Quotes from Thomas Armstrong

I'm alarmed that to think than modern science may be turning creativity into a medical disorder

From the standpoint of education, genius means essentially 'giving birth to the joy in learning.' I'd like to suggest that this is the central task of all educators. It is the genius of the student that is the driving force behind all learning. Before educators take on any of the other important issues in learning, they must first have a thorough understanding of what lies at the core of each student's intrinsic motivation to learn, and that motivation originates in each student's genius.

The word creativity is closely linked to the word genius, since both words have the root meaning 'to give birth.' Essentially, creativity designates the capacity to give birth to new ways of looking at things, the ability to make novel connections between disparate things, and the knack for seeing things that might be missed by the typical way of viewing life.

Children and adolescents, being relatively new to life, are naturally creative because they haven't been brainwashed, so to speak, by the conventional attitudes of society. Consequently, students are always coming up with novel images, words, and actions that my delight, enlighten, or inspire adults....Creativity has not been the subject of intense focus, extensive research, or high levels of funding in American education.

We want to assist [students] in finding their inner genius and support them in guiding it into pathways that can lead to personal fulfillment and to the benefit of those around them.

A professor of creative studies at the University of Georgia, Bonnie Cramond, compared the traits of creative people with the warning signs of ADHD and found that, except for the terms used (positive for creative people, negative for people diagnosed as ADHD), they were practically identical.

I believe that all genial classrooms share at least five characteristics that guide their instruction regardless of content or grade level. These characteristics are (1) freedom to choose, (2) open-ended exploration, (3) freedom from judgment, (4) honoring every student's experience, and (5) belief in every student's genius.

Refuting the simplistic statement that "ADHD is caused by bad parenting" avoids a more complex argument (given in chapter 7) that adverse factors such as physical abuse or trauma in a child's home environment can impair neurological development and be linked to ADHD symptoms.

active learning (writing, reading aloud, talking with a teacher or student about the topic at hand).

MI theory makes its greatest contribution to education by suggesting that teachers need to expand their repertoire of techniques, tools, and strategies beyond the typical Word Smart and Number/Logic Smart abilities predominantly tapped in U.S. classrooms.

These are difficult times for educators who believe that learning is worth pursuing for its own sake and that the chief purpose of school is the nurturing of students as whole human beings.

Children exposed to early violence display altered responses to confrontation and conflict; in essence they are 'hard-wired' to be anxious, distractible, highly aroused, and impulsively aggressive in situations of conflict.

It's probably true that schools are the most conservative of all cultural institutions, relentlessly seeking to pass on the rules of a damaged society to the next generation.

However brain functioning is measured, these studies tell us nothing about whether the observed anomalies were present at birth or whether they resulted from trauma, chronic stress or other early-childhood experiences.

The familial and emotional components may be most relevant for a child who is traumatized by physical abuse or other forms of stress at home.