Convergent Thinking In Children

Webster (1990) stated that, much of the thinking teachers ask children to do is convergent thinking, the type of thinking that results in a single, correct answer. When children are asked to name things such as signs, symbols, composers, or a piece of music, they are directed to think convergently. In performance, for instance, children are asked to conform to the correct pitches and rhythms of a song, although often creativity is encouraged in the area of interpretation. At the heart of creative thought is a different type of thinking, which is divergent thinking (Schafer, 1976). This is when teachers ask children for many possible answers. For example, children would be challenged to discover how many different sounds a percussion instrument