Just when I think I’m beginning to grasp that many if not most gifted children are gifted because of the attention their parents give them and the tools they use to do it, I start looking again into the life of Akiane Kramarik. http://www.akiane.com/home
She is a self-taught painter with a rare gift. I looked at her and thought, “Okay, so some kids really are gifted.” That’s still my reaction to her.
But then again, all of her siblings are gifted or prodigious. Her brother Ilia is considered by some to be the youngest philosopher in the world, yet he cannot read or write yet. http://iliapoetry.com/. When there are two prodigies in one family, I have to wonder what their parents did. In Arkiane’s case, they recognized that she had a gift for art, encouraged her, and provided her with the right materials. On Ilia’s website, it says, “Another possible factor cultivating Ilia’s gifts was a naturally stimulating environment where most of his ideas were unconditionally encouraged and accepted.” I couldn’t help but notice on Arkiane’s page that there is a picture of a brachiation ladder in their home, although Doman is never mentioned on either of their sites so far as I have seen. In one of the videos they say that there weren’t a lot of books in their home, suggesting that the images she painted really were from her dreams/visions. She wasn’t an early reader, but she was certainly an early learner.
What do you think? Gifted or cultivated? I think there is a healthy combination of both in this case. Either way, they are an inspiring family.
I love the art work of Akiane her work is just so moving. I think her parents had the foresight to give the right environment to nourish her gift. I think Akiane’s talents would have never of flourished if her parents had sent her to school. The more I think about it. The more I see homeschooling to be the best place for children to freely discover who they are and be allowed to develop their interests where the parent is unlikely to hold the child back in their pursuits as the state is.
Everyone has a gift and Akiane’s parents were good enough to realise this and give them every opportunity to allow their kids to flourish.
I find it interesting that she started drawing at the same age as she had a spiritual ‘transformation’. Would love to know what it was that was so impacting that it brought the whole family to God. At 4, had a life-changing spiritual transformation, bringing the family to God.
There seems to be a lot of spirituality to what she paints, and what inspires her. She talks a lot of visions and things coming to her in dreams.
The younger brother also seems similar. Usually Ilia’s reasoning is age appropriate, but during special inspirationional times, his creative IQ noticeably escalates, and he spontaneously creates with any theme that is suggested to him. Ilia sometimes cannot explain his creations, but, on occasion, can be very detailed and comprehensive in his oral commentaries.
To me this seems something very different to what most of us are trying to do here. This seems WELL into right brain territory and really more in line with the Quantam speed reading type of experiences. How they developed that in the family I’m not really sure. It seems the brother at least doesn’t do a whole lot. He doesn’t listen to any stories, doesn’t play with toys, doesn’t play sport or go to playgrounds, doesn’t watch tv (not a bad thing ), doesn’t read or write. Maybe they simply haven’t exposed the children to left brain learning and so they have remained in the right brain much longer than other children??
Was interesting to see the children hanging from a bracchiation ladder though.
At the highest levels of something, there can just be “talent”, this is especially true in raw low skilled stuff. For example, no matter how much I would have trained, there’s exactly zero chance that I’d be able to run as fast as Usain Bolt. There have been hundreds or thousands of runners that trained hard and used steroids and still couldn’t do it.
Having said that, this doesn’t explain the Kramarik family.
Brachiation ladder says everything you need to know… well, that and the little quip about producing 8-20 paintings a year and spending between 100-200 hours on each. Do the math and you’ll see that’s a full time job, and she’s been putting in those types of hours for who knows how long (she’s 18 and started drawing at age 4)
Art/drawing is one of those things that gives you instant feedback as you go, so a little work goes a long ways to improvement, and with that sort of time investment, I’m not surprised at all with the result.
On Akiane’s website with the picture of the brachiation ladder ( http://www.akiane.com/life ), I noticed an interesting sentence:
" now is home-schooled with her four brothers, Delfini 18, Jean Lu 16, Ilia 8, and Aurelius 2 years old."
Early learning?
I invited her. Crossing fingers. I mentioned to her that we are curious if her family did Doman because of the picture with the monkey bars, as well as references of their family crawling at 3 months and walking at 8.
Seems like they had a very Waldorf-y upbringing. Everything I’ve read about Waldorf thus far seems incorporated into the parenting philosophy that nurtured their talent, and is the intended goal of a Waldorf education. Waldorfers would never flash images, because in a sort of Platonian sense the image of the thing is not the thing itself, and when you have an image of say chair, you stop seeing the actual form as it exists, but see the image of a chair. Artists (creators/inventors etc) see past the concrete into the real/true form of things, that is why they can absorb it into their essence and translate it so it touches ours.
It’s funny, I spent so much of my life surrounded by left brain people and left brain institutions that I didn’t even like to think of myself as a ‘creative’. But we all are, it just gets frustrated, buried and diverted. Watch this Ted Talk, that I feel touches on the topic of how to be and raise artists.
Can you feel the energy coming off her? It almost makes you uncomfortable how comfortably she sits in this alpha state. The founder of Tweedlewink talks in a similar dreamy way :laugh: Deep artists are often like this, some slip in and out of this state, but people like Ghandi I am sure were permanently on this plane/level. That I believe is what right brain is about. It is the physical part of a spiritual and energy experience. It is boundless, and connects all form as one Form. Jeez don’t I sound like a sad hippy lol It sounds very new agey, but most of the main religions hint to this idea, Christians would say (and Waldorf is christian) ‘everything comes from God and God is in everything and everywhere. Anything and everything can be sacred.’ Young children are probably the most sacred of all because of their closeness to the spirit (Waldorf ideology - its why they don’t rush to draw the child’s spirit into the body with worldly images/ideas or stress, they believe doing so can cause the spirit to enter the body in a broken way that will later need healing).
Whilst I see where Waldorfers are coming from, striving for a balanced approach works better for me right now, well because I am not a deep super hippy like the Kramarik’s mother obviously was/is! I still need emotional/spiritual healing, and my home environment would very likely imprint some VERY negative things on Dougie if I didn’t have the options to use modern technology to imprint images, sounds and messages that are positive and educational. But I really do try to respect the powerful spirit that I know is in my child, and hope that by doing so (and with much of God’s mercy) he will stay connected with the universal spirit that with allow him to be deeply and passionately creative, so that he touches and inspires others positively … while utilizing his learnt left brain skills of course
“The Kramarik family was poor while Akiane was growing up, so they had to create their own fun pastimes and learning experiences. Foreli recalls, “Every day I would dress our children warmly and take them across the cornfields to watch the sun set over the nuclear power plant that was visible on the horizon. We spent hours counting birds in the sky and guessing which direction the steam from the plant would drift. At home we made a swing for Akiane, where she spent many hours rocking and napping. The boys grew monarch butterflies from cocoons they found in the meadows, wrote their own books, and turned tree branches into swords. They made wreaths from flowers or pine needles, play-dough from flour, tents from blankets, and forts from cardboard boxes or snow. The children and I made carrot pancakes and almond cookies….Almost every day we walked a few miles to the playground…”
Even today, Akiane’s daily homeschool routine is a bit different from others her age. She wakes up at 4:30 am, has a drink of water, exercises, and prays. Then she paints and writes poetry for about 4-5 hours while it is still quiet in the house, before her brothers get up. After that she studies Russian and Lithuanian. Finally she reads her Bible. She also plays the piano and knows sign language.
Also very interesting about Akiane’s mother being a professional educator/teacher:
“Foreli at 17 received a Educators diploma from The Academy of Sciences of Vilnius, Lithuania and with her family founded the first semi-private school.”
(http://foreli.org/home/). Anybody read “Talent is Overrated” showing how it happens that many child prodigies’ parents happen to be teachers/coaches
), doesn’t read or write. Maybe they simply haven’t exposed the children to left brain learning and so they have remained in the right brain much longer than other children??