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Howard Gardner's Creating Minds

This study will critique Howard Gardner's Creating Minds, examining such matters as the nature of creativity and whether it is a quality one is born with or learns. The study will also consider whether the author's anatomy of creativity is valid for creative individuals today, whether Western society primarily values "logical-mathematical" and "bodily-kinesthetic" intelligence, and what the impact of these social emphases is on the youth of the culture. Of particular interest to this study will be the turning to drugs by youths whose creative impulses--- other than through math/science or sports---are not nurtured by society.

At the heart of creativity for Gardner is childhood. Throughout the book the child, child-likeness, and childhood play major roles both in the nurturing of creativity and as major components in the exercise of creativity and the products produced by that exercise. It is clear, then, that, if childhood lacks these nurturing efforts, if society fails to provide such encouragement and guidance in a creative sense, the youth will not be able to exercise his or her natural creative impulses. He or she will not be able to fulfill himself in this vital realm, he will experience low self-worth, and as a result he will be more likely to seek escape and relief in some diversion such as drugs.

In the Preface, Gardner emphasizes his own experiences as a youth which led to a creative life:

As a studious youngster . . . I loved to read. What captured my interest most were biographies and histories, drawn from many lands, but focused particularly on Western Europe, from which my family came, and the United States, our new home (Gardner, 1993, p. xi).

The youth who is encouraged, and has the opportunity to be creative, generally has a strong connection to his own roots and the roots of his family and culture. Again, if a child does not experience such a nurturing connection, he will be more likely to turn to drugs in...

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Howard Gardner's Creating Minds. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 01:12, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1702599.html