Chapter 14 Creative Talent as Emergent Event
A Neurodiversity Perspective
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Abstract
How might teachers support creative talent in learning environments? Typically, creative talent is conceptualized as a trait possessed by a few, select people. According to the traditional mindset, schools serve as sites whereby educators attempt to identify and nurture the creative talent of the gifted few who possess it. In this chapter, we use a speculative approach to explore, wonder and consider possibilities for an alternative perspective to the creative-talent-as-possession mindset. Specifically, we introduce the concept of creative talent as emergent event (CTEE). We define CTEE as dynamic manifestations of diverse strengths, interests, and happenings recognized by oneself and others in the on-going interactions, processes and artifacts of social situations and contexts. We discuss how we derived this definition based on recent perspectives on neurodiversity, which recognizes the multiplicity and dynamic capabilities of all people through limitless modes of interrelating in lived experience. Although our perspective represents a somewhat radical shift from how creative talent is typically conceptualized and approached by scholars and educators, it offers new directions for thinking about how teachers can help realize the creative potential that inheres in teaching and learning practices. We close the chapter by speculating further on possibilities for how educators might move away from a creative-talent-as-possession mindset toward a more inclusive CTEE mindset in and beyond the classroom.