INTEREST AREA: CREATIVE EDGE EDUCATION, ESPECIALLY FOR ADHD-LABELLED "HANDS-ON LEARNERS

 

Core Concepts

 

1. Educating for human literacy: "Emotional" and "Social" Intelligence

 

Specific to the Creative Edge Focusing™ model, the core "human literacy" skills of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening can be integrated into education along with the traditional literacy of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

 
Basic to the many aspects of "emotional" and "social" intelligence outlined in Daniel Goleman's books, Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, the core of the PRISMSS Problem Solving Process, are two simple, self-help skills that everyone can learn. They translate into every sphere of home and work life, from personal growth and creativity to interpersonal relationship and conflict resolution to collaborative work in groups and teams to problem solving in our local, national, and global communities.

Through The Creative Edge Pyramid of seven applied methods , every student can learn, in about forty hours of instruction and in preschool through post-graduate education, how to:

Create new ideas

Change problem behaviors

Listen to another

 

Resolve interpersonal conflicts

Start a support group

Build supportive community

 

Create win/win decisions in groups

Create innovative solutions

Motivate others for collaborative action

 

Basic philosophy:  Each child has a unique inner blueprint.

Education serves, not to fill the child with "content," but to facilitate the unfolding of his or her unique interests and talents and to teach communication, team-work, and creative problem-solving skills.
See also Interest Area: Positive Parenting

 

2. Creative Edge Education is active, hands-on, always striving to engage The Creative Edge of each child

 

In Creative Edge Organizations, every worker is engaged at the Creative Edge of their own "intuitive felt sensing," their specific motivating passion of the moment. So, too, in Creative Edge Education, each student should be actively engaged, actively interested, actively motivated to create out of their own Creative Edge, their own "intuitive sensing."

 

In Business Schools, at the undergraduate and graduate level, hiring companies want employees skilled in working in collaborative teams. They have pushed professors from passive lecturing to aiding students to work in groups and teams. Students work on real-life, hands-on projects, including computer-generated business simulation "games" as well as actual business projects.

 

So, too, in our elementary and secondary education, if we want to educate future workers for creativity and innovation, students need to be taught to be active learners, to be engaged at their Creative Edge, and to work in groups and teams on collaborative, real-life projects. Read More about Focusing in Education.

 

3. Creative Edge Education respects differing gifts and talents

 

In business settings, there is great appreciation for the fact that teams need a balance of people with different skills, interests, and talents. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is one personality test widely used in organizations to help co-workers come to appreciate the "differing gifts" each brings to the table and to avoid conflict by respecting these differences. The MBTI helps businesses to hire personnel, organize teams, and increase conflict-free collaboration.

 

The MBTI is also widely used in education, to identify students' differing gifts and to offer guidance in terms of career choices utilizing various gifts. The MBTI, has proved highly valid in predicting future career choices and guiding students into careers which are a good fit for their particular skills, talents, and interests (Myers, Gifts Differing, 1980).

 

Keirsey's Please Understand Me, Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, and Mel Levines' All Kinds Of Minds all offer additional perspectives for appreciating the "differing gifts" of each child. See Personality Tests for thorough descriptions and sample tests from these models.

 

The Career Academy model for high school education, sponsored by the federal Department of Labor in the USA, allows students to become exposed to a variety of possible career choices through hands-on, real-life activities. It also helps students to specialize in an area of interest leading directly into actual jobs or next-step accreditation programs, such as community colleges and technical schools, as well as colleges and universities.

 

4. Creative Edge Education pays special attention to the needs of students with ADHD and other non-traditional learning styles. It  joins with Juvenile Justice in prevention of school dropout and juvenile delinquency

 

Click here to download Dr. McGuire's PDF file, "Don't Fight 'Em, Join 'Em: A Community-Wide Approach to ADHD, School Failure, and Juvenile Delinquency

 

Click here to read on at Interest Area: Creative Edge Education, Especially for ADHD and scroll down to the bottom to find The Ten First Steps for Integrating Creative Edge Focusing into education