Abstract

This paper presents the narratives of five creative Irish Adults who contributed to the study by sharing their childhood education experiences. The five participants are all of different ages and occupations. All identify themselves as highly creative people and all worked with me over the course of this study to identify how this creativity developed within their engagement with the Irish childhood education system. All excelled with higher education and they share a high degree of success within their careers. Between them, they express their creativity across five key genres. These are: Science, Engineering, The Arts, Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship.

Well-developed themes were analysed to identify interrelationships which formed a theoretical framework of core concepts that demonstrate what holds great importance in the lives of these participants for the development of their creativity during childhood education in Ireland. A clear theme of this study was that of connectivity. Connections and relationships matter greatly. The creative journey is joyful and clear where children experience a positive connection with their educator. Conversely, the creative journey is stymied by a lack of connection or by a negative connection. These stand in the way of creative growth, like a big boulder on the child’s developmental path. This paper, showcases, through the stories of these five research participants, how creativity development is affected by the connection between the child and their educator.

Keywords

creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, connectivity, connections, relationships

Download
Find in your library

Included in

Education Commons

Share

COinS