Modern approaches to encouraging children's talents through creative workshops

Abstract

The progress of each society depends a great deal on how it treats its most gifted members as well as on whether it cares about adequate development of their potentials. The basis of every progress is creativity. All modern definitions of gift or talent see creativity (besides ability, personality and motivation) as one of its fundamental characteristics. Both theoretical and practical experience show that creativity can be developed and taught if modern educational programs satisfy some fundamental criteria. Among three forms of educational support for gifted students (acceleration, separation and enrichment), we focused on enrichment of educational programs, which is the most accepted form of support. Besides two enrichment program models that are used worldwide (J. Renzulli`s Enriched Triad Model and Bloom`s Taxonomy of Knowledge) we have put special emphasis on creative workshops within the regular curriculum, but also as a part of extracurricular or optional programs. The main aim is to enable children to become aware of themselves and their environmet through some creative activities with emphasis on complete personal development and growth of each individual.