Killing Our Creativity

Consider this quote:
“Our research on creativity reveals that the vast majority of small children are actually creative geniuses. One of the authors gave eight tests of divergent creative thinking to 1600 children in the early days of the Headstart program. He gave the same tests to these children over several years. The first tests were given when the children were between three and five years of age. Ninety-eight percent of the children scored in the genius category. When these same children took identical tests five years later, only 32 percent scored that high. Five years later it was down to 10 percent. Two hundred thousand adults over the age of twenty-five have taken the same tests. Only two percent scored at the genius level.” (George Land and Beth Jarman “Breakpoint and Beyond. Mastering the Future – Today.”, 1992, p.153)

What would have happened, if our creativity was preserved, instead of schooled out of us? Would we be still living like we live now? Would we be still accumulating possessions and destroying the Earth, our only real home, in the process? Would we be still discussing and living outdated societal and political systems? Or, would we be creating new ways of living, new ways of relating? In whose interest is it to keep people’s creativity controlled?

Creativity, Learning and Unschooling Talk

Hi Everyone,

On the 12th of August 2010 (this coming Thursday) at 10 am, at Underwood Library, Brisbane, I will be giving a talk on Creativity, Learning and Unschooling. I have been booked to do the talk by QAGTC (Queensland Association for Gifted and Talented Children). If it sounds interesting to you, please come along.

I never let my schooling interfere with my education.

- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"waves whisper the shoreline to life"

Hi Everyone,

My new book of poetry "waves whisper the shoreline to life" is now available.

Here is what Jeffrey Harpeng had to say about the collection:

Reading Niemira you may sense, with a small shiver, that your lookout with the glorious panoramic view is most likely a ledge that is crumbled underneath. The world Niemira challenges is tentative, transitory and facile.
even as i write
i die
even as i write

Against these odds there are godless miracles of kindness and a sense of transcendence in the ordinary:
i have left a piece of me
in the ordinary day

Mark Svendsen commented on making the invisible transparent (my previous collection):

Niemira's images realign the mind, the true stuff of poetry inhabits her work.

Please let me know, if you would like a copy.

Creative Writing/Intergenre Funshops

Creative Writing/Intergenre Funshops

We, quite rightly, call our times the Information Era, but I would like to coin the term In-Formation Era (first used by myself in June 2000), the time in history when, quite rapidly, something completely new and different is forming, on the global scale. We have no idea what is going to happen in terms of the future. How does one participate in that much unknown? My suggestion is through the revival our creative abilities, which have been schooled, institutionalised and sometimes parented and socialised out of us. A good place to start is to get involved in creative activities that allow free flow thinking, feeling and imagining. I have designed a series of intergenre writing funshops that could be of assistance.

To the first funshop, please bring:
- Your favourite poem or another piece of creative writing e.g. short story, description, paragraph from a novel, intergenre piece, anything experimental, your own piece of writing that you like or want to share.
- An object that holds a special meaning to you e.g. a photograph, an item of baby clothing, a letter, etc.
- Something that causes an intense reaction in you (not necessarily a good or bad feeling) e.g. a piece of writing or music or visual art that for some reason you can’t get out of your mind.
- And last, but not least, your creativity, willingness to experiment and experience, to share, to laugh and cry, to feel free.

Dates:
Sat 26.06.10
Sat 03.07.10
Sat 10.07.10
Sat 17.07.10
Sat 24.07.10
Sat 31.07.10

Time:
2.30pm-4pm

Place:
38 Suncroft Street, Mt Gravatt 4122

Fee:
$20 per hour. (Refreshments provided.)

For more information email me at niemira.agnieszka@yahoo.com or call me on 04488 43314.
I look forward to hearing from you.
With thanks,
Agnieszka Niemira

PS
My books of poetry "making the invisible transparent" (Post Pressed, 2008) and "waves whisper the shoreline to life" (Post Pressed, 2010) are available.

Short Bio:
Agnieszka Niemira is a poet, haijin, writer and learning facilitator.

Her collections “making the invisible transparent” (2008) and "waves whisper the shoreline to life" (2010) were released through Post Pressed.

Her poems have also appeared in Southerly, The Australian (Weekend Review), Social Alternatives, the poetry anthology “Up From Below” (Redress Press), Paper Wasp, Blue Giraffe, Stylus, the Mozzie, Haiku Dreaming Australia, Scope, SpeedPoets, Empowerment4Women, Radar, Slowo Powszechne, and on BRISSC (Brisbane Rape & Incest Survivors Support Centre) website as well as on Stachuriada.

She has performed her poetry at various events in Poland and Australia and read her work on radio.

She won two awards (First Prize and Distinction) during a prestigious Polish Poetry Competition, Lódz’s Spring of Poets, 1985, and an Encouragement Award from the Fellowship of Australian Writers (Queensland) in April 1989. In 2008, she was one of the finalists of the Paper Wasp Jack Stamm Haiku Competition and a runner-up in the Brisbane Heat of Poetry Slam.

Agnieszka has also published articles on learning and human rights, and presented talks on creative living, creativity and learning.

For Their Future, Not Our Past

Let's educate our children for their future, not for our past. No one knows what our children's future is going to be like. So the best thing we can offer our children is not killing their natural curiosity, inquisitiveness and creative thinking.
Consider what we, as adults, have done to our homeplanet, ourselves and each other. Are we really such experts on what we should teach our children? Have we shown ourselves to be creative problem solvers and independent thinkers?

The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International

Conservation.
http://www.gorillafund.org/about/index.php is a wonderful site. Please visit.