The first and last thing demanded of genius is the love of truth Goethe, German 1749 – 1832

“Even if you’re not a genius, you can use the same strategies as Aristotle and Einstein to harness the power of your creative mind and better manage your future.”

The following strategies encourage you to think productively,
rather than reproductively, in order to arrive at solutions to problems. “These strategies are common to the thinking styles of creative geniuses in science, art, and industry throughout history.”

Nine approaches to creative problem solving:

1. Rethink! Look at problems in many different ways.
2. Visualize! Utilize diagrams and imagery to analyze your dilemma.
3. Produce! Genius is productive.
4. Combine! Make novel combinations…
5. Form! Form relationships.
6. Opposite! Think in opposites.
7. Metaphor/simile! Think metaphorically.
8. Failure! Learning from your mistakes is one example of using failure.
9. Patience! Don’t confuse inspiration with ideas.

Nine approaches to creative problem solving:

1. Rethink!
   Look at problems in many different ways.
   Find new perspectives that no one else has taken.
   Solutions example: Finding a job or internship:
   1. Ask friends or colleagues for potential leads
   2. Over-sell yourself
      Send samples of your work or portfolio to anyone that might respond.
   3. Check local resources like Craigslist or your school’s job search
   4. Broaden your target audience.
      What other fields could you specialize in?
2. Visualize!
   Utilize diagrams and imagery to analyze your dilemma.
   1. How can you use pictures, images, graphs, etc. in your studies?
   2. Visit guides on concept or mind maps, picturing vocabulary, flashcards, etc.
   3. Write out one example of how you can use imagery, then print and post it in your study area.
3. Produce!
   Genius is productive.
   1. Perhaps originality is not the key, but rather constant application of thought and tools to arrive a solutions.
   2. Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do.
      W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Anglo-American poet
   3. Genius is nothing but a great aptitude for patience.
      George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707–1788) French naturalist
4. Combine!
   Make novel combinations…
   Combine and recombine ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual.
5. Form!
   Form relationships.
   Make connections between dissimilar subjects.
   1. This doesn’t always apply to objects: form relationships with people and ask them questions!
   2. Get to know people in your field that can help you excel to the best of your ability.
   3. Write down one person that you could get in contact with, why you think this person can help, and print/post it for reference!
6. Opposite!
   Think in opposites.
   Don’t always stick with the obvious solutions.
   Get outside of your comfort zone.
   1. “Opposites” bring two approaches to a situation but they do share a basic similarity.
      Example: “right” and “left” are both directions, but which is the right choice?
   2. The Sesame Street Muppet Elmo teaches small children the concept of opposites!
7. Metaphor/simile!
   Think metaphorically.
   1. Metaphors are connections that are unusual or not an ordinary way of thinking:
      A sea of troubles; the heart of a lion; raining cats and dogs.
   2. Similes use “like” or “as” to illustrate
      The boy was as agile as a monkey. The miner’s face was like coal.
      The task was as easy as ABC. Dry like a raisin in the sun.
8. Failure!
   Learning from your mistakes is one example of using failure.
   1. As strange as it seems the human brain is failure machine: it generates models of reality, acts on them, and adjusts or creates new, successful models based on failures.
   2. From Daniel Coyle’s the Talent Code on Adam Bryant’s weekly interview: “every single CEO shares the same nugget of wisdom: the crucial importance of mistakes, failures, and setbacks… mistakes create unique conditions of high-velocity learning that cannot be matched by more stable, “successful” situations.”
9. Patience!
   Don’t confuse inspiration with ideas.
   Apply your ideas with patience for the reward they may deserve.

Adapted from:
Michalko, Michael, Thinking Like a Genius: Eight strategies used by the super creative, from Aristotle and Leonardo to Einstein and Edison (New Horizons for Learning) as seen at http://www.newhorizons.org/wwart_michalko1.html, (June 15, 1999) This article first appeared in THE FUTURIST, May 1998. Michael Michalko is the author of Thinkertoys (A Handbook of Business Creativity), ThinkPak (A Brainstorming Card Set), and Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Geniuses (Ten Speed Press, 1998).

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It’s time for the next “Turn Your Child Into a Genius” e-zine. I hope you enjoyed the previous one, and that you have tried some of the suggested activities with your children.

Please join TurnYourChildIntoaGenius Yahoo group, and let us know about your experience and results. Introduce yourself and your children, so that all of us can learn from each other and create a support group. This will be a very exclusive club!

(To join, send an email to turnYourChildIntoaGenius-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ).

Today’s topic is Visual Discrimination. Would you like your child to develop phenomenal creativity? Brilliant problem solving skills? A perception for details far superior than you have ever seen? Genius imagination? Here is your chance to help your child develop all these, and improve your own skills in the process! These are fun and enjoyable activities, that require no special equipment, no expense, just a little bit of practice will show huge benefits. As usual, we will talk about different age groups, and age appropriate activities.

The Subconscious Mind: We all use only a small part of our brain. A genius part of our brain, the subconscious mind, is neglected by most of us. Our subconscious mind, which is the seat of our intuition, holds far more information than our conscious mind. It is said to know the answers to all of our problems. It is constantly active, but we have learned to ignore it, therefore we don’t use its enormous capabilities. We have a bank of knowledge in our subconscious mind, that we did not learn how to access. Several techniques were developed in order to tap our subconscious mind, some of them are based on careful observation and development of our visual discrimination.

Young children did not yet learn how to ignore their subconscious mind. Children are easily taught how to access this part of their mind. The following activities will develop the visual discrimination, and get your child into the habit of detailed observation. The advanced activities will prepare your child for the important skills of thinking in pictures, visualization, and visual creative problem solving.

Infants: Very young babies take the first few weeks of their lives to mature the connection between their eyes and their brain. You can help your newborn develop their eye-brain connection and mature their eye focus skill by showing them an image. The trick is to show your newborn an image that is big enough (for example, 10”x8” or bigger) and has bold colors. It can be a simple picture at first, preferably one of a close person, for example Mom or Dad. You hold the picture in front of your baby, and watch the baby’s eyes. Wait until the baby focuses on the picture and hold it there for a second or two. Do this several times a day. You will notice that the baby takes less and less time to focus its eyes on the image. Normal babies may take 6 to 8 weeks to get to the point that they can easily focus on an image and perceive the details, but if you help your baby in this manner, it will speed up the process.

Since ‘Mom knows best’, you will know when your child is ready for the next step. At that time you can start showing a picture of an object and say the name of the object. The child

will develop his vocabulary and visual discrimination. You can show the same image several times in a row, and then switch to a different picture. Do this only when the baby and yourself are in good mood, and turn it into a fun, relaxed and joyful activity. Show your baby lots of love when you are done.

I suggest you prepare a set of pictures ahead of time, probably about 25 pictures. Remember, the pictures should be in bold color, and at least 10”x8”.

Next Step: From there, you can start discussing the pictures with your child. If your baby cannot talk yet, you can advance to a more detailed image, and go from one detail to another, pointing them out. Then you can describe what is happening in the picture, what action is taking place, observe the people or the objects, describe them, paying attention to the smallest details. Next session you can get into finer details. You can do this a few times in a row, but after 3 times, I recommend starting on a new picture.

Please know that your child is learning much faster than you expect. Watch your child, and make sure you are not too slow. You want to avoid boring your young child, or you lose his attention.

When the Baby Can Talk: This becomes very exciting. You take turns with your child, observing an image and describing it. From the very obvious details you can go to the less obvious details, and then you can start imagining and developing a whole story around the picture. You will discover that the more you observe the image, the more details you will notice. This will develop the child’s visual perception and imagination. You can do it for a few minutes a day, or for a longer period of time (in my opinion, you should not take more than 30 minutes), but the longer you do it, the finer the details that you will observe. You can start with a few minutes a day, several times a day, and increase the period of time gradually.

This activity is appropriate for a variety of age groups. It is a great pastime, and it lets you take advantage of wasted time, for example at the doctor’s waiting room or in line at the bank. When you are out of the house, you can observe your environment, and discuss your surroundings. Turn it into a game – take turns describing the subject, or imagining a story. For example, what are these people doing? What kind of family do they have? What kind of a house? How does this person feel right now? (Observe expression on their face).

After a very short period of time of practicing these activities, you will notice the results. You will notice a huge change in you too! Please, let us all know what you are observing.

This gets more and more interesting and beneficial as we progress through the activities.

When you feel that the time is right, you can start practicing your child’s memory. You observe an image for a few minutes, then you take the image away, and try to remember the details. Take turns describing the image, and the person who remembers more details – is the winner. You can prepare ahead of time a few questions about the picture, and ask the questions after the picture was taken away. For example: how many of a certain objects, what color is a certain object, and so forth. Within a short period of time, the child will be able to remember many details, and very fine details, too. You will discover that your own memory is improving too.

Visual memory can be improved indefinitely! I know a boy who, at the young age of 8, played chess without looking at the board (blindfold). He beat his chess teacher in a game, even though the teacher was allowed to look at the board.

For school aged children: All the activities described above, (except for the one for infants) are appropriate for all ages. With school aged children, you can invent some games, or compete with them, and you can vary the games. You can take time looking at an image and describing it in more and more detailed fashion. Then take it away and see who remembers more details. This game trains the perception as well as the memory. Then you can progress to the imagination and creativity stage, when you invent a story around the picture, and try to guess how the people in the picture feel, what brought them to the “present” situation and so forth. (Of course, these are just examples). See if you can write a little story about the picture at hand.

My kudos to you for being a great parent! Next week we will look into some other enjoyable activities that can give your child the edge and turn him into a genius!

If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to email to me at esther@all-gifted-children.com. I promise to answer every e-mail.

Lets change the world by turning our children into geniuses !

Esther Andrews

A 3 Year Old Chinesse Girl Solves Rubik Cube in 114 second.