Creative Personality Traits

1. When I read Davis Chapter Five, I was very surprised to read about how Einstein could not talk until he was four, how Disney was fired because he did not have good ideas, and how Dickens, Gershwin, Rogers, and Wright  never finished school.  Each individual listed became extremely successful in their own respects; this makes me think about these individuals' teachers and what they must have thought when they discovered that their student had become successful in life.  Davis explores many personality traits and their relation to creativity.  As a teacher I began to think about students I've taught and traits I noticed in them.  Perhaps someone that sat in my class or someone that one day will be in my class, will go on to become a well-recognized, successful, creative individual.  Today in our schools we place many labels on students to help identify what their learning needs are.  Some students need additional assistance in math and reading, while others need enrichment in the same areas.  I hope that as a teacher I will be able to recognize children with creative minds and look beyond test scores and categorizations to encourage students in a helpful way. 

2. I am: aware of my creativeness, somewhat independent, curious, have a sense of humor, have a capacity for fantasy, artistic, open-minded, thorough, in need of time alone, perceptive, emotional, ethical.

I also am: argumentative, childish, and absent-minded.

Upon looking at these creative personality traits, I see myself in many of them, both good and bad.  I think that overall, I would expect these things of myself because these traits have been true of me for a long time.  I do think that overtime there have certainly been changes, but I still enjoy music, art, and an involvement in all arts.  In my family I am a first-born child.  As far as the research we read, I agree with it to an extent.  Both my sister and I play flute, participated in marching band, scrapbook as a hobby, and knit.  Rebecca, my sister, has told me that she has begun some of these interests because she wanted to become like me.  I am flattered she said this of me, and I feel that I’ve always tried to encourage her endeavors.  However, we are quite different in some ways.  As the research suggests, I tend to take less risks with my endeavors than my younger sister.  Rebecca is attending graduate school for Flute Performance.  With the economy in the state that is, I could never allow myself to take a risk like this; I do admire my sister though for following through with her dreams.  She has also taken three trips to countries abroad and is considering attending school in France.  These are perhaps the differences that would be noted in the research of birth-order and creativity.