The Journal of Aesthetic Education

Three snapshots of the childhoods of individuals who made undeniably remarkable contributions to the fields of physics, classical music, and visual art are presented and discussed here in the context of a consideration of the best ways to foster creativity in today's children. These are: Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman (1918-1988), virtuoso pianist and composer Clara Schumann ((1819-1896), and surrealist painter René Magritte (1898-1967). The early lives of these highly gifted individuals teach us the importance of actual risk-taking, the crucial need for patience so as to allow mental processes slowly to unfold, the wisdom of cherishing the role of pleasure in creative activity—mental and otherwise, the indispensability of discipline, practice and skill, and, finally, the value of better understanding ways in which even devastating major trauma in childhood can serve as a spur for "creating in order to try to understand.