This book describes four layers' or stages of education -- Mythic, Romantic, Philosophic and Ironic and shows how children at each stage most effectively learn, and how they can be helped towards educational maturity. While drawing on a wide range of philosophical and psychological literature, this new theory is primarily constructed from close observation of children in their common and intense imaginative engagements, and in everyday educational practice.

Beginning with descriptions of the ways in which children make sense of their experience and the world, such as fantasy, stories and games, Egan constructs his argument that constituting this foundational layer are sets of cultural sense-making capacities, reflected in oral cultures throughout the world. Egan sees education as the acquisition of these sets of sense-making capacities, available in our culture, and his goal is to conceptualize primary education in a way that over comes the dichotomy between progressivisim and traditionalism, attending both the needs of the individual child and the accumulation of knowledge.

Acknowledgements Introduction 1. A Very Short History of the Imagination 2. Why is Imagination Important to Education 3. Characteristics of Students' Imaginative Lives, Ages 8-15 4. Imagination and Teaching 5. Image and Concept 6. Some Further Examples Conclusion References Index

Offering a rich understanding of the nature and roles of wonder in general, this book provides multiple suggestions for how to revive wonder in adults (teachers and curriculum makers) and how to keep wonder alive in children. Its aim is to show that adequate education needs to take seriously the task of evoking wonder about the content of the curriculum and to show how this can routinely be done in everyday classrooms. It presents strong arguments based on either research or precisely described experience for the importance of wonder as a central educational concept, and show how this argument can be seen to work itself out in daily practice.

Beginning with descriptions of the ways in which children make sense of their experience and the world, such as fantasy, stories and games, Egan constructs his argument that constituting this foundational layer are sets of cultural sense-making capacities, reflected in oral cultures throughout the world. Egan sees education as the acquisition of these sets of sense-making capacities, available in our culture, and his goal is to conceptualize primary education in a way that over comes the dichotomy between progressivisim and traditionalism, attending both the needs of the individual child and the accumulation of knowledge.

This is a philosophical treatment of the conceptual and normative aspects of topics which are currently a matter of policy debate in education. The authors have focussed on such concepts as liberty, autonomy, equality and pluralism, and have provided a philosophical commentary which relates these concepts both to a background of philosophical literature, and to the institutional contexts and policy debates in which they function. The book will be of significance to all policy makers who need to gain an understanding of the values and concepts involved in major policy problems.

This book describes four layers or stages of education Mythic, Romantic, Philosophic and Ironic and shows how children at each stage most effectively learn, and how they can be helped towards educational maturity. While drawing on a wide range of philosophical and psychological literature, this new theory is primarily constructed from close observation of children in their common and intense imaginative engagements, and in everyday educational practice.

This is a philosophical treatment of the conceptual and normative aspects of topics which are currently a matter of policy debate in education. The authors have focussed on such concepts as liberty, autonomy, equality and pluralism, and have provided a philosophical commentary which relates these concepts both to a background of philosophical literature, and to the institutional contexts and policy debates in which they function. The book will be of significance to all policy makers who need to gain an understanding of the values and concepts involved in major policy problems.

Young people learn most readily when their imaginations are engaged and teachers teach most successfully when they are able to see their subject matter from their pupils' point of view. It is, however, difficult to define imagination in practice and even more difficult to make full use of its potential. In this original and stimulating book, Kieran Egan, winner of the prestigous Grawemeyer Award for Education in 1991, discusses what imagination really means for children and young people in the middle years and what its place should be in the midst of the normal demands of classroom teaching and learning. He moves from a brief history of the ways in which imagination has been regarded over the years, through a general discussion of the links between learning and imagination, to sample lesson plans to show teachers how they might encourage effective learning through stimulating pupils' imaginations in a variety of curriculum areas, including maths, science, social studies and language work. This book should be of interest to undergraduates and academics in educational research and general primary education.

For many children much of the time their experience in classrooms can be rather dull, and yet the world the school is supposed to initiate children into is full of wonder. This book offers a rich understanding of the nature and roles of wonder in general and provides multiple suggestions for to how to revive wonder in adults (teachers and curriculum makers) and how to keep it alive in children. Its aim is to show that adequate education needs to take seriously the task of evoking wonder about the content of the curriculum and to show how this can routinely be done in everyday classrooms. The authors do not wax flowery; they present strong arguments based on either research or precisely described experience, and demonstrate how this argument can be seen to work itself out in daily practice. The emphasis is not on ways of evoking wonder that might require virtuoso teaching, but rather on how wonder can be evoked about the everyday features of the math or science or social studies curriculum in regular classrooms.

In this book, award-winning educator Kieran Egan shows how we can transform the experience of K-12 students and help them become more knowledgeable and more creative in their thinking. At the core of this transformative process is imagination which can become the heart of effective learning if it is tied to education's central tasks. "An Imaginative Approach to Teaching" is a groundbreaking book that offers an understanding of how students' imaginations work in learning and shows how the acquisition of cognitive tools drives students' educational development. This approach is unique in that it engages both the imagination and emotions. The author clearly demonstrates how knowledge comes to life in students' minds if it is introduced in the context of human hopes, fears, and passions. To facilitate this new educational approach, the book includes a wide variety of effective teaching tools - such as story, rhythm, play, opposition, agency, and meta-narrative understanding - that value and build upon the way children understand their experiences. Most important, Egan provides frameworks for lesson planning and more than a dozen sample lessons to show how teachers can use these tools to awaken intelligence and imagination in the classroom.

Addresses the current "literacy crisis" by drawing together commissioned essays on the nature, history and philosophy of literacy by social historians, philosophers, literary scholars, linguists, educators and psychologists.

Cultivating Curious and Creative Minds presents a plethora of approaches to developing human potential in areas not conventionally addressed. Organized in two parts, this international collection of essays provides viable educational alternatives to those currently holding sway in an era of high-stakes accountability. Taken together, the chapters in Part I of Cultivating Curious and Creative Minds provide a sampling of what the cultivation of curious and creative minds entails. The contributing authors shed light on how curiosity and creativity can be approached in the teaching domain and discuss specific ideas concerning how it plays out in particular situations and contexts.

"I am very impressed by the practicality of [Egan's] introduction of the use of story-forms in curriculum for young children. His model is fascinating, and its various possibilities in a range of fields makes it worth a good look by many kinds of teachers."-Maxine Greene, Teachers College, Columbia

The ills of education are caused, Kieran Egan argues, by the fact that we have inherited three major educational ideas, each of which is incompatible with the other two. Is the purpose of education to make good citizens and inculcate socially relevant skills and values? Or is it to master certain bodies of knowledge? Or is it the fulfillment of each student's unique potential? These conflicting goals bring about clashes at every level of the educational process, from curriculum decisions to teaching methods. Egan's analysis is cool, clear, and wholly original, and his diagnosis is as convincing as it is unexpected. Not content with a radical diagnosis, Egan presents us with a new and sophisticated alternative. Egan reconceives education as our learning to use particular "intellectual tools" - such as language or literacy - which shape how we make sense of the world. These mediating tools generate successive kinds of understanding: somatic, mythic, romantic, philosophical, and ironic. As practical as it is theoretically innovative, Egan's account concludes with practical proposals for how teaching and curriculum could be changed to reflect the ways we actually learn.

Students' imaginations are often considered as something that might be engaged after the hard work of learning has been done. Countering such beliefs, Egan and Judson show that the imagination-one of the great workhorses of learning-can be used to make all learning and all teaching more effective. Through techniques that any teacher can learn and easily apply in any classroom, they demonstrate how and why imagination can be used across the curriculum and grade levels to make teaching and learning more interesting, engaging, and pleasurable for all. Teachers who use these techniques will discover the emotions, images, stories, metaphors, sense of wonder, heroic narratives, and other cognitive tools that can bring life and energy to their classroom. This practical handbook will help teachers learn how to use these enlivening techniques in their daily practice to stimulate students' intellectual activity and growth.

Cultivating Curious and Creative Minds presents a plethora of approaches to developing human potential in areas not conventionally addressed. Organized in two parts, this international collection of essays provides viable educational alternatives to those currently holding sway in an era of high-stakes accountability. Taken together, the chapters in Part I of Cultivating Curious and Creative Minds provide a sampling of what the cultivation of curious and creative minds entails. The contributing authors shed light on how curiosity and creativity can be approached in the teaching domain and discuss specific ideas concerning how it plays out in particular situations and contexts.

'A fascinating piece of writing, presenting ideas that are fresh and exciting' - Katherine Taddie Kelly, Literacy Coach and Reading Interventionist, Waco Independent School District, TX 'Focuses on enhancing students' metalinguistic awareness and not just their intuitive use of words, fostering the development of higher mental functions' - Elena Bodrova, Senior Researcher, McREL For teachers charged with the great responsibility of helping students achieve basic literacy, delivering instruction in stimulating and engaging ways is not an ideal - it's a necessity. Recognizing this, award-winning author and teacher Kieran Egan puts the fun in fundamentals of literacy by helping teachers stir students' imagination and emotions. In Teaching Literacy, Egan rejects the notion that familiar ideas and experiences are the best vehicles for effective instruction. Instead, he champions a new approach that focuses on teaching core literacy skills using concepts ranging from fascinating to exotic to magnificent to weird. By framing the elements of literacy in the unforgettable, students more readily retain material, not only preparing them for tests, but also instilling a lifelong love of reading and writing. This innovative resource supplies answers to the question, "But how do I do it?" by offering: o Tried-and-tested activities from practising classroom teachers o "Teachers, Try It Out" features with teaching challenges (and an appendix of possible responses) for everyday classroom practice o Step-by-step planning frameworks for designing and delivering engaging literacy instruction Combining playfulness with practicality and creativity with common sense, Egan's strategies apply to beginning readers at any age, bringing about authentic, enjoyable learning experiences.

'A fascinating piece of writing, presenting ideas that are fresh and exciting' - Katherine Taddie Kelly, Literacy Coach and Reading Interventionist, Waco Independent School District, TX 'Focuses on enhancing students' metalinguistic awareness and not just their intuitive use of words, fostering the development of higher mental functions' - Elena Bodrova, Senior Researcher, McREL For teachers charged with the great responsibility of helping students achieve basic literacy, delivering instruction in stimulating and engaging ways is not an ideal - it's a necessity. Recognizing this, award-winning author and teacher Kieran Egan puts the fun in fundamentals of literacy by helping teachers stir students' imagination and emotions. In Teaching Literacy, Egan rejects the notion that familiar ideas and experiences are the best vehicles for effective instruction. Instead, he champions a new approach that focuses on teaching core literacy skills using concepts ranging from fascinating to exotic to magnificent to weird. By framing the elements of literacy in the unforgettable, students more readily retain material, not only preparing them for tests, but also instilling a lifelong love of reading and writing. This innovative resource supplies answers to the question, "But how do I do it?" by offering: o Tried-and-tested activities from practising classroom teachers o "Teachers, Try It Out" features with teaching challenges (and an appendix of possible responses) for everyday classroom practice o Step-by-step planning frameworks for designing and delivering engaging literacy instruction Combining playfulness with practicality and creativity with common sense, Egan's strategies apply to beginning readers at any age, bringing about authentic, enjoyable learning experiences.

Imagination is the Source of Creativity and Invention This series of essays has been collected expressly to bring readers new ideas about imagination and creativity in education that will both stimulate discussion and debate and also contribute practical ideas for how to infuse our daily classrooms with imaginative activities. In a world that values creative innovation, it is distressing that our schools are dominated by an educational paradigm that pays too little attention to engaging the imagination and emotions of students in the curriculum and the worlds challenges that the curriculum is designed to prepare students to meet. The ability of children to think creatively, to be innovative, enterprising, and capable, depends greatly on providing a rich imagination-based educational environment. It is only when we consider the imagination a vital component of our lives and one of the great workhorses of learning that we recognize the importance of adding the imaginative to the study of the affective, cognitive, and physical modes of our development. Doing so fills a gap that has led to incomplete accounts of childrens development, their subsequent learning needs, and indeed, how to fulfill these needs in educational environments.This discussion, about the importance of imagination and creativity in education, has been taken up by researchers and educators around the world. It is represented here by writings from authors from Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Italy, Israel, Japan, and Romania. In the first part of this book these authors explore and discuss theories of development, imagination, and creativity. In the second part they extend these theories to broader social issues such as responsible citizenship, gender, and special needs education, to new approaches to curriculum subjects such as literacy, science, and mathematics, and to the educational environment of the museum.