Divergent Thinking or How to Practice Creative Thinking

Shifting education goals Education should teach children how to ask appropriate questions, how to analyse a problem, stimulate a desire to learn, and flexibility to consider different points of view. One of the biggest problems of education today is that the ‘factory model’ of teaching: the top-down approach and the rewards-and-punishments ap­proach, limit students’ ability to contribute with their imagination and creativity. In the Finnish educational model, active learning is taken seriously. Schoolchildren do not sit at their desks memorising - Natasa Pantovic The system needs a shift in focus: from one that teaches children a curriculum, to the one that inspires lifelong learning. Both Waldorf and Montessori learning methods establish a collaborative environment without tests, with the child’s learning and creativity at the centre of the focus. Some students who experienced such schooling went on to launch revolutionary business models. Larry Page and Sergei Brin, both ex-Montessori students, launched Google.

Create freedom in the learning environment Allow your child to cook, wash dishes, and take care of plants and animals. These activities are extremely interesting for children because they can act as grown-ups. A child has a deep longing to discover that the world is based on truth. In our attempt to help children grow into inspired adults, we wish them to carry the youthfulness of their souls and the wonders of childhood into their old age. Rudolf Steiner once said: “The need for imagination, a sense of truth and a feeling of responsibility – these are the three forces which are the very nerve of education.” By exploring, experiencing and imitating the world of grown-ups through free play, children are given a chance to unconsciously learn and emotionally mature through their own games. Too much of today’s learning is structured: children are directed, instructed and carefully followed at all times, so they do not have a chance to experience learning through unobstructed observation. Take your child to play in a park.

Divergent thinking Musicians are more likely to use both hemispheres of their brain and more likely to use divergent thinking in their thought processes. Divergent thinking is essential for creativity. It is the ability to see lots of possible ways to interpret a question and lots of possible answers to it. It is important to vary thought processes so that children use both convergent and divergent thinking - Natasa Pantovic It is a thought process used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possibilities. Divergent thinking is often used as a parallel of convergent thinking that follows a particular set of logical steps to arrive at one solution. In their book Breakpoint and Beyond, George Land and Beth Jarman describe a longitudinal study they conducted on 1,600 kindergarden children aged three to five. Five years later, they re-tested the same children, now aged eight to 10 and only 32 per cent scored in the creative genius category. An average person would have 10 to 15 answers to this question.

Inspired or lost in the technology matrix? The many ‘entertainment’ options phones give us distort our ability to connect with people right next to us. We live surrounded by an increasingly complex matrix of impulses (transmitted via TV, media and the internet) that allow strangers of all sorts to interfere in our mental, emotional and spiritual development. Understanding this intricate network and how the human brain interacts with it is becoming our door to happiness and health. Our interaction with the Net, with TV and with computers has replaced our interaction with nature which in its magical way nurtures our cognitive,emotional, physical and psychological well-being The self or the personality is a bundle of socially-influenced traits that emerges and is formed gradually. A great deal is known about the links between our behaviour and TV, and between our emotions and computer games, because there have been thousands of studies on these subjects. Most of the studies found that there is a link. www.artof4elements.com

9 Most Important Brain Development Tips, Mindfulness Training [Article] by Nuit Cultivate Creativity 9 Most Important Brain Development Tips Self-Development, Mindfulness Articles, Conscious Mind 9 Brain Development Most Important Tips to Cultivate Creativity According to the theory of left-brain or right-brain dominance, the brain's hemispheres are associated with two distinct functions. 1. Developing the skill of creativity, like with any other skill, needs time. 2. People who are curious, persistent, who experiment, make mistakes and are willing to take risks have the courage to be creative. 3. Creative minds need to stay isolated from the formulas given by society, seeking for the answers in most unpredictable places, within the silence of meditation. Secrets of Meditation Video 4. Allow Life to be Your Guiding Force into the centre of Creativity. 5. Let your soul and intuition express the subtle inner relationships within your life through poetry and stream of consciousness writing. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Arts make students smart When children are physically active and creative, they tend to focus better and work more enthusiastically with the rest of the curriculum. Arts, sport, music and drama are often viewed as fun extra-curricular activities for children but are given less importance compared with core subjects such as English, science, or mathematics. The arts should be taken seriously as a source of inspiration, as a way of life - Nataša Pantović Nevertheless, numerous studies prove that practising arts, music and sport from an early age improves brain activity, self-confidence, and gives students an overall sense of well-being. Students who consistently prac­tise sport, arts, music, drama, and dance, are usually more creative and innovative and also perform better academically. Physical education programmes can influence the way children view physical fitness when they grow older, how they relate to their body and overall health. Many team sports require children to work together to achieve a common goal.

Education of the future In a typical classroom in Finland, students work in small groups. The teacher nurtures independence and active learning, allowing them to develop skills to understand and solve problems. “You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.” There is a strong emphasis on relaxed schools that nurture creativity, questioning and in-depth subject analysis - Natasa Pantovic (Kahlil Gibran, On Children) We cannot aim to prepare our children for the careers of the future. The education of the future is much more challenging, shifting further away from ‘spelling and formulas’ towards the development of cognitive thinking where children are given tools to develop their own world, when their time comes.

7 Main Tips: How to Be a Conscious Parent [Article] Practice Conscious Parenting How to Practice Conscious Parenting Conscious Parenting 7 Main Tips: How to Be a Conscious Parent 1. What do we do so our children understand the importance of a healthy body, learn to manage their emotions and nurture love for their friends and family? 2. The development of thoughts should go hand in hand with the development of feelings and heart. children have a beautiful capacity for feelings that will later in life give them a rich soul experiences. 3. Jung describes them as four basic components of a personality: intuition, sensation, thinking and feeling. Be tentative to the Soul’s whispers. 4. We all need routine in our food consumption, in our sleep patterns, in our cleanliness and our exercise regime. This routine does not come naturally and it is learned and exercised from very young age. The routine includes: With the set routine, your children will feel safe and 'at home' within their lives. 5. 6. So, at all times, PRACTICE LOVE. 7.

Famous Education Quotes from Einstein and Steiner Quotes on Education Famous Quotes on Education Conscious Parenting, Spiritual Quotes, Online Life Coaching Quotes on Education Famous Quotes About Education Alber Einstein Famous Quotes About Education "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school." famous quotes on education Einstein "Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs." educationsl quotes on study as a duty Einstein "The point is to develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition and to guide the child over to important fields for society. educational quotes onchildren and play Einstein "To me the worst thing seems to be a school principally to work with methods of fear, force and artificial authority. famous quotes on education and methods of fear Einstein

Why Conscious Parents or How to Be More Loving Parent? [Article] Conscious Parenting Because the world belongs to our children and we are their soil, their water, their air... If we are full of love, understanding, and wisdom, our children will grow into free and inspired adults. The parenting IS the most difficult job in the world The art of parenting is extremly complicated. As any true and deep life experience, the parenting experience catches us unprepared. The magic Generation Gap we all know about from our parents, and trouble they had with our growth and development, might be the reason for our major parenting troubles. A million dollars question is: how do we still work on self development increasing Love, Understanding, Wisdom even though the art of parenting is so complicated? Art of Parenting or Conscious Parenting It is possible to get the art of parenting RIGHT Our children need our Love, need our support and need our sanity within this amazing matrix of choices we live in. Generation Gap Analysis Download Spirituality and Parenting Video

Conscious Parenting: Google Books Reviews Ivana is Mgr. of Education with the Masters in Special Needs Education. She has 20 years of experience working with kids and exploring the world of conscious parenting. Message from Ivana 'Dear Parents, Future Parents, Spiritual Researchers,After many years that I've spent examining and studying children’s psychology and exploring the wonders of pedagogy some essential questions kept following me and inspiring my journey:- Is there such a thing as an ideal parent and an ideal growing environment for our children? I believe the answer to them, is within our eternal search, within our self-development journey and spiritual growth and development and within our constant effort to become more conscious.Children need LOVE, unconditional, fully expressed, real LOVE. Nataša Pantović Nuit has a BSc in Economics.