Cultivating the Imagination

I have been reading A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change by DOUGLAS THOMAS and JOHN SEELY BROWN.
I was drawn to it by the title and their reference to the imagination as opposed to "cultivating imagination". The sense of purposiveness in the use of the definite article attracted my. I had deliberately chosen to do the same in my doctoral thesis. The imagination is more than a mental construct.

I found in the book a structured reflection on matters that concern me (education, teaching, learning, change, the digital world, knowledge, passion, the imagination, play). I am going to use this blog to reflect on the ideas that have challenged me and that I want to work into my efforts to re-think my approach to teaching and learning. I have chosen to post my thoughts here rather than in the security of my school's intranet because the system is clunky and the effort to provide such security works against what I think the internet can provide to the learning collective I want to belong to (which embraces and includes more than those with whom I work).

Differentiated Learning Revisited

Sir Ken Robinson has made his life's work a focus on creativity in education. I'm watching a video clip of Sir Ken speaking about creativity. He emphasised the unpredictability of the future for which we educate students.

We should treat creativity with the same importance we give to literacy.

Creativity is about taking chances, about being prepared to be wrong. By the time we reach adulthood, we have lost the desire to take chances. Picasso once said that all people are born artists. The problem is retaining the artistic ability. Sir Ken said we educate our students out of being creative.

What is the purpose of education? Do we intend the honouring of academic ability? Public education has been designed by universities in their image and likeness. We down play the value of creativity and the desire to be creative because they are not pragmatic. They do not led to jobs. However, the tide is turning.

The imagination has a major role to play in education. How we perceive reality determines our attitude towards education and the process of schooling.