Erika Landau †

Abstract

This article unfolds the personal creative characteristics of an educator in the field of gifted education, and examines creativity as expressed in childhood and its transformation into adulthood. Dr. Erika Landau is a pioneer of gifted education in Israel, an internationally renowned scholar and educator, and the founder of the Young Persons’ Institute for the Promotion of Creativity and Excellence. The Personal Creative Characteristics Model of Treffinger and colleagues was used as a framework to analyze her creativity. The creative characteristics of openness and courage to explore ideas and listening to one’s inner voice were detected in her in childhood from her descriptions of the hardship she faced surviving in concentration camps during the Second World War. A full range of categories of creative characteristics, including generating ideas and digging into ideas, were detected in her in adulthood. Her creative characteristics in childhood were transformed in adulthood, making meaning of suffering and focusing on giving back to society, especially teaching gifted and talented children how to be creative and productive.