Online Lecture:
Michelangelo in the 21st Century
What would have happened if Michelangelo had been born and raised in the 21st century?!
Would education systems have given full rein to his bursting creative ideas?
And now, a lecture celebrating art, nature, and science!
Discover how the Innovative Es strategy empowers every teacher
to develop innovative teaching and learning skills,
and serves as a platform for improving teaching and learning processes in schools.
Experience a process of opening up to creativity through peacock paintings! Some attribute arrogance to the peacock, but this is merely an anthropomorphism. The peacock displays its true colors with confidence and without fear. This is how we would like children to grow up—confidently expressing the gifts with which they were born. The peacock brings together topics in nature and science: from structural coloration to courtship colors and the theory of iridescence. Thus, the lecture inspires interdisciplinarity as a tool for fostering creativity. Pave the way for elementary school students to acquire reading and writing skills while preserving and nurturing their innate creativity, and for middle and high school students to expand their creative thinking abilities through exploration and the discovery of original connections. The facilitator, Michal Kornfeld, has spent many years of research linking her professional experience in education that fosters creativity to theories and teaching-learning methods, with the goal of making the cultivation of creativity simple and enjoyable for you!
Order today and pave the way from intuitive creativity through years of research and experience to implementing innovative education!
Michelle Korenfeld - A story of creativity
I started working at the Erica Landau Institute, and a special bond developed between Erica and me. She thought
I had a made resources of literature and the arts, and suggested I add science to that. At the next family gathering,
I sat on my mother’s balcony with my uncle, Dr. Moshe Rishpon, founder of the Science Garden and the Science-Oriented Youth Unit at the Weizmann Institute. I asked him what he saw in my paintings. A whole new world opened up to me. My peacock paintings, for example, reveal themes of symmetry and structural coloration. During those years, I read extensively about science, particularly the books of Richard Feynman. My vision became a reality, and I published a book in English on Amazon summarizing my classes at the Erica Landau Institute. Ten more books followed.
I received feedback that my paintings inspire creativity. I am self-taught, and I discovered that the field of creativity has been extensively researched. This led me to the Creative Education Foundation's conferences at the University at Buffalo, New York, where I facilitated for four years and my daughters participated in the youth program. Based on the feedback and my experiences in the workshops led by other leaders at these conferences, I developed the “Michelangelo in the 21st Century” lecture.
At the Florida Creativity Conference, I was introduced to STEAM education, which aims to integrate art into science and technology (STEM) studies to foster meaningful learning. Such lessons typically offer projects that incorporate design thinking. I realized that my materials could be used to develop such interdisciplinary thinking from an early age, alongside literacy and social-emotional skills.
At the 2019 winter conference of ETAI (the English Teachers Association of Israel), I led a workshop on creating a creative, caring, and communicative learning environment. There were so many participants that they sat on the floor and on the tables. At the association’s international conference, I led the forum on learner autonomy and 21st-century skills. At the 2025 summer conference, I presented and facilitated a session on the Program: Creating Novelty - Thinking Together.
My vision is that in this era of rapidly growing use of artificial intelligence, our children—the generation that will be most affected by it—will be equipped with the most effective tools for creative problem-solving, will participate in developing ideas based on their individual thinking skills and as part of a team, and will achieve academic excellence and resilience from a solid inner foundation.
Creative education has been close to my heart throughout my years of working with children, parents, teachers, and grandparents. My partner is a creative person who builds homemade waterfalls and tables from tree trunk slices. My daughters teach me lessons in creative thinking every day. My mother believes in the possibility of refreshing creative education for all children.
At the Man and the World museum, I was encouraged to write stories
through which children learn about nature. When I needed aids to tell my stories, I drew and created. I told my mother that the children loved what I had prepared. She suggested I take painting lessons so I could make coloring pages for the children. The wave of painting swept me away for several years. I exhibited at the Amalia Arbel Gallery, and my paintings were featured in an exhibition and at the Salon d’Hiver in Paris. This was after I had insisted since I was a child that I would never be able to paint. Someone must have commented on one of my drawings once. Everyone has a story like that. Imagine if that had happened to Michelangelo, and he had stopped painting and sculpting.
Michelle Korenfeld and her creative family
