements were the result of talent or practice or something else entirely, one trait stands out as allowing Oscar Micheaux to pursue his successive dreams: He was willing to be the oddball and to appear foolish in others’ eyes. Read More

Many Ages at Once

Gifted children will not necessarily fit comfortably within a group of age peers or meet usual expectations in terms of their development. For young children, this lack of fit may lead to misdiagnoses or premature diagnoses of learning and other disorders. Read More

Social Media and the Hedgehog's Dilemma

To what extent do we use social media as the middle, safe distance to avoid having not only closer, unplugged relationships with others, but quieter and deeper relationships with ourselves? Read More

Slow Intelligence

Learning skills of slowness may be particularly beneficial, and particularly challenging, for those who think the fastest. Read More

To Be Your Best, Suck You Must

Just two months before winning the 2011 U.S. Open in record-breaking fashion, Rory McIlroy lost the Masters in what some pronounced “a breakdown of historic proportions.” How many of us, after sucking in such a public way, would have picked up our bags and gone home for good? Read More

Practice Safe Sharing

Being more open and honest about our thoughts and feelings is always the best course. Or is it? Read More

Give Yourself to Yourself

An advocate does not chastise, does not berate, does not push to the point of exhaustion. An advocate does not blame or bring up old mistakes. Read More

No, I Insist, After You

If we can resist the urge to reach for the security blanket of a cell phone, long queues offer a built-in opportunity to slow down, to practice mindfulness, to watch life unfold at its own pace, to practice gratitude, even to daydream a little. Read More

College Considerations for High-Ability Teens

Research points to more effective college options than ever before for our brightest students, especially for families willing to approach the problem with an open and creative mind. Read More

Growing Up on Purpose

When we are unhappy because we don't get what we want, perhaps we are asking the wrong question. A better question than "What do I want?" may be "What do I want to be?" Read More

What Does It All Mean?

Bright and creative young people can easily find themselves standing on an existential precipice, asking important questions that have no simple answers. Such questioning can be triggered by something as normal as a baseball game. Read More

Growing Up Clever

What bright children need is an adult who understands the fear of one's own cleverness and who can offer the glimpse of a less lonely future. Read More

You Have To Change

Martin Scorsese was most interested in George Harrison's "intellectual spirituality," his "search for meaning, a search for the part of being human that seems to yearn for something that is more than the physical world. He ultimately may have found a way to live with himself, to a certain extent, to deal with the end of his life. That’s inspiring.” Read More

Are You Ready for a New Personality?

What if our unique interests and capabilities are more than mere indications of vocational aptitude? What if, by honoring and pursuing them with the intensity they ask for, we can be more fully the person we are meant to be? Read More

Teen Survival Smarts

"I'm afraid too many gifted young adults will be made to feel that they are 'wasting their talents' unless they conform to a 20th-century view of what success looks like." ~ Jim Delisle Read More

Multipotentiality: When High Ability Leads to Too Many Options

For people with multipotentiality, finding a good fit of personal abilities, preferences, workplace requirements, and vocational rewards has no perfect answer and few irremediable choices. Read More

Diagnosis Normal: Bright, Conflicted, and Out of Sync

Sometimes understanding does mean diagnosing potentially debilitating disorders early, but in other cases it means resisting premature diagnoses and helping teens to continue to work through their asynchrony and disintegration so as to become more healthy, integrated adults. Read More

The Role of Anxiety Master

One important aspect of games such as D&D or Magic: The Gathering, especially in our hyper-connected world, is that they are, by their nature, communal, encouraging cooperation and face-to-face interaction. Read More

Lisa Rivero is the author of The Smart Teens' Guide to Living with Intensity and other education and parenting books, and she teaches college-level creative thinking, humanities, and writing at Milwaukee School of Engineering.

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About Creative Synthesis

Creative Synthesis is a discussion of creativity, talent, and giftedness. Here I also explore intellectual life in the 21st century and the experience of creativity and intensity throughout the lifespan from my perspectives as a writer, parent, and teacher.