imagination

children who are visual or creative thinkers

My child has a totally different way of seeing the world! He thinks in 3D Pictures.

Stop for a moment and look up from your computer. All around you are things that were designed by someone. Even the webpage in front of you was designed. Your computer was designed. The room you are sitting in, and the clothing you are wearing? Everything was designed, and chances are they were designed by a person with the gift of being able to think visually.

Some people are able to imagine something in their minds that has not yet been created. They are able to envision a better way of doing things. They are able to envision an object and change the size, shape and color using the power of the 3D workstation called the imagination. The people who designed the objects all around you were often called bad students, day-dreamers and doodlers. They are the visual thinkers.

Creativity journal for artists, songwriters, poets, writers, dreamers, thinkers

What if your child is a visual thinker? Only 10% of the population has the power to think visually, rather than to think with words. The people with the most powerful of visual minds often have an imbalance when it comes to standardized learning situations. The visual mind swirls with colors, ideas, music, art, and creativity and drives the visual thinker into a state of constant creativity and movement. Standardized systems of learning try to conform the child and make efforts to normalize him through medication, punishment, and control so he will not be a disruption in the classroom.

The visual thinker learns differently, and if you ask me, I would tell you that they can not be taught, they must discover. They struggle with the lifelessness of flat pages, the discomfort of the desk, the buzz of the fluorescent lights, the dullness of flat words on a page, and concepts void of emotion, dimension and wonder. They will ponder the mysteries of measurement and time, but their minds go blank when sitting at a desk staring at repetitive lists of math facts. They create works of art and new inventions from items rescued from the trash can, but can’t hold a pencil correctly when asked to write down their spelling words. They can tell the most amazing stories and their words will take you to far off lands and fill the air with magic and mystery, but if asked to put a sentence on paper, they might just cry. They are brilliant, they are amazing, they are curious and brave… until they are forced to conform to a way of learning designed for children who have no dancing, no questions, no music and no colors in their minds.

The majority of students will be content to follow the instructions, fill in the blanks, and make their lists on paper, but the visual thinker was not created for desks, for charts, for lists, for textbooks, for flash cards, for teachers, or for chalkboards… they would dance on the desk, and challenge the teacher. They would add color to the chart, they would roll up the chart to make a telescope or a musical instrument, they would stack the text books and build houses for invisible people, they would turn the flashcards in to a magic trick and turn the chalkboard into a work of art that belongs in a museum. They are constantly in search of the third dimension, the music and the movement.

Find Part 1 of this series here: How Your Child Thinks (Part 1). Continue to How Your Child Thinks: Inventors (Part 3)

Back when I was 14, my parents looked into homeschooling because of some health issues my little sister had. I expressed an interest in also being homeschooled, but they said we’d have to wait until we got our tax return because they had spent a lot of money on my sister’s curriculum. My reply to that was, “Who needs a tax return and who needs curriculum? Aren’t there enough books at the library?” We had a library just a couple blocks away and what I said made sense to my parents, so after Christmas I got a library card and didn’t go back to school. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I had something more valuable
Than a university degree–
I had a wise librarian
And a local library.
And locked up in my spirit,
Curiosity untamed,
My mother set me free from school
And I walked down Library Lane.

There were bookshelves to the ceiling
And a million mysteries–
The stories of 10,000 lands
Now opened up to me.
And I found my place in science
And I sailed though history,
And the wise librarian smiled
As she shared a book with me.

What do you want to learn now, child?
What do you want to be?
The pages are the treasure troves
And this card is the key.
So I filled my sack with freedom
And a dozen new best friends.
I savored every story;
I wished each one would never end.

I read my way through worlds
That I never knew could be.
I discovered whole new cures
And I was rescued from the sea.
I pitched my tent on mountain tops
And I learned to watch the stars
I paged through Egypt’s Secrets
And I traveled wide and far.

And I, because a fighter,
A writer, and a queen,
I discovered galaxies
That had yet to be seen.
Old friends just passed me by,
In a yellow bus each day the same,
With my pack of books, I waved goodbye
And I turned to walk down Library Lane.

And I never sought a teacher
Or a classroom in a school–
I had a local library
And I knew I was no fool.
So satisfy curiosity’s fire
To research, think and dream.
To seek jewels and reach higher
I began to spread my wings. (click Page 2 to continue reading)