Torrance Journal for Applied Creativity

Krall and Diana Ross. “Lady Day” was
admired by many outstanding jazz
musicians such as saxophonist Lester
Young, and pianist Teddy Wilson.
1. How did her difficult early life in
Philadelphia, Baltimore and Harlem
affect her musical development and
career?
2. Who were her most significant mentors
holding her in the highest esteem?
How did they affect Holiday’s career
and creativity?
3. From studying her life and accomplishments,
how can adversity serve as
a motivator for high levels of creative
production?
4. Identify a few minority individuals
who experienced serious problems in
growing up, and yet produced highly
creative work in the arts, literature and
other fields. What factors moved their
creativity in a positive direction?
5. Why did she write the masterpiece,
“God Bless the Child” (1939)? What
aspects of creativity are involved in the
writing and performance of this song?
6. How did Holiday’s rendition of
“Strange Fruit” (1939) increase awareness
of racial hatred? What were the
spiritual roots of her rendition?
Additional Discussions of Highly Gifted and Creative Individuals
– Essays and Book Reviews from Gifted Education News-Page
Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick.
Pantheon Books, 1992.
This book describes the life and professional career of the
Nobel Prize winning physicist, Richard Feynman (1918-88). It
shows how far he went from humble lower-class beginnings in Far
Rockaway Beach, New York in the 1920s and 1930s, to being a
top undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a
doctoral student in physics at Princeton University (Professors John
Wheeler and Albert Einstein were there too), one of the "young
Turks" working on the World War II Atomic Bomb Project in Los
Alamos, New Mexico, to becoming a professor of physics at Cornell
University and the California Institute of Technology. The discussion
of Feynman's early life is particularly interesting because it
shows some of the crucial environmental factors that support early
genius in science and mathematics. He was from a family and culture
that placed a high value on learning and academic achievement,
but neither his mother nor father had college degrees. Although his
father was a salesman, he had an insatiable interest in science. He
encouraged Richard to develop a similar interest by giving him various
mathematics and scientific problems to solve, and helping his
son to set up chemistry and radio wave experiments. Richard was a
great tinkerer with radio sets; many times his mother would have to
explain to friends the reasons for the puffs of smoke and explosions
emanating from his bedroom. Both parents tolerated his home
chemistry lab and scientific experiments in a culture that placed
enormous pride in the academic accomplishments of its children.
There were no formal programs for the gifted during Richard's
time in the public schools, but there were teachers who encouraged
this student with an offbeat and flamboyant personality to participate
in extra-curricular activities such as math-science clubs. In
high school, he outshined all of his competitors in numerous math
team competitions. He also had the self-motivation and chutzpa to
begin studying the highly esoteric but essential principles of quantum
mechanics while in high school. As a personality, Feynman was
brash, outspoken, unorthodox and something of a comedian, all
identifying characteristics cited by textbooks on giftedness. Because
of his Jewish roots, he experienced discrimination at MIT and Princeton,
but his enormous mathematical abilities and imagination overpowered
the institutional discrimination that existed against Jews at
these prestigious universities and in science-based industries. Gleick
did a masterful job of presenting the life, personality and scientific
achievements of this revolutionary physicist. This book is of particular
interest to teachers and parents of gifted/creative science students,
who would also find it exciting and inspirational.
Clare Cockman
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