Imagination in Educational Theory and Practice : A Many-sided Vision [1 ed.] 9781443822015, 9781443821421

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Imagination in Educational Theory and Practice

Imagination in Educational Theory and Practice: A Many-sided Vision

Edited by

Thomas William Nielsen, Robert Fitzgerald and Mark Fettes

Imagination in Educational Theory and Practice: A Many-sided Vision, Edited by Thomas William Nielsen, Robert Fitzgerald and Mark Fettes This book first published 2010 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2010 by Thomas William Nielsen, Robert Fitzgerald and Mark Fettes and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-2142-X, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2142-1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface ........................................................................................................ ix The Editors Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Imagination and Education: A Many-Sided Vision Mark Fettes, Simon Fraser University, Canada, Thomas W. Nielsen, University of Canberra, Australia, Bronwen Haralambous, University of Canberra, Australia, Robert Fitzgerald, University of Canberra, Australia Chapter One............................................................................................... 21 Culture, Imagination, and the Development of the Mind Kieran Egan, Simon Fraser University, Canada Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 42 Performing Imaginative Inquiry: Narrative Experiments and Rhizosemiotic Play Noel Gough, La Trobe University, Australia Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 61 What is Teaching, as Distinct from Learning? Towards a Phenomenological Account of the Teacher and Imaginative Education for Universities Today Judy Lattas, Macquarie University, Australia Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 83 Concept Externalization as a Tool for Teaching Mathematics Mike Butler Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 111 Shells, Spirals, and Musings of Mirrors David Buley and Jan Buley, Université Laurentienne/Laurentian University Sudbury, Canada

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Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 129 Deliberate Imprecision: Critical Directions in Researching Imaginative Education David Trotman, Newman University College, United Kingdom Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 152 Imaginative Education: Nurturing our Social Ecology David Wright, University of Western Sydney, Australia Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 173 Evoking Visual Imagination in Teaching ESL Writing Izabella Kovarzina, University of New Mexico, USA Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 191 Imaginative Education Explored through the Concept of Playing in the In-Between Cynthia à Beckett, University of Notre Dame, Australia Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 209 For the Beauty of Ideas Pamela Hagen, University of British Columbia, Canada Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 223 A Depth Psychology Account of the Creative Imagination: Applying the Psychology of Carl Jung Robert Matthews, University of Adelaide, Australia Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 244 Truth, Beauty and Goodness as Signposts Leading Towards Imaginative Education Bronwen Haralambous, University of Canberra, Australia Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 263 Imaginative Ecological Education Gillian Judson, Simon Fraser University, Canada Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 284 Mouse Woman and the Mischief Makers: Media Education in a Spirit of Imagination Kym Stewart, Capilano University, Canada

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Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 304 Educating Imaginative Teachers: Educating Teachers Imaginatively Bernie Neville, La Trobe University, Australia

PREFACE

This book was inspired by papers developed for the 6th International Conference on Imagination and Education: Imaginative Practice, Imaginative Inquiry, held from 29 to 31 January, 2008, in Canberra, Australia. Like the conference, this book seeks to connect a cross-section of educators, researchers and administrators in a dialogue and exploration of imaginative and creative ways of teaching, learning and conducting educational inquiry. Five previous conferences had been held in Vancouver, Canada, and the vibrant exchanges and collaborations at those events suggested that a truly global movement might be emerging. The success of the Canberra conference, and the enthusiastic and generous response to our proposal for a book, reconfirm the significance of imagination as a focus for both theory and practice in education. In collecting and editing these papers, we did not seek to impose any particular framework or philosophical orientation on the authors. Nonetheless, we encouraged them to read each other’s work and to consider alternative perspectives, in the belief that this would help strengthen the book itself as well as the field as a whole. We have for this book chosen chapters with either a practical or a theoretical focus. This is not because we think a divide between these orientations is either possible or desirable. Rather we wish to acknowledge the tension that exists in this educational field as in others, and to encourage our readers to seek understanding and inspiration from both sources. Ultimately, we hope that this book, like other recent contributions to the literature, will help bring about new, creative syntheses of theory and practice in Imaginative Education. In order to provide a more meaningful context for the diverse range of chapters that follow, we begin the book with a literature review that shows how imaginative education research seems to be a convergence point for a number of current scholarly pursuits and challenges. From philosophy and psychology to sociology and cultural theory, there is a groundswell of interest in imagination and its role in shaping both self and society. It is this shaping, of course, that provides the central subject matter of educational research. The latter’s systematic neglect of imagination in the past 150 years reflects a cultural and ideological bias that has shackled both theory and practice, and that may take an equally long time to undo.

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This book, however, along with others in the recent educational literature, provides evidence that the process has begun in earnest. All the chapters were blind peer-reviewed by an international panel of invited scholars, many of them associates of the Imaginative Education Research Group. We hereby take the opportunity to extend our gratitude and appreciation for their generous donation of time and expertise. To our readers, we hope that you enjoy the book. May it provide you with affirmation and inspiration for your own imaginative endeavours. —The Editors

INTRODUCTION IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION: A MANY-SIDED VISION MARK FETTES, THOMAS W. NIELSEN, BRONWEN HARALAMBOUS AND ROBERT FITZGERALD Introduction Imagination has sporadically captured the attention of many great thinkers in philosophy, psychology, and the arts, yet it would be hard to argue that we are much closer to elucidating its central mysteries (Brann, 1991). Nor is its importance for education widely recognized. True, many people pay lip service to the educational value of engaging children’s imaginations, primarily through the arts. Such engagement, though, is not generally regarded as the core business of education; it does not figure prominently in most approaches to teacher preparation, nor does it attract a great deal of attention from researchers. (For an early exception to this neglect, see Egan and Nadaner’s Education and Imagination (1988) - a collection of essays that still offers invaluable insights.) This book joins a handful of other edited collections in the recent literature (Blenkinsop, 2009; Leonard and Willis, 2008; Jones et al, 2008) that give voice to an opposing conviction: that an understanding of imagination forms an essential part of a fundamental rethinking of education “from the ground up” (Egan, 2008). Such a project inevitably spans traditional disciplinary and professional boundaries, and engages researchers in sometimes unfamiliar dialogues and explorations. Broadly speaking, this emerging field of Imaginative Education forms part of the trend towards qualitative and integrative inquiry in the social sciences, where research has ceased to be seen as a quest for objective knowledge divorced from values and goals (Capra, 1975; Gleick, 1987; Hayles, 1990; cited by Lather, 1991, p.88). Researchers in the qualitative tradition are coming to pay more attention to the relationship between the sciences, arts

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and spirituality; some have pointed to the emergence of a ‘sacred science’ of research that may “reintegrate the sacred and the secular in ways that promote freedom” (Denzin and Lincoln, 2003, p.286). New conceptions of both imagination and education seem destined to play important roles in such a project. Imaginative Education, therefore, is not concerned only with the creative arts, arts education, and curriculum, but with a much broader range of subject areas including philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, cultural criticism, sociology, ecology, science education, arts education, values education and spiritual education. Given this wide focus, the following review of the literature must necessarily be illustrative rather than exhaustive. The interested reader will readily be able to supply additional authors and works that have made important contributions to the field. Indeed, we would encourage others to undertake such reviews of their own, helping to make connections between diverse theoretical, cultural and practical traditions that have long been isolated from one another. It is in the same spirit that we have collected and edited the various contributions to this book. As Blake famously observed, the imagination is best illuminated from multiple angles: “May God us keep / From single vision and Newton’s sleep.”

Philosophy and Psychology Imagination’s relationship to perception, thought, and memory is the focus of the oldest tradition relevant to the themes of this book. Most extensively chronicled in Eva Brann’s The World of Imagination: Sum and Substance (1991), this domain of research extends from classical philosophical inquiry to contemporary neuroscience, with a vast range of psychological approaches occupying the middle ground. Brann’s study provides a comprehensive survey of 450 authors that justifies its claim to status as a classic reference text. More concise and relatively recent treatments are those of Warnock (1978) and White (1990). As any of these works makes clear, there exists no unified account of the nature of imagination or its role in cognition. Despite this lack of consensus, or perhaps even because of it, some familiarity with the central controversies and figures in the field would be an asset for any imaginative educator. An example of such a controversy is provided by Harris (2000). Disputing the widely accepted Freudian and Piagetian notions of the supremacy of rational thinking over imagination in childhood development, she sides with Bleuler’s view that imagination (ironically termed by him ‘the autistic function’) develops out of the child’s grasp of reality and

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represents a more sophisticated mode of cognition. Building on Bleuler, Harris highlights three key claims supported by her research: that pretend play is not present in infants but emerges only in the second year of life, after which it becomes increasingly elaborate; secondly, that the great apes only demonstrate occasional pretending, indicating that ubiquitous pretend play is a distinctly human characteristic; and thirdly, that it is the absence of early imagination and not its presence that it is pathological. Indeed, one of the key tools used to diagnose autism is a noticeable lack of the ability to play (2000, p.6). The influence of Freud’s negative view of imagination can be seen in Piaget’s insistence that play does not accommodate itself to reality but rather adapts reality to suit the self and its pleasure needs (Harris, 2000, p.3). Piaget’s theory of child development, of course, had immense impact on Western education in the 20th century, in spite of its substantial limitations (Egan, 2002). Only since the 1970s has the alternative sociocultural developmental theory of Vygotsky – who astutely absorbed and used Bleuler’s ideas in his analysis of egocentric speech (Harris, p.4) – gradually come to exert greater influence on educational theory and practice (Luria, 1971, 1976; Vygotsky, 1978). Among other differences, Vygotsky offers a more appreciative assessment of imagination (Gajdamaschko, 2005), although this aspect of this thought has not generally been emphasized by his followers. A neo-Vygotskian theory of imaginative educational development has, however, been developed by Kieran Egan (1997, and below). The turn towards more culturally embedded models of mind and education is echoed in the work of Jerome Bruner. In The culture of education (1997), he argues that the focus of educators should shift from an emphasis on individual competence to the question of how education equips individuals to participate in the life-sustaining aspects of the culture in which schooling is embedded. Positioned within the emerging field of cultural psychology, Bruner provides a retrospective view of the two contested conceptions of how the mind works that have developed since the early decades of the cognitive revolution in the 1940s and 50s: the mind as a computational device, and the mind as both constituted by and realized in the use of human culture (1997). While clearly leaning towards the latter conception, Bruner suggests that both perspectives enhance our understanding of the nature of knowing (p.8). Here Bruner draws on his earlier work (1986, 1990) that signals the importance of the narrative mode as an instrument of meaning making; imagination is the source of meaningful experience offering a rich heritage of stories, drama, myths and ritual. Accounts of mind that omit or downplay this dimension are necessarily incomplete.

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Allied with Bruner’s emphasis on culture is the increasing importance of embodiment and emotions in present-day models and research paradigms on the nature of human (and non-human) cognition. A key figure in this area is Antonio Damasio, whose case studies of patients where the impaired or absent functioning of the emotional centres in the brain contributed to the break down of rationality led him to conclude that emotions and feelings play a significant role in all learning processes (Damasio, 1994). He argues (with Immordino-Yang, 2007) that although “rational thought and logical reasoning do exist” they are “hardly ever truly devoid of emotion” and “cannot be recruited appropriately and usefully in the real world without emotion” (pp.7-8). Emotions and learning therefore form a core attribute of the human function of decisionmaking and choice. Damasio singles out the anterior cingulated cortex for particular attention as a region of the brain “where systems concerned with emotions and feeling, attention and working memory interact so intimately that they contribute the source for the energy of both external action (movement) and internal action (thought animation, reasoning)”. If this area of the brain, which Damasio calls the ‘fountainhead’, is damaged the person moves into a state of ‘suspended animation’ where reasoning and the expression of emotion are seriously impaired (1994, p.71). More generally, Damasio observes that our creativity and our uniquely human artistic, scientific, and technological innovations (2007, p.7) rely on the inter-streaming of the cognitive and emotional aspects of brain function. With Immordino-Yang he further suggests that “out of these same kinds of processing emerges a special kind of human innovation: the social creativity that we call morality and ethical thought” (2007, p.7). In weaving together emotion, high reasoning, creativity and social functioning in a cultural context (Gardner, Csikszentmihaly & Damon, 2001; cited by Immordino-Yang & Damasio), ethical decision-making can be seen to be “the pinnacle of human cognitive and emotional achievement” (Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007, p.7). With only small changes in terminology, the authors can be regarded as elaborating a kind of psychological model of the imagination. More testimony to the power of imagination comes from Doidge (2007), who gathers stories from patients suffering mental limitations imposed by brain damage who are able to overcome their disabilities by virtue of the brain’s plasticity. The stories tell of a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, blind people who learn to see, learning disorders cured, IQs raised, aging brains rejuvenated, stroke patients learning to speak, children with cerebral palsy learning to move

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with more grace, depression and anxiety disorders successfully treated, and lifelong character traits changed. In a chapter devoted to imagination, Doidge observes that “imagining an act and doing it are nor as different as they sound. When people close their eyes and visualize a simple object, such as the letter a, the primary visual cortex lights up, just as it would if the subjects were actually looking at the letter a” (pp.203-204). Elsewhere he argues: “Everything your ‘immaterial’ mind imagines leaves material traces. Each thought alters the physical state of your brain synapses at a microscopic level. Each time you imagine moving your fingers across the keys to play the piano, you alter the tendrils in your living brain” (p.23). However, despite the positive focus of his work, Doidge notes that the same plasticity that promotes positive transformation can also entrap us. It is the plastic nature of the brain that contributes to the detrimental effects of television viewing in early childhood, to the potentially harmful effects of propaganda on the young, and to the rigid effects of ageing if the mind is not kept active (pp. 306-311). Doidge concludes: “the elucidation of human neuroplasticity in our time, if carefully thought through, shows that plasticity is far too subtle a phenomenon to unambiguously support a more constrained or unconstrained view of human nature, because in fact it contributes to both human rigidity and flexibility, depending upon how it is cultivated” (p.318). To educators, of course, this is hardly news: the moral and strategic choices embedded in such cultivation lie at the heart of our discipline.

Spirituality, Depth Psychology, Ecology While mainstream psychology and philosophy have been rediscovering the importance of imagination after a long period of relative neglect, holistic practitioners of both disciplines continue to propose new models for its cultivation. One of the most influential of these traditions is the ‘anthroposophy’ of Rudolf Steiner, designed to connect the spiritual in the human being with the spiritual in the world. Steiner extended the conceptual framework of biological evolution, as understood in his day, to include a cultural and spiritual perspective, and applied this to the design of a school in Waldorf, Germany, that became a model for many similar schools around the world. The Steiner curriculum is unfolded against the expansive backdrop of the ‘evolution of consciousness’: every human being is considered to recapitulate over the course of a lifetime the stages of development of humanity as a whole. Such development is seen as a complex process: Steiner’s ‘threefold model’ of thinking, feeling and willing, which is encapsulated in the Waldorf motto of ‘head, heart and

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hands’, is better known than his ‘fourfold’ model of human development which is understood to include elements from each of the following four different levels of life: the physical/mineral plane, the ‘etheric’/plant world, the ‘astral’/animal and emotional sphere and finally the egoic or metacognitive level. This latter model, in particular, offers a useful alternative, theoretical lens that has the potential for further development in pedagogical practice. Less directly influential in education, but similarly ambitious in its aims, is the Jungian psychological tradition. The recent collection of essays complied by Jones, Clarkson, Congram and Stratton (2008) provides invaluable insight into the relevance of Jungian perspectives in the classroom. Drawing on Jung’s observation to teachers in 1924 that analytical psychology is “an eminently practical science” which does not “investigate for investigation’s sake but for the immediate purpose of giving help” (Jung, 1946, para.172; cited by Jones et al, 2008, p.6), the editors argue that Jung’s ideas help place “the whole person at the centre of teaching and learning processes” and provide “a framework for considering and promoting personal wholeness” (p.6). Their concern is not only with students but with teachers as well, and the authors of various chapters deploy the three key concepts of individuation, active imagination and archetype, in particular, to elaborate case studies and guidelines for the practicing educator. In acknowledging the work of other Jungian educators and writers, the editors single out Bernie Neville’s 2005 handbook for special mention as a noteworthy contribution that is grounded in James Hillman’s archetypal psychology (p.7). Neville (2005) provides an extensive catalogue of teaching strategies, such as indirect learning, suggestion, trance, psychodrama, relaxation, autogenics, bio-feedback, visualization, intuition, mind-control and meditation. The fact that very few of these strategies can be found in the repertoire of typical classroom teachers is indicative of the vast changes that might follow if imagination were to be given greater priority in the processes of teaching and learning. A similarly sweeping reorientation of education is implied by the earlier collection of essays edited by Glazer (1999), The heart of learning: Spirituality in education. The focus here is above all on guiding teachers to connect with what they love most in education: the reasons why they teach and learn as a pathway to achieving greater fulfillment in both. The essayists include the Tibetan lama Dozgchen Ponlop Rinpoche who examines how our unique, individual experiences of the sacred can profoundly enrich how we learn and teach. Writings by Bell Hooks and the Dalai Lama show how we simultaneously can cultivate both individual

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beliefs and openness to the diversity of the contemporary classroom. Works by Huston Smith and Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi explore our need to balance our past histories and traditions with the needs of present and future generations. While the term imagination appears seldom in these pages, there is a clear overlap between these perspectives and the authors previously cited in this section. Theoretically more ambitious, Wilber (2000) attempts the mammoth task of integrating leading approaches to consciousness, psychology & therapy. Gathering theories from the east and west, both Ancient and modern, Wilber formulates an integral vision that features the self, waves and streams of development, and states of consciousness. As fruit of his conceptual mapping and in attempt to resolve epistemological challenges, Wilber offers the four quadrant (AQUAL) framework as a model for integrating research findings across fields and periods of development. The quadrants include the following categories: the interior subjective intentional world of ‘I’ (first person); the shared intersubjective interior cultural worlds of ‘WE’ (second person); the measurable objective external behavioural world of ‘IT’ (third person singular); the external interobjective social world of ‘ITS’ (third person plural) (p.67). In The integral vision: A very short introduction to the revolutionary integral approach to life, God, the universe, and everything (2007), Wilber hones his vision further and offers a five step IOS map that includes firstly development lines, for example models of cognitive and moral growth (Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Habermas’ historical epochs); secondly, development levels like Cook-Greuter’s awareness levels which influence change capacity; thirdly, states of consciousness (waking, dreaming, deep sleep, meditative and altered states, peak experiences); fourthly, types (personality types, the Myers-Briggs model); and lastly, the quadrants, described above. The book reads like a manual with explanations, exercises and examples aimed at assisting the acceleration of personal growth and development to higher, wider, and deeper ways of being. The expansive canvas covers everything from self-embodiment, enriched relationships, and spiritual enlightenment, to business success, community sharing, ecological living, and finally to planetary evolution. Building on Wilber’s work, the educational futurist Richard A. Slaughter (2004) argues that the attention we pay to our oft-obscured “inner dimensions” (p.159) and the diligence we show in our care of the outer environment are closely related (pp.121-126). Thus a sound approach to ecological education requires a pedagogy of imagination; a way to nurture creative capacities for reclaiming what has been lost, and

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for embracing “other ways of knowing, other realities, other potentials to activate” (p.116). Such an educational vision is implicit in the recent work of ecological educators, who focus on designing learning programs that affirm the value of sufficiency, mutual support and community (Smith & Williams, 1999). Holistic perspectives are embedded in the attention paid to the context of systems: familial, geographic, ecological and political (Stone & Barlow, 2005); as David Orr writes in the Foreword to this latter volume, the aim is “a deeper transformation of the substance, process, and scope of education at all levels”. By nurturing the capacity of teachers and learners to develop and realize such visions, Imaginative Education offers a positive and valuable contribution towards a more sustainable future and a way in which we can “cooperate more discriminately in the evolutionary scheme of things” (Nielsen, 2004, p.231).

Sociology and Cultural Critique The implication of imagination with the outer world of culture and society, as well as the inner world of the soul and the self, has nourished a rich tradition of social analysis and cultural criticism of the kind practiced by Georg Lukács, Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin. A notable example is Richard Kearney’s The wake of imagination: ideas of creativity in western culture (1988). While most authors who write about imagination identify its ‘awakening’ and revitalizing effects, Kearney ironically calls up images of a dying process. He suggests that Imagination is under threat and that its demise is a postmodern obsession (p.3). As for a species under threat of extinction, there is a need to tell the story of imagination, its genealogy, genesis and mutations (p.6). He sets out to examine significant models of Imagination that have come to expression in the distinctive cultures of the Hebraic, Greek, medieval, romantic, existential and post-modern periods. By drawing attention to the strange paradox of contemporary culture that “at a time when the image reigns supreme the very notion of a creative human imagination seems under mounting threat” Kearney challenges us with the realization that we lack awareness of “who exactly produces or controls the images which condition our consciousness”; and that we may therefore be “assisting at a wake of imagination” (p.3). Kearney’s work echoes concerns voiced by many others. Brown & Duguid (2002), for example, observe that “living in the information age can occasionally feel like being driven by someone with tunnel vision” (p.1); the unfortunate passenger sees “where they want to go, but little besides”. In arguing that information technology occurs in a social context

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that is often overlooked, they encourage us to pay attention to the ‘social periphery’ – “the communities, organizations, and institutions that frame activities” (p.5). More interested in consciousness-raising than in offering solutions, Brown & Duguid conclude by observing that “solutions will be much harder to find if we drive at the problems with tunnel vision – if … peripheries and margins, practices and communities, organizations and institutions are left out or swept out of consideration” (p.252). As we shall see in a moment, this emphasis on the need for social imagination is a theme that has been voiced repeatedly in past decades. Some social critics, however, have offered more hopeful visions. For example, the urgent need in the fast-paced world of economic and technological change for people who are creative, innovative and flexible (Robinson, 2007) is considered by Florida (2003) to be driving the rise of a new ‘creative class’, including “people in science and engineering, architecture and design, education, arts, music and entertainment, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology and/or new creative content” (p.8). While the new class is effectively transforming work, life, leisure, community and everyday life through their “power, talent and numbers”, Florida claims that the creative class has not yet realized its identity as a class and will therefore be “unable to consciously influence the course of society it largely leads” (p.xi) until it grows up and takes up global responsibilities. Robinson, on the other hand, suggests that this lack of influence and responsibility is a downstream problem that has its origins in the education system; he calls for an urgent rethinking of intelligence and a reevaluation of how we educate children so as to facilitate the recovery of creative talents (2007). Whereas Florida attributes the rise of the creative class to economic factors, Ray and Anderson (2000) who similarly recognize the ‘cultural creatives’ as a new social movement, see it growing steadily out of the social movements of the Sixties into the contemporary consciousness movements in spirituality, psychology and alternative health (www.culturalcreatives.org/book.html). From their perspective the cultural creatives are a step ahead in terms of taking responsibility for global issues; they describe the new class as characterized by their concern for environmental issues. Ray and Anderson observe: “Right now over 70% of the world population is convinced that something serious has to be done about the dangers facing the planet … It’s a matter of moral imagination, a wisdom of the heart. This is where many of the cultural creatives are headed now: directly into the core of the problems of our common world” (p.314). Common to both analyses, evidently, is an

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emphasis on imagination and creativity as the engines of social and cultural transformation. Scharmer (2009) would concur that interest in creativity is symptomatic of raised levels of consciousness and spiritual experience. He explores attentional awareness and ‘presencing’ as the key to creativity and to both personal growth and organizational change. However, Scharmer cautions that recent survey data reveals the value shift towards the new movements is “countered by a backlash into a narrow, selfcentred, reactive view” (2009, p.92). Like Brown and Duguid, he suggests that we share a collective blind spot that hinders our ability to see “the process of the coming into being of social reality” (p.103), and he sees the overcoming of this blind spot as an essential tool for social change. Emphasizing that we need to “trust our own senses, experiences, and insights – without having a clue as to where that journey will lead next” (p.104), he offers guidelines for ‘presencing’ as way of paying attention to the source that flows from the well of deeper awareness. When 'presencing' we are able to see our own blind spot and pay attention in a way that allows us to experience the opening of our minds, our hearts, and our wills. Through this process we are able to shift our awareness to allow us to connect with our best future possibility and to realize it – an achievement that relies implicitly on imagination. Such an emphasis on the utopian or transformative power of the imagination echoes the lifework of the German social theorist Ernst Bloch, who was fascinated by its role both in literature and art and in projects of social change. In his monumental The Principle of Hope (1986), which had its genesis in the 1930s and 1940s, he pursued questions of a philosophical and epistemological nature: what is the utopian function of art and literature? What is the relationship between the conscious and known activity and the not-yet-conscious utopian function? (Bloch, 1986). Interestingly, the same theme finds an echo in the most famous work of the U.S. sociologist C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (1959, 2009), whose 50th anniversary was recently marked by a special issue of the Journal Teaching Sociology. Addressing the need for sociologists to direct their research towards the needs of the society they serve, Wright Mills called for the development of a unique quality of mind: It is not only information they need – in this Age of Fact, information often dominates their attention and overwhelms their capacities to assimilate it. It is not only skills of reason they need – although their struggles to acquire these often exhaust their limited moral energy. What they need, and what they feel they need, is a quality of mind that will help them to use information and to develop reason in order to

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achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and what may be happening in themselves. It is this quality, I am going to contend, that journalists and scholars and publicans, scientists and editors are coming to expect of what may be called the sociological imagination. (Wright Mills, 1959, 2009; p.5)

Embodied in the sociological imagination is “the idea that the individual can understand their own experience and gauge their own fate only by locating themselves within their period, that they can know their own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in their circumstances” (p.5). By bringing this social positioning to consciousness, each individual can thereby empower him- or herself to seek alternatives; that is, to locate other courses of action, or to change the circumstances in which they find themselves. For Wright Mills, this could not be accomplished without imagination, conceived as “the capacity to shift from one perspective to another – from the political to the psychological; …the capacity to range from impersonal and remote transformations to the most intimate features of the human self – and to see the relations between the two” (p.7). From a range of sociological perspectives, then, imagination appears both as an important force in the shaping of society (see also, notably, Anderson’s classic work on the origins of modern nationalism, Imagined Communities, 1983), and as a vital means of engaging with that society. Imaginative Education is clearly implicated in both of these. On the one hand, the reshaping of schools to make imagination more central evidently relies on social forces going well beyond the education system itself; on the other, the cultivation of students’ imaginations cannot but have significant consequences for their participation in social life. Kearney’s work, along with many other media scholars, also makes it clear that imaginative educators cannot afford to ignore issues in the control and deployment of media images; to a significant extent, in contemporary society, Imaginative Education must also be media education.

The Arts and Education In practice, most imagination-centred perspectives and approaches in education have originated with researchers and teachers connected to the arts, such as the major figures of Maxine Greene and Elliot Eisner. In her essay collection Releasing the Imagination (1995), Greene emphasizes the role imagination plays in opening our eyes to worlds beyond our existence, enabling us to create, care for others, and envision social change. Ruminating on themes such as literacy, the arts and aesthetics, pluralism

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and multiculturalism, Greene explains how the arts build understanding across differences and stimulate the capacity to break the habitual, counteracting the sometimes pervasive sense of futility that overwhelms many of our youth. Eisner, on the other hand, has been an articulate champion of imagination and artistry in teaching, and of the integration of the arts in mainstream schooling. In arguing that the arts should be at the core and not the margins of education, Eisner (2002) echoes Bruner’s earlier call to notice the close collaboration of the senses, the emotions and cognition as aspects of mind, which are at play in both the creation and the appreciation of art works. When nurtured with care these capacities become essential attributes for understanding nuances of meaning and for dealing with the ambiguities of life. In subsequent works he argues that school improvement can be achieved not only through scientific research but also through “methods deeply rooted in the arts” (2009, p.6), and he offers examples of practices (2009) and forms of thinking (2003) that support such methods (see further under Pedagogy, below). Almost by definition, imagination is invoked and upheld routinely across the broad field of arts education, whether involving the visual arts, drama, music, dance, or other art forms. To review this vast range of literature here would be an impossible task, but excellent recent surveys are provided in Eisner and Day’s Handbook of Research and Policy in Art Education (2004) and the International Handbook of Research in Arts Education (Bresler, 2007), which includes contributions by Eisner, Greene, Bruner and many other important names in the field. Not to be ignored is the classic collection of essays edited by Willis and Schubert, Reflections from the Heart of Educational Inquiry: Understanding Curriculum and Teaching through the Arts (1991). In one way or another, all of these works may be seen as contributing in significant ways to our understanding of imagination in education.

Curriculum and Pedagogy At the centre, perhaps, of the field of Imaginative Education are works focusing on the nature of teaching and learning in general, including both the theory of curriculum and pedagogy and the development of practical alternatives to established ways of doing things. Naturally, such work generally draws on one or more of the areas outlined above, either explicitly or implicitly. As the field matures, it might be hoped that its practitioners become more adept at situating themselves within this diverse range of traditions, such as specifying the conception of human development or the social vision that informs their work. In its present,

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somewhat inchoate state, it is not uncommon to find an eclectic blend of references to progressivism, constructivism, existentialism, and a variety of other educational traditions that have at best an ambivalent relationship with the imagination. Such a charge cannot be sustained in the case of Kieran Egan, however, who has been the most consistent and ambitious educational theorist of the imagination of recent decades. The author of trenchant critiques of educational psychology (1997) and progressivist theory (2002), Egan has also advanced his own account of human imaginative development together with suggestions regarding its educational implications (1997). Broadly Vygotskian in nature, his theory highlights the importance of emotional engagement, the role of narrative, and the changes in understanding that accompany acquisition of the ‘tools for thinking’ prevalent in a particular society. For teachers he proposes a set of ‘planning frameworks’ for developing imaginative curriculum units in any area of study (2005). Such systematic approaches are rare, however. More typical is the diverse collection of perspectives and practices assembled by Leonard and Willis (2008). In their introduction, the editors advance a conception of the practice of imaginal knowing, which they conceive as a deeply personal process yet paradoxically one that is also open to the universe: a reliable way of knowing that moves the heart, holds the imagination and connects self-stories, public myths and cultural knowledge. The curriculum is conceptualized as the medium through which imaginal knowing can be cultivated in teachers and students so as to enrich reflective pedagogic engagement. Yet, they imply, there are multiple, perhaps even infinite routes to such cultivation. While overarching theories are useful, it is in the end the sharing of narratives grounded in practice that offer the greatest hope for developing the field in depth. A middle ground between these positions can be found in the work of Indigenous theorist Gregory Cajete (1994, 1999). Cautioning that no theory can adequately capture the richness and diversity of local traditions, Cajete nonetheless offers a set of integrative frameworks for engaging the body, mind and spirit fully in the educational process. In some ways his work goes beyond others mentioned here in emphasizing the involvement of community and the natural world in imaginative development, on a par with artistic and spiritual practices. Curriculum and pedagogy, too, are treated as aspects of an interconnected whole. A theory of imaginative pedagogy does not really exist at present, although much relevant work exists in arts education. There is, however, an increasing body of work on teaching methods and strategies that engage

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Introduction

a fuller range of learners’ cognitive capacities, often invoking neuroscience research as a justification. Representative is Costa’s compilation of 85 essays in Developing minds: A resource book for teaching thinking (2001), which adds to the bank of IE literature through the inclusion of relevant topics such as creative thinking as an essential life skill (Puccio & Murdock); the role of the arts in learning (Eisner); multiple intelligences (Lazear); open-mindedness (Berman; Baron); the social side of thinking (Perkins); Socratic Inquiry (Jackson); and dialectical-dialogical thinking (Paul). With the double intention of including theoretical perspectives that arising out of research findings, and of translating these ideas into practical application, many strategies are offered for teaching and assessing thinking skills and for curriculum design. A glossary of thinking terms is included, as are several checklists, such as one for classroom observation and one for teachers’ self-evaluation. Also clearly relevant to Imaginative Education is the growing body of literature on fostering creativity in children. A representative sample is Starko (2005), who offers ways to help teachers connect theories and research related to creativity to the daily round of classroom activities. With the aim of teaching techniques that nurture ‘creative thinking’ he develops strategies that cover classroom activities, reflection questions and sample lesson plans. Discussions include the topics of assessment, crosscultural concepts of creativity and collaborative creativity. There is a tension, however, between elaborating such approaches independently of the teachers employing them, and conceiving of teaching itself as an artistic endeavour. Here the writings of Eliot Eisner provide particularly valuable insights, as he writes of the “flexible purposing” that characterizes imaginative pedagogy, with its openness to discovery, unpredictability and surprise (2009, p.8). Process is valued over outcomes; teachers are able to help students to “work at the edge of incompetence” and to view their work as “temporary experimental accomplishments” (2003, p.379). Instead of the focus falling on the collection of information data, and its classification and categorization, perception is slowed down to facilitate the savouring of qualities, to allow for the flow of process (2009, p.8). Eisner quotes Dewey (1938): “Flexible purposing is opportunistic; it capitalizes on the emergent features appearing within a field of relationships. It is not rigidly attached to predefined aims when the possibility of better ones emerges” (2003, p.378). The same qualities are explored in Jagla’s interesting study of imagination and intuition in the practice of eight teachers in classes ranging from kindergarten to college (1994).

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Nielsen (2004) draws on the work of Rudolf Steiner, cited earlier, to further develop insights into the nature of 'imaginative teaching'. Using the methodologies of ethnography and phenomenology, Nielsen examines imaginative teaching in three Steiner primary classrooms and sets about re-theorizing aspects of Steiner's writings by developing ‘three modes of pedagogy’ and ‘seven teaching methods’ to promote a contemporary understanding of imaginative teaching. Nielsen suggests that the categories are helpful in both alerting Steiner teachers to the “full scope of imaginative teaching” and in improving the “quality of the application of any one of the categories” (p.229). Furthermore, he suggests, they are transferable to mainstream educational settings and may offer “an important contribution to curriculum and policymaking” (p.230). Other researchers (Woods, Ashley and Woods, 2005; Oberman, 2007) have offered qualified support for this view, although they caution that it is rarely a simple matter to transfer teaching practices from one setting to another.

Expanding Imaginative Education What is to be made of this profusion of ideas and practices, theoretical edifices and panoplies of craft? Limited as it is, this review demonstrates beyond a doubt the variety of perspectives and approaches implicated by the concept of imagination. Does it in fact make sense to delineate this as a single field of study? Is Imaginative Education simply whatever engages the imagination of a particular teacher, student, theorist, with no definable autonomous identity of its own? Inevitably, any such definition will be contested. Imagination is protean by nature, assuming a thousand different forms in the blink of an eye, and no attempt to pin it down will be entirely successful. Nonetheless, the editors believe that there is a core of common meaning that binds together the diverse traditions outlined above, and whose further elucidation and elaboration can make a vitally important contribution to our understanding of education in the 21st century. Roughly speaking, this core of meaning includes a view of thought and understanding as necessarily embodied, emotional and contextual as well as linguistic, logical and abstract; a view of education as necessarily encompassing spirit and mystery as well as reason, collective consciousness and culture as well as individual nature; and a view of teaching as a kind of art, to be cultivated in much the same way as the other arts, involving both the mastery of medium and technique and the ineffable workings of intuition, serendipity, and talent.

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Introduction

To what end are these common understandings to be cultivated and shared? This question, too, evokes a constellation of responses. Common to most or all of them are a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us; the nurturing of each person’s potential (and our collective capacity) for creative thought and action; and greater joy and fulfillment for all those engaged in the chancy enterprise of education. Whether or not Imaginative Education is compatible, even in principle, with the constraints and pressures of compulsory schooling on a large scale is a vexed question on which no agreement exists. Yet it is clear that the core principles and commitments of Imaginative Education put it at odds with many received ideas about education and with policies and practices that currently wield great influence in schools. It is, in that respect, a movement, or assembly of traditions, with a fundamentally critical edge. While much more could be said, and many more sources and perspectives cited, we prefer to step aside at this point and surrender the stage to our contributing authors. In their diverse ways, they manifest and illuminate the central concepts and concerns of Imaginative Education more effectively than this brief review. Out of the creative tensions that result from this encounter of disparate backgrounds, techniques, and purposes, we see a new and dynamic field emerging. May this collection contribute to its flourishing.

References Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, New York: Verso. Atweh, B., Calabrese Barton, A., Borba, M., Gough, N., Keitel, C., & Vistro-Yu, C. (Eds.). (2007). Internationalization and globalization in mathematics and science education. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Bennett, M. R., Dennett, D., Hacker, P., Searle, J., & Robinson, D. (2007). Neuroscience and philosophy: Brain, mind, and language. New York: Columbia University Press. Blenkinsop, S. (Ed). (2009). The Imagination in Education: Extending the Boundaries in Theory and Practice. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press. Bloch, E. (1986). The principle of hope. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press. Brann, E. T. H. (1991). The world of imagination: Sum and substance. Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

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Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (2002). The social life of information. (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press. Bruner, J. S. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. —. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. —. (1997). The culture of education (7th ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Burbules, N. C., & Hansen, D. T. (Eds.). Teaching and its predicaments. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Cajete, G. (1994). Look to the mountain: An ecology of Indigenous education. Durango, CO: Kivaki. Cajete, G. (1999). Ignite the sparkle: An Indigenous science model. Skyland, NC: Kivaki Press. Costa, A. L. (Ed.). (2001). Developing minds: A resource book for teaching thinking. (3rd ed.). Moorabbin, VIC: Hawker Brownlow Education. Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes' error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: Putnam. —. (2003). Looking for spinoza: Joy, sorrow, and the feeling brain. London: Harcourt. Daniels, H., Cole, M., & Wertsch, J. V. (2007). The cambridge companion to Vygotsky. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press. Denzin, N. & Lincoln, Y.S. (2003). The landscape of qualitative research: Theories and issues. London: Sage. Dewey, J. (1997). How we think. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications. Doidge, N. (2007). The brain that changes itself: Stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science. New York: Viking. Doll, W. E. (1993). A post-modern perspective on curriculum. New York: Teachers College Press. Doll, W. E., & Gough, N. (Eds.). (2002). Curriculum visions. New York: Peter Lang. Egan, K. (2005). An imaginative approach to teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. —. (1997). The educated mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —. (2002). Getting it wrong from the beginning: Our progressivist inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget. New Haven: Yale University Press. —. (2008). The arts and tools of learning. Arts & Learning Research Journal, 24(1), 1-22. —. (2008). Learning in depth. Educational Leadership, 66(3), 58-63.

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Egan, K., & Judson, G. (2009). Values and imagination in teaching: With a special focus on social studies. Educational Philosophy & Theory, 41(2), 126-140. Egan, K. & Nadaner, D. (Eds.). Imagination and Education. New York, Teachers College Press. Eisner, E. (2002). The arts and the creation of mind. New Hven, CT: Yale University Press. —. (2009). What education can learn from the arts. Art Education, 62(2), 6-7. Eisner, E. W. (1979). The educational imagination: On the design and evaluation of school programs. New York: Macmillan. —. (2003). Artistry in education. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research. 47(3), 373. —. (2008). The misunderstood role of the arts in human development. In B. Z. Presseisen (Ed.), Teaching for intelligence. (pp. 111-122) Evans, J., Davies, B., & Rich, E. (2009). The body made flesh: Embodied learning and the corporeal device. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30(4), 391-406. Florida, R. (2003). The rise of the creative class: And how its transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life. North Melbourne, VIC: Pluto Press. Gajdamaschko, N. (2005). Vygotsky on imagination: Why an understanding of the imagination is an important issue for schoolteachers. Teaching Education, 16(1), 13-22. Glazer, S. (Ed.). (1999). The heart of learning: Spirituality in education. New York: Penguin Putnam. Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books. Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Harris, P., L. (2000). The work of the imagination. Carlton, Victoria, Australia: Blackwell Publishing. Hedley, D. (2008). Living forms of the imagination. New York: T & T Clark International. hooks, b. (2003). Teaching community: A pedagogy of hope. New York: Routledge. Immordino-Yang, M., & Damasio, A. (2007). We feel therefore we learn: The relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind, Brain & Education, 1(1), 391-406. Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.

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Jones, R., A., Clarkson, A., Congram, S., & Stratton, N. (2008). Education and imagination: Post-jungian perspectives. London and New York: Routledge. Kearney, R. (1988). The wake of imagination. London: Routledge. —. (1998). Poetics of imagining: Modern to post-modern. New York: Fordham University Press. Lather, P. (1991). Getting smart: Feminist research and pedagogy within the postmodern. New York: Routledge. LeDoux, J. E. (1996). The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. New York: Simon and Schuster. Leonard, T., & Willis, P. (Eds.). (2008). Pedagogies of the imagination. The Netherlands: Dordrecht. Luria, A. R. (1971). Towards the problem of the historical nature of psychological processes. International Journal of Psychology, 6, 259272. Luria, A. R. (1976). Cognitive development: Its cultural and social foundations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Neville, B. (1989). Educating psyche: Emotion, imagination, and the unconscious in learning. Melbourne, VIC: Collins Dove. Nielsen, T. (2004). Rudolf steiner's pedagogy of imagination: A case study of holistic education. New York: Peter Lang. Noddings, N. (1997). Must we motivate? (chapter 3). In N. C. Burbules, & D. T. Hansen (Eds.), Teaching and its predicaments (pp. 29-43). Oberman, I. (2007). Learning from Rudolf Steiner: The relevance of Waldorf education for urban public school reform. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, Illinois, (April 2007). ED498362. Pashler, H., Gallistel, R., Pashler, H., & Gallistel, R. (Eds.). (2002). Steven's handbook of experimental psychology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc. Presseisen, B. Z., & Presseisen, B. Z. (Eds.). (2008). Teaching for intelligence. (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Robinson, K. (2007). Out of our minds: Learning to be creative. New York: Wiley-India. Ray, P.H. & Anderson, S.R. (2000). The cultural creatives. New York: Harmony Books. Sacks, O. (1986). The man who mistook his wife for a hat. London: Pan Books, Picador. Schafe, G. E., & LeDoux, J. E. (2002). Emotional plasticity. In H. Pashler, & R. Gallistel (Eds.), Steven's handbook of experimental psychology, vol.3: Learning, motivation, and emotion. (pp. 535-561)

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Scharmer, C. O. (2007). Theory U: Leading from the future as it emerges: The social technology of presencing. Boston, MA: Society for Organizational Learning. Schulman, L. S. (2004). The wisdom of practice: Essays on teaching, learning, and learning to teach. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Senge, P. M., Scharmer, C. O., Jaworski, J., & Flowers, B. S. (2004). Awakening faith in an alternative future. Reflections, 5(7), 1-11. Senge, P. M., Scharmer, C. O., Jaworski, J., & Flowers, B. S. (2005). Presence: Human purpose and the field of the future. London: Nicholas Brealey. Shulman, L. S., & Shulman, J. H. (2004). How and what teachers learn: A shifting perspective. Journal of Curriculum Studies. 36(2), 257-271. Slaughter, R. (2004). Futures beyond dystopia: Creating social foresight. Routledge, London. Smith, G. A., & Williams, D. R. (Eds.). (1999). Ecological education in action: On weaving education, culture, and the environment. Albany, NY: State University of New York. Sousa, D. A. (2001). How the brain learns: A classroom teacher's guide. (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Starko, A. J. (Ed.). (2005). Creativity in the classroom: Schools of curious delight. (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Eribaum Assiciates Publishers. Stone, M. K., & Barlow, Z. (Eds.). (2005). Ecological literacy: Educating our children for a sustainable world. San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Warnock, M. (1976). Imagination, Faber & Faber: London. Wilber, K. (2000). Integral psychology: Consciousness, spirit, psychology, therapy. Boston, MA: Shambala Publications. —. (2007). The integral vision: A very short introduction to the revolutionary integral approach to life, god, the universe, and everything. Boston, MA: Shambala Publications. Willis, G., & Schubert, W. (Eds.). (1991). Reflections from the heart of educational inquiry: Understanding curriculum and teaching through the arts. Albany, NY: State University of New York. White, A. (1990). The language of imagination. Oxford: Blackwell. Woods P., Ashley M., & Woods G., (2005). Steiner schools in England. Department for Education and Skills and University of the West of England, Research Report RR645, June 2005.

CHAPTER ONE CULTURE, IMAGINATION, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MIND KIERAN EGAN

Introduction ‘Development’ is a handy term; it has a somewhat mealy-mouthed appeal. It hints at the meanings of ‘evolution’ and ‘progress’ without committing us to the freight they carry. Its value here is that it suggests processes that involve some kind of improvement while not being very precise about the nature of the improvement being suggested. This kind of imprecision is appropriate as it well reflects the main problem scholars have had in trying to deal with both cultural and educational change. Both are familiar processes about which we have considerable knowledge but both remain difficult to grasp and difficult to give any adequate explanatory account of. They are both complex and multi-faceted, to be sure, but the central difficulty in securely grasping them seems to lie rather in the fact that their causal principles, the dynamics that work within them and drive them onward, are opaque. At best they appear as through a glass darkly. What causes the processes of cultural and intellectual development to go forward? Why do we not live like other animals, instinctively reproducing the form of life of our ancestors? What caused human beings to begin the processes of cultural innovation and enables us to continue it at, apparently, an ever-increasing rate? And what is it about human children that enables them in a few years to reconstruct for themselves this elaborating culture? Fortunately I do not have to answer these questions, but I do want to show that the reasons we have difficulty answering both sets, about culture and children, have something in common. I will try to show that even though we cannot give very precise explanatory accounts

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of cultural and intellectual development, it is possible to see enough to disclose clear links between the two processes. I will begin by looking briefly at the two processes separately, focus on what they have in common, and then show how these common features enable construction of a cultural recapitulation conception of education on firmer bases than was achieved in the nineteenth century.

Cultural Development We are unlike other animals in that we have a ‘culture’. For the time being I mean by this gun-toting word nothing more than—to choose a classic definition—"a set of attributes and products of human societies... which are extrasomatic [outside the body] and transmissible by mechanisms other than biological heredity, and are essentially lacking in [non]-human species as they are characteristic of the human species as it is aggregated in its societies" (Kroeber & Kluckholn, 1952, p. 283). All cultures, anthropologists generally accept, show signs of some degree of development from less complex to more complex stages (Johnson & Earle, 1987). Nineteenth century social theories, applying their interpretation of Darwinian evolution, tended to see these changes straightforwardly as progressive, and cultures as further ‘progressed’ the more they approximated contemporary Western societies. The ethnocentrism later evident in such schemes as Morgan's (1877) image of progression from Savagery to Barbarism to Civilization led to a severe reaction by Boas (1920). He and his influential students asserted the uniqueness of each culture and eschewed generalizations across cultures. This austere approach kept anthropologists out of one kind of trouble, but it did also inhibit them from dealing with some of the more obvious features of social change; it allowed greater precision and control of their phenomena but at the cost of ignoring some of the most interesting anthropological questions about human societies. The current consensus among anthropologists is a more sophisticated, carefully non-ethnocentric, cultural evolutionism, which emphasizes, following Leslie White (1959), increasing control of energy for human purposes and control over nature in general. Still, attempts to explain this cumulative development ran into chicken-and-egg problems; e.g., does population growth stimulate technological development or do technological developments increase food supplies, stimulating population growth? Problems concerning development in traditional oral cultures seem to ramify enormously when we consider development in Western culture. Even so, it is true that very many anthropologists find the subject of social

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change or cultural evolution one they prefer to avoid. Despite the interest of the questions raised, they are repelled by the history of ethnocentrism that has surrounded the topic, by its theoretical difficulties, by the seeming unavoidability of value judgements and the fear of suggesting, or being interpreted as suggesting, that some cultures and conditions are inferior to others, by the troublesome vocabulary that includes such freighted words as ‘evolution’, ‘primitive’, ‘modern’, and so on. (See the Introduction to Hallpike, 1986). One of the characteristics of Western culture—indeed, the one that tends to receive the most attention—is that it began to ‘develop’ in peculiar ways a few millennia ago. It has proven very hard to pin down the nature and causes of this peculiar development, but its products are obtrusively evident all over this planet, and on our moon, on Mars and Venus, on a comet or two and on moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and now even outside our solar system. The story of this development is a familiar one. Typical accounts focus on the invention of agriculture, early trade, irrigation projects, the invention of symbols, the Greek alphabet, new building techniques, elaborated administrative systems, weapons development, new forms of art and literature, rational disciplines of inquiry, science, and the flood of technological inventions that have transformed much of the world. Most accounts, either implicitly by their selection of significant episodes, or explicitly in a theory, try to explain why this process of cultural development has occurred the way it has. The explanations tend to be less satisfactory than the descriptions. To understand the peculiar development of Western culture, it is necessary to know what caused and causes the development and why it has developed in the order it has. There is a massive and contentious literature on this topic, and all I aim to do here is abstract some of its general features. Consider the following two accounts of particular developments. The invention of writing had the consequence that people began to record their local myths, legends, lore, memories of significant events, and so on. Sets of these records, when examined together, would bring to light inconsistencies among them. One Greek family might claim that a greatgreat-grandparent was a god at a time when another account would claim that gods no longer had intimate dealings with mortals. These had to be coordinated somehow. Other accounts claiming that only giants or gods inhabited the world a dozen generations back had to be coordinated with travellers' stories of Egyptian records showing hundreds of generations of human high priests. Attempts to coordinate the constant inconsistencies led to sorting out principles for determining which claims deserved more

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credence, and this critical inquiry into the past led to the discipline of history: that is, an attempt to describe and account for what has happened in which one's present interests, hopes, and fears play as little part as possible. Second, the desire of monks to wake up at regular intervals during the night in order to chant the canonical hours led to the invention of more reliable and complex time-recording devices. These became increasingly popular throughout late medieval Europe. Water-powered bellows invented for fifteenth-century blast furnaces, and water-powered mills invented to crush ore, led to the production of sprung metal, which was adapted to replace weights in driving clocks. The invention of the telescope led to astronomers requiring yet more accurate clocks, which was satisfied by the regularity achieved by pendulum power. But pendulums were no use at sea, so the search for better quality springs led to new forms of smelting, and this included among its consequences, along with a few more inventions and discoveries, the Industrial Revolution and the automobile. In both of the above abbreviated examples a logic is discernible. One invention leads logically to the next, which leads to another, which leads to social changes, new kinds of understanding, and further inventions, and so on. Such accounts expose a logic of invention and discovery, and of cultural development—or impose a logic on them. The pace and shape of that development is obviously seen as influenced by social and psychological conditions. We can understand the motives that stimulate the spread of literacy and clocks, even if we cannot understand what Arthur Koestler called ‘the act of creation’ that brought them about in the first place (Koestler, 1964). So while human emotions and intentions play an obvious role, the explanation is given in terms of the unfolding logic implicit in the inventions, discoveries, ideas, institutions, and so on, that make up Western cultural history. Such accounts are plausible because there clearly is a logic, a graspable order, to the process; some things could be invented only after other things, some ideas are logically dependent on other ideas. Jonathan Miller (1978) argues that the ancient Greeks failed to work out the function of the heart in the body, not because they did not have as much data as William Harvey early in the seventeenth century, but because the suction pump was not invented till the late medieval period. That is, he suggests it was not just a serendipitous failure of discovery in one period and success in another, but that the discovery of the heart's function was in some loose sense logically dependent on the invention of suction pumps to clear mines of water. The simpler piece of technology

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made it possible or easier to understand the function of the more complex biological organ. Similarly, one might see the early nineteenth century embryology arguments between preformationists and recapitulationists only being resolved after the invention by Vaucanson and Jacquard of coded programs to automate pattern-making in weaving machines or, as in the case of Herman Holerith's punched cards in the U.S.A., to count populations. The idea of a coded program built into an organism, lately identified in our DNA, offered a new and better explanation for how an embryo grows into an adult human being. Alternatively, some accounts imply that cultural history is best understood if we see its dynamic in terms of the psychological development that occurs when minds interact with the natural environment: "This interaction is the basis of cognitive growth, which is governed by laws general to human beings in all societies" (Hallpike, 1979, p. 59). This psychological approach is most crudely evident in those nineteenth century evolutionary conceptions of development from primitive savagery to sophisticated rationality—represented in those old classroom wallcharts showing hairy monkey-thugs transforming over the millennia into upright gleaming men, or in the ‘upward urge’ from Savagery to Barbarism to Rationality. Sigmund Freud, in Totem and Taboo (1950), sketched a rather different scheme, but it was similar in that social evolution was explained in terms of more fundamental psychological phenomena; prominent in this case were incest and the neuroses that were the staples of his psychoanalytic method. In such accounts, primitive mentality gave way to the superior mental conditions of modern Western adults. A more testable and sophisticated psychological argument has been offered by C.R. Hallpike (1979), who has drawn on Piaget's theory of psychological development to help account for the process of cultural development. His is an account of how "the human mind had gradually come to a more correct understanding of such basic features of the world as space, time, causality, probability, number, measurement, and so on" (Hallpike, 1986, p. 130). Psychological accounts are plausible because, on the face of it, there seem to be significant cognitive differences between people today and those whose thinking has left traces in the earliest myths and literature. They are plausible, too, because cultural development is obviously due to some characteristic of the human psyche. These general kinds of explanation—the logical and psychological— are not, of course, as distinct as this categorization suggests. All accounts have elements of both. The typical Marxist account, for example, is

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articulated in terms of the social changes that become perspicuous when one understands the logic of the economic laws in which lies their ultimate explanation. But those laws rest on assumptions about human hopes and fears, and about other human motives such as greed. So, giving accounts of cultural development that focus on the unfolding logic of invention and discovery or focus on psychological operations and increasingly sophisticated cognition helps to elaborate our grasp over an enormously complex and somewhat mysterious process. But both kinds of account are unsatisfactory—to their framers as well as their readers in many cases. The trouble with these attempts at explaining the dauntingly diverse, multi-faceted, and complex topic of Western cultural development is their difficulty in explaining the constant novelty that is so obtrusive a characteristic of the process. The central peculiarity of Western ‘development’ is its constant innovation, its generativity. The logical and psychological accounts help us to grasp the complex process, to give it order and pin it down for further, more detailed, critical examination. While these accounts enlarge knowledge of the process, and open the way to more sophisticated understanding, the generative element that is the dynamic of the process eludes our grasp. It is as though, to use Aristotle's term, we can give no account of the ‘efficient cause’ of cultural history—that initiating, motivating, dynamic source of the process. A yet more sophisticated account, which oversteps the categories I have used so far and moves in the direction I want to go, is articulated in Merlin Donald’s books (1991, 2001). He argues that the human capacity for symbolic thought arises not from the some mental module produced in our evolution, but out of evolutionary changes to the prefrontal cortex. These changes, including enhanced attentional, metacognitive, and retrieval capacities, resulted in our hominid ancestors becoming much more capable of dealing with social complexity than their predecessors. Donald argues that what drove this brain expansion was not the cognitive demands of toolmaking or spatial mapping of the environment, but rather the growth in the size of the social group. He argues that these changes created a whole new dynamic in human society and the human psyche, in which memory becomes much more important, and so therefore do the ‘poetic’ technologies that enhance memory—stories, metaphor, images in the mind, etc.—and these changes led to a uniquely human symbiosis between brain and culture. My aim here is not to provide a more adequate account of the dynamic of Western cultural development—(if I could I would be rapidly writing a different work)—but rather is to point to certain features of the process.

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For reasons that will be clearer in the next section, I am particularly interested in pointing at the absence of any adequate account of the dynamic or the ‘efficient cause’ of the process—though Donald comes as close as anyone in this regard. Clearly the component missing from most attempts to tie cultural development to some psychological capacity, or module (see Mithen’s interesting but rather less persuasive attempts, 1996, 2003, 2005) is to put it mildly problematic given the working assumptions of most psychologists today. It lies in the human capacity to think of things as other than they are, which is the primary cause allowing us then to go about reshaping the world to conform with what we have imagined. The dynamic, that is to say, is imagination. Calling the ineffable dynamic of Western cultural development ‘imagination’ does not, of course, solve any of our problems. It does not enlighten the process or tell us why it began to have the peculiar effects we can describe over the past few thousand years. Imagination is clearly a generic human capacity evident in all cultures. Nor is recognizing the central role of imagination in the slightest original: “If man's logical and critical faculties had surpassed his imagination and creativity, and if he had been content to govern his life by criteria acceptable to rational materialists, it does not seem that very much would ever have occurred at all in the way of evolution” (Hallpike, 1986, p. 372). Let me deal with an apparent paradox in passing. Imagination is a component of the human psyche, and I have suggested above that both logically and psychologically based theories of cultural development are equally inadequate in their inability to locate the dynamic of the process. The paradox is resolved by recognizing that current psychological theories leave imagination unaccounted for. This is especially true for those psychological theories which have been found of some use in addressing cultural evolution; Piaget's theory, for example, focuses exclusively on a limited range of logico-mathematical capacities, regardless of whether the subject matter of his experiments is logical tasks or children's play and dreams (Brainerd, 1978; Gardner, 1991). Recognizing imagination as the dynamic of the process of cultural development isn't very helpful because we cannot explain what imagination is either. What we mean by the word is the capacity to think of things as possibly being so (White, 1990). But in any adequate account of Western cultural development the action of this capacity will have to be central. So if this brief skipping across attempts to describe and explain cultural development takes us no closer to an explanation, what does it do? Well, I think it points to a very general model of what such an explanation

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will have to look like. The model is a troika: the central lead role is taken by the imagination and the two constraining, conditioning roles are taken by logical and psychological forces. That is, the imagination provides the generative dynamic of the developmental process, but our freedom to make real what is imagined is constrained or conditioned by what is already known and by the logic of invention and discovery, and also is shaped by human hopes and fears, and by what is psychologically possible in prevailing social conditions. For example, to think of human beings flying through the air or travelling in the underworld is first an act of imagination. Moving in the direction of either of these images depends on their satisfying some hope or fulfilling some desire or providing some security from fear and also on the development, invention or discovery, of the knowledge and materials that are necessary to make either image a reality. Imaginative freedom, then, drives cultural development, but the process is constrained by what is psychologically and logically possible. Imagination also provides images of what is possible that can stimulate desires, hopes, fears, and also can stimulate invention and discovery. Now as models go I guess this is no great shakes. The neatness of the three distinct elements is a little muddied by the obvious overlaps between imagination and other psychological conditions. (Our hopes and fears are hardly distinct from our imaginations.) But, bearing this in mind, it is useful in distinguishing major features that any adequate explanation of cultural development has to account for. Apply it for a moment to James Burke's engaging and popular books and T.V. shows, such as Connections (1978), from which I stole for the earlier example about monks and automobiles. He shows how one innovation which satisfies some social purpose or psychological need, can combine seemingly fortuitously with a second innovation elsewhere, to produce a third major innovation somewhere else. He commonly says about what might have otherwise been considered the brilliantly original third invention, "Well, it was obvious, wasn't it?" As a logical development it seems so after he has made the series of connections so perspicuous. What is not obvious is why any of these innovations should be occurring. The implicit assertion that ‘thick description’—providing an intricately detailed description of a process—can replace explanation is misleading. It may provide excellent accounts of the ‘material’ and ‘formal’ causes, and the addition of a fuller psychological component might provide an adequate account of the ‘final’ cause, but we would be still without a sense of the ‘efficient’ cause. That is, even if imagination is very difficult to grasp, recognizing its centrality to the process of cultural development will keep clear that however well

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we can describe certain of its conditions and constraints, something crucial about the process remains to be explained and understood.

Educational development ‘Development’ is also the appropriately imprecise term to use about the process of education. That peculiar kind of individual development we call education is tied up with this peculiar kind of Western cultural development. It is our attempts to accumulate, or recapitulate, in our young the coded achievements of Western cultural development since the invention of literacy that has made education such a problematic enterprise for us. Traditional oral cultures do not experience the same uncertainties, controversies, and anxieties about the aims, content, and methods of education. The conception of education in the West is peculiar and different from that in traditional oral cultures in the same way that Western cultural development has been peculiar and different. Central to educational development is the mysterious process of learning. I call it mysterious, even though each of us is entirely familiar with it on a daily basis, because we have seemingly intractable difficulties explaining it. In learning, we somehow grasp knowledge we did not have previously: if there is nothing new in our minds, no learning has occurred. Novelty is also a key feature of this process. Many theories of learning try to minimize the problem of novelty; they emphasize how new knowledge is logically or psychologically connected with what is already known. (The pervasiveness of this characteristic of learning theories in education has generated the educational folklore that learning is a process of moving ‘from the known to the unknown’. This has become the largely uncontested teaching principle that you should always begin a new topic with related knowledge the student is already familiar with and move gradually from that to the new, emphasizing the connection between them.) But however far one tries to minimize the novelty, it remains at some irreducible level to be accounted for. Indeed, the capacity to grasp the new is at the very heart of learning. If new knowledge is always simply an extension or elaboration of what is already known, the process could not have gotten started, and we would be in an infinite regress—back with the preformationists to Eve's womb. This obvious point needs emphasis because of the common reluctance to face up to how little we understand about learning. The tendency to look under the bright lamp where one can see clearly for the coin we have dropped, even though we dropped it in the shadows up the street, is echoed in the tendency to focus on those features of learning that are most

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graspable at the expense of what is central though mysterious. The mystery of learning, to make matters even worse, is not simply how the human mind grasps new knowledge, but further how each individual constructs and reconstructs immensely complex patterns of understanding from knowledge while learning. Recognition of this added dimension has been aided by the conception of ‘learning as invention’ which Jean Piaget (1973a) has helped us grasp, and which Jerome Bruner (1986, 1990) has comprehensively elaborated as ‘the construction of meaning’. Learning, that is to say, is a process in which each individual grasps new knowledge and constructs new meaning. Knowledge existing in coded form in books has no meaning until it is decoded into the living conceptual stuff of a human mind, and once incorporated into a living mind it becomes unique. Like snowflakes, no two concepts are alike: "It is quite certain that, however great the convergence among a community on definitions of concepts and concept prototypes...there is variation from individual to individual in the content and structure of the vast majority of concepts, scripts, and categories" (Nelson, 1977, p. 223). Knowledge, once learned by some individual, is living material that takes distinct shapes, associations, and affective colouring in each individual mind. Educational development, then, like cultural development, is made problematic by the constant novelty, the new meaning-making, and the generation of new kinds of understanding, that is central to the process. When we look for attempts to account for educational development, we find general theories which are unsatisfactory in much the same way most of the older attempts to account for cultural evolution are, and imply quite different aims for the educational process. First is the view that education is brought about by children being gradually initiated into the norms, values, and conventions of their society; derived from oral cultures and Durkheimian socialization. Second is the view that education is brought about by the individual mastering particular forms of knowledge that bring about rational understanding of the world and experience; derived from the Platonic academic program. Third is the view that education is brought about by the fulfilment of each individual's potential, as far as possible; derived from the Rousseauian progressive adherence to our natural process of development. The inevitability and pervasiveness of socialization is generally acknowledged; the theoretical competition for the role of the main dynamic of education has generally been between the two latter views. The common sense response to this kind of division of the complex phenomenon of education is that we can do all of these three things together if we only plan carefully. The problem is not that the aims of

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these various views are incompatible, but that they are made so as a result of seeing one or other of them as containing the main dynamic that drives the process of education forward. They are not unlike liberal and conservative political parties which, looking at society, focus on rather different aspects of it as important, identify different procedures for improving it, have somewhat different conceptions of what count as improvements, and so identify the central dynamic of social improvement in ways that are incompatible. Adherents of both parties want to end urban violence and poverty, want full employment and a clean environment, and so on, just as educational traditionalists and progressivists both want the development of the individual's moral, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual potentials, and both want sophisticated academic understanding, and so on. What is at issue in these significantly different views of society and education is not just aims and programs, but more subtle and profound views of the causal mechanisms that operate within them. And these in turn perhaps rest on conflicting moral interpretations of our role in society, and society's proper forms and goals. We can't simply run empirical tests to discover which one actually is the main dynamic of the educational process. Our assumptions are tied in with what we conceive the process to be, with what we consider its aims to be. It is a little like our conservative and liberal parties promoting freedom and equality. Only the most ideologically extreme wants one of these ideals totally at the expense of the other. Most people recognize that a democracy that ignores either one of them will not be a democracy for very long, but most people also recognize that there is a tension between the two: the more freedom, the less likely are you to see equality, and ensuring more equality requires curtailments of freedom. Liberals tend to believe that more emphasis on equality will carry us towards a better society, a better end, whereas conservatives tend to believe that more emphasis on freedom will produce, in the end, a better society. We can try to find the best balance at any particular time for our society, given our social aims and moral stances, but this does not resolve the incompatibility between the two social ideals. We cannot hope to attain both, as we cannot hope to rehabilitate and punish at the same time. It is not that they are logically incompatible, but that because of the ways we think of them as causal factors in bringing about some end, we ensure their practical incompatibility. Knowledge accumulation and psychological development are not incompatible, unless you consider one rather than the other as more important as a causal agent in education. Our traditional conceptions of education do precisely this. And those who look for a balance between the two—as do most conscientious administrators—find themselves unable to

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identify any clear causal mechanism in education; they produce flaccid compromises that remove the distinctive dynamics that have so far been identified in the traditional and progressivist positions. What I want to identify is not another compromise, but a different causal dynamic. If accumulating knowledge was the dynamic of education, it would not be possible to observe, in A.N. Whitehead's words, that the most knowledgeable people can be among "the greatest bores on God's earth" (1929, p. 1). Knowing a great deal does not mean the same as being educated. Similarly, having developed the most refined, psychological skills and operations can leave someone terrifically well equipped to address all kinds of problems but equipped also with such ignorance it sets one's teeth on edge. Piaget's claim that the "ideal of education is not to teach the maximum, to maximize the results, but above all to learn how to learn and to learn to develop, and to learn to continue to develop after leaving school" (Piaget, 1973b, p. 30) is as inadequate in its way as the position it begins by criticizing. And both positions somehow put together do not do the job. The generative element that is crucial to the educated person is guaranteed by neither. The solution I will propose is that the two main modern competitors for, or pretenders to, the role of the causal dynamic of education are properly seen rather as necessary conditions or constraints on the process. Accumulating knowledge and psychological development are neither of them the ‘efficient cause’ of education. The dynamic, the efficient cause, is that generative, meaning-constructing, rather mysterious capacity which each of us possesses, which is central to learning, and which I will, again, identify as the imagination. Howard Gardner notes that: "The deep problem for the developmentalist attempting a synthesis is to understand the relationships among the constraints imposed by nature, the constraints imposed by culture, and the degree of human inventiveness that nevertheless manages to emerge" (1991, p. 37). The deep problem for the educational theorist is similar, and a model I will suggest for the solution is, again, a troika in which imagination takes the central, dynamic role and the two conditioning, constraining roles are taken by disciplinary logic and by psychological development. This model for a solution to our incoherent conception of education shares weaknesses with its echo in the previous sub-section. In particular, it separates psychological development and imagination. As long as we bear in mind that the model is making distinctions for a limited purpose, and not trying to reflect divisions etched in the world, we should find the model can fulfil its limited purpose. The distinction can be sustained

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because of the fact that currently available theories of psychological development do not try to incorporate an account of the imagination (Egan, 1992, Ch. 1). The immediate value of the troika model is that it preserves the necessary contributions of disciplinary understanding and of psychological development to education but removes from them the feature (their claim to be the dynamic of education) that brought them into mutual conflict. We can now consider the role of knowledge accumulation, for example, without having to assume that it also provides the dynamic of education. This may seem so rarefied and vague a theoretical point that to hold it up as crucial to solving some of the major problems of that school down the road probably looks slightly lunatic. O.K.—scratch the ‘slightly’. But yet, I think we can get from here to the schools down the road.

Culture and education It is possible now to point out a significant connection between Western cultural development and an individual's education within Western culture. The connection between cultural history and education is not some aptitude that arises in the child's mind at appropriate ages, as Herbert Spencer first put it in the in its modern sense (Spencer, 1911), nor is it a matter of learning knowledge in the same general sequence as it was invented or discovered, but is rather due to both processes being driven by, or caused by, the constructive, generative human imagination conditioned and constrained by the logic whereby knowledge can be accumulated and by the nature of psychological development. The imagination is free, generative, meaning-constructing, but it can only work with what it can grasp and that is constrained by the logical sequences in which knowledge can be accumulated, and it is further conditioned and constrained by the psychological developmental process human beings have to go through. This troika of imagination, knowledge accumulation, and psychological development are not of course discrete entities. They work together in our experience. Working together they produce distinctive ways of making sense of our experience of the world. As we know more, as our psychological development proceeds, as our imagination has more to work with, the kind of sense we can make changes; we develop somewhat distinctive kinds of understanding; the quality of our consciousness of the world and of our experience changes somewhat. Education has quite sophisticated fields of psychological studies and philosophical studies. The former have focused on learning, psychological development, motivation, and so on, the latter on the nature, structure, and

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logical sequencing of knowledge, on the analysis of key educational concepts, on the constituents of the ideally educated person, and so on. There has been very little study of the imagination, for reasons to be discussed below. And there has been even less that has focused on the general kinds of understanding that result from these three working together, as they do, in our experience. In part this lack is due to the most sophisticated tools of inquiry being those derived from psychology and those from analytic philosophy. Given the purposes for which those tools were made, it is no surprise that they have not encouraged those who have deployed them to address issues that spread across and beyond the fields in which they can operate most effectively. Even so, the inquiry that follows is in significant degree parasitic on both psychological and philosophical studies in education; it could not have proceeded without the work done in those traditions of educational inquiry. What I have wanted to explore, then, is the changing character of the products of imagination, knowledge accumulation, and psychological development working together during the process of education. That is, I have aimed to characterize education in a somewhat new manner, a manner that is, I think, more comprehensive and more practically valuable than the characterizations that currently throng educational discourse. I have tried to characterize education in terms of the new category produced by considering imagination, knowledge accumulation, and psychological development working together. This category is what I am calling kinds of understanding. I have identified and described (Egan, 1997) five somewhat distinct kinds of understanding that, I think, better characterize the process of educational development than characterizations derived from current educational psychology or philosophy. I call them somatic, mythic, romantic, philosophic, and ironic kinds of understanding. Many issues are raised by this new way of characterizing education are I have tried to deal with a number of them—such as, "Do they represent progress?" "How is a kind of understanding different from a Piagetian stage of development?" "What is the empirical support for these divisions and their characterizations?"—in my 1997 book The Educated Mind. But some caveats should be mentioned here. Because we are concerned with kinds of understanding, two of the more notorious problems of earlier recapitulation theories are avoided. The logical constraints on the child today—the knowledge the young mind can accumulate—are clearly different from those that held in ancient Greece or Medieval Europe. So we will not expect, pace Spencer and other recapitulationists, children today to be somehow predisposed to learn

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things in the order they were invented or discovered in cultural history. That is, particular content is not what is the subject of recapitulation. Similarly, we will not look for some general psychological resemblance or homology between modern children and adults in oral cultures, or modern teenagers and ancient Greek adults. That is, it is not psychological development that is recapitulated. Dismissing these two old assumptions is rather easy, but the issue is rather more complicated, of course, and describing in what ways ironic understanding is more advanced or better than mythic understanding, and whether development from one kind of understanding to the next is a progressive process, are not easily dealt with. But I can now give a new answer to the question of just what is recapitulated from cultural history in the process of education. It is a set of somewhat distinctive kinds of understanding, constituted of the generative play of the human imagination, constrained and conditioned by the logic whereby knowledge can be accumulated and the process of human psychological development. Cultural history is a general arena in which human imagination operates within the conditions and constraints of logic and the human psyche; education is a set of individual arenas in which imagination operates within the conditions and constraints of logic and the human psyche. Now this neat verbal congruence obviously hides enormous differences. The second part of the trick is to show that there is a level in these very different cultural and educational processes that are actually congruent, and I have tried to make that case in The Educated Mind. That girl at the bus stop on her way to school absent-mindedly picking her sweater to pieces and that boy next to her picking his nose are not easily conceived as engaged in a process made in part by Plato smitten by the handsome Dion in the tyrant's court in Syracuse, by the invention of airpumps to clear water out of medieval mines, by the impossible linguistic fertility of Shakespeare, by the programmed loom and electronic computer, and by all that anguished mess produced by one damn thing after another. But that is the challenge for us. What is particularly difficult, in a context in which education has been largely conceived in terms of knowledge accumulation and psychological development, is to suggest that these are only partial constituents of a more complex category—kinds of understanding—which has not hitherto been characterized or recognized in educational discourse. I have not forgotten socialization in all this, nor the growing recognition of the social and ideological agendas that have influenced what knowledge is privileged in the curriculum and how ‘normal’ psychological

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development has been conceived. Any scheme, such as the one I am proposing for consideration, which outlines a model of educational development has to account for itself in terms of these relatively recent insights. What then is imagination? It is the capacity to think of things as possibly being so (White, 1990), our source of novelty, invention, and generativity; it is not distinct from rationality but rather is a capacity that enriches rational thinking. If it is so important why has it not been more prominent in educational theory and research? Its troubled history has made it, on the one hand, a suspect, untrustworthy capacity and, on the other, has represented it as somehow in conflict with the rationality which has traditionally been seen as the prime aim of education. On the third hand, of course, is the complexity of the concept. As Herder noted in the eighteenth century, "Of all the powers of the human mind the imagination has been least explored, probably because it is the most difficult to explore...—it seems to be not only the basic and connecting link of all the finer mental powers, but in truth the knot that ties body and mind together" (cited in McFarland, 1985, p. xiii). The difficulties of doing research on the imagination have ensured that, while implications from research on a range of logico-mathematical skills and capacities have been fed into education, there have been no such implications from research on the imagination. Recognizing the importance of imagination and working out ways to encourage it in students has thus very largely been left to the initiatives of individual teachers, parents, and non-mainstream educators. It is true that, as Bronwen Haralambous reminds us later in this volume, individual educational thinkers of great imagination and influence like Rudolf Steiner have framed powerful arguments and practices for developing children’s imaginations in learning. So it’s not that I am suggesting that no one has been involved with trying to make imagination central to learning—many outstanding teachers have been doing so for centuries—nor that no one has been framing new theories about imagination in education—Steiner’s work stands as a beacon of such attempts. Rather, we have not seen enough attempts to bring these ideas into mainstream educational thinking, in ways that have direct implications for everyday teaching practice, and to make the claims generated from such theories open to research. Such methods as David Trotman explores later in this volume help illustrate the complexity of the challenge. On the fourth hand, or second foot, it is probably fair to observe that the authorities that determine the curriculum and the social functions of schools have usually dealt ambiguously with the imagination. Such a way

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of putting it hints at a kind of conspiracy. I don't mean that; rather, authorities' general recognition that the free-play of imagination does not sit easily with order, conventional ideas and systems, neat curriculum schemes, and so on, does not encourage them to encourage it. It is treated a little like a visiting rich relation who can be somewhat eccentric and might just run amok at any minute. David Wright, later in this volume, makes rich observations about the ways ‘social ecology’ enlightens ways of expanding imaginative and creative work but also notes the concern authorities have about such work, and what happens to it whenever economic constraints impact educational institutions. What I mean by imagination in what follows, then, is our capacity to think of things as possibly being so. "It is imagination which enlarges the bounds of possibility for us, whether for good or ill" (Rousseau, 1911, p. 44). What ‘development’ means, in both education and in our cultural history, is this enlargement of the bounds of what is possible for us, for good or ill. I think education entails both good and ill; it is not a simple progressive, improving process—the individual analog of those hairy, monkey-thugs becoming upright, gleaming people. It involves losses as well as gains (Egan, 2008).

Conclusion Seeing education as a process that recapitulates kinds of understanding developed in cultural history takes us past the mutually incompatible features entailed in conceiving education as a process of socialization driven by the requirements of reproducing current norms and values, or an academic process driven by the accumulation of particular forms of knowledge, or a process of self-fulfilment, of realizing potentials, driven by an internal process of psychological development. The new category— kinds of understanding—is derived from recognizing the centrality of the generative imagination to both cultural and educational development. It is a category that can also help in more adequately framing the challenges of new areas of study, such as ecological education, as Gillian Judson shows in her ground-breaking essay in this volume, or such as media education, as explored in brilliant and unexpected ways by Kym Stewart, and in revisiting familiar areas, such as teacher education, as Bernie Neville imaginatively shows in his rich and detailed essay. Cultural and educational development remain somewhat mysterious processes, despite our intimate familiarity with them. Recognizing imagination as central to them is simply to acknowledge the element of mystery at their core. ‘Development’ is an appropriate term to use for

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these processes because it is a difficult, rather imprecise, concept. We do not have a precise term or metaphor for either of these processes because there is nothing in the natural world or in the world of our technology that is quite like them. In trying to represent the central distinctive feature of education, John Dewey settled on the metaphor of ‘growth’. Education was a process of growth, and its aim was constant further growth, he argued—and promptly got himself into trouble. The problem with education, and with cultural history, is that they are sui generis; there is nothing else quite like them. So it is well to be satisfied for now with the imprecision of ‘development’. And ‘imagination’ is not intended as an answer to the central mystery of educational and cultural development so much as the best available marker I can find for what remains mysterious about them. The major inadequacy of previous conceptions of education is that they forgot to acknowledge what we do not know. I have elsewhere (Egan, 2008) associated ‘kinds of understanding’ with particular age ranges—mythic up to seven or eight years, romantic from then to about fifteen, and so on. How is this connection made?— careful empirical research disclosing some predisposition to become ‘romantic’ between eight and fifteen? No, the connection lies in the related causes that drive cultural and educational development. So I have focused on those techniques and technologies that support particular kinds of understanding; things like language, literacy, print, and so on. Put excessively crudely, I have argued (Egan, 1997) that ‘romantic understanding’ is a consequence of literacy, both in cultural history and in an individual's education, and the advent of romantic understanding at about age eight in Western culture is due to this being about the age at which literacy becomes internalized. That is, the development of romantic understanding is not caused by psychological development—it is not a ‘stage’ like Piaget's—nor is it a product of learning particular kinds of knowledge. It is caused by learning sets of ‘cognitive tools’ (Vygotsky, 1997) that have implications for how we make sense of the world and of experience, tools that imply kinds of understanding. This way of putting it is excessively crude because it suggests a simple causal connection between, in the above example, literacy and romantic understanding. The example is designed to indicate how my association of kinds of understanding with ages is not based on familiar psychological research or philosophical analysis. It is misleading in the suggestion of simplistic causal connections between techniques and thinking. I cannot deal with the elaboration of this complex and incompletely understood connection here, but I would like to disabuse a too-simple interpretation of what I mean. Certain technologies and cognitive tools, such as those

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involved in literacy, can support and enable particular kinds of thinking that are difficult without them. Just as the pump did not cause seeing the heart's function, so literacy does not compel particular kinds of thinking. Clearly other factors play a role, and perhaps literacy is best seen as an effect of some more profound cause that might be identified. Also it was not impossible that someone could have worked out the function of the heart before the pump was invented; it was just that once people could see pumps at work it became easier to conceive of what the heart was doing. So, once literacy was invented, certain kinds of thinking became easier. To make matters worse, ‘kinds of understanding’ are not neat-edged, discrete entities; they overlap, mingle in various ways, cannot be tied precisely to techniques, tools, and technologies, are not stages we pass through methodically, may all be used by any individual in a typical day, and so, messily, on. But I think such an approach, however messy, is potentially more educationally productive than the currently dominant theories of development and their too easily asserted educational implications.

References Abrams, M.H. 1958. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press. Boas, Franz. (1920). Methods of ethnology. In Race, language, and culture (1949) (pp. 270-80). New York: Macmillan. Brainerd, Charles J. (1978). Piaget’s theory of intelligence. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bruner, Jerome. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. —. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Burke, James. (1978). Connections. Boston: Little, Brown. Donald, Merlin. (1991). Origins of the modern mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Donald, Merlin. (2001). A mind so rare. New York: Norton. Egan, Kieran. (1991). Imagination in teaching and learning: The middle school years. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —. (1997). The educated mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —. (2008). The future of education: Reimagining our schools from the ground up. New Haven: Yale University Press. Freud, Sigmund. (1950). Totem and taboo (James Strachey, Trans.). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. First published, 1913.

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Gardner, Howard. (1991). The unschooled mind. New York: Basic Books. Hallpike, C.R. (1979). The foundations of primitive thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press. —. (1986). The principles of social evolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kearney, Richard. (1988). The wake of imagination. London: Hutchinson. Koestler, Arthur. (1964). The act of creation. New York: Macmillan. Kroeber, A.L., & Kluckhohn, Clyde. (1952). Culture: A critical review of concepts and definitions. New York: Vintage Books. Johnson, Allen W., & Earle, Timothy. (1987). The evolution of human societies. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. McFarland, Thomas. (1985). Originality and imagination. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Miller, Jonathan. (1978). The body in question. New York: Random House. Mithen, Steven. (1996). The prehistory of the mind: A search for the origins of art, science and religion. London & New York: Thames & Hudson. —. (2003). After the ice: A global human history, 20,000-5000 BC. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. —. (2005). The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Morgan, L. (1877). Ancient society. Chicago: Kerr. Nelson, Katherine. (1977). Cognitive development and the acquisition of concepts. In R.C. Anderson, R.J. Spiro, & W.E. Montague (Eds.), Schooling and the acquisition of knowledge. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Piaget, Jean. (1973a). To understand is to invent (George-Anne Roberts, Trans.). New York: Grossman. —. (1973b). The child and reality (Arnold Rosin, Trans.). New York: Grossman. Rousseau, J.-J. (1911). Émile (Barbara Foxley, Trans.). London: Dent. First published, 1762. Spencer, Herbert. (1911). Essays on education, etc. London: Dent. Introduction by Charles W. Eliot [1910]. Vygotsky, L. S. (1997). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Edited by Robert W. Rieber and Jeffrey Wollock. Vol. 3. New York: Plenum. White, Alan R. (1990). The language of imagination. Oxford: Blackwell. White, Leslie. (1959). The evolution of culture. New York: McGraw-Hill. Whitehead, Alfred North. (1967). The aims of education. New York: The Free Press. First published, 1929.

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Note This Chapter was written initially to be Chapter Two of The Educated Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.) It was to have come after the current first chapter, ‘Three old ideas and a new one’, and before the current second chapter, ‘Mythic understanding’. Some small pieces of this text were incorporated into other parts of the book, but most of it has remained unused. I decided to omit it from the book mainly because I felt the book didn’t need any extended theoretical introduction and that I should get as quickly as possible into the exposition of the ‘kinds of understanding’ that are the central part of the book. By introducing ‘Some questions and answers’ as Chapter 6, I thought I might be able to deal with some of the outstanding theoretical issues there. A number of people have expressed an interest in having this additional Chapter made available, hence this contribution.

CHAPTER TWO PERFORMING IMAGINATIVE INQUIRY: NARRATIVE EXPERIMENTS AND RHIZOSEMIOTIC PLAY NOEL GOUGH

In this semi-autobiographical essay I explore the representation and performance of imaginative inquiry practices in educational inquiry and other disciplines, with particular reference to ‘thought experiments’ in the natural sciences and comparable practices in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. I will share a number of experiences of writing as a mode of educational inquiry, with particular reference to narrative experiments inspired by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s figuration of the rhizome – a process I characterize as rhizosemiotic play – and demonstrate the generativity of intertextual readings of selected fictions in catalyzing them.

Story and narrative theory The Left Hand of Darkness is a critically acclaimed novel by Ursula Le Guin (1969) and is often referred to as one of the first major works of feminist science fiction (or SF1, to use a term I prefer). The novel’s firstperson narrator is an envoi from a galactic federation to the planet Gethen, and he begins by stating: “I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling” (Le Guin, 1969, p.9). I begin with this brief quotation from one of my favorite storytellers because it (and the story it introduces) encapsulates some of the key 1

I follow Donna Haraway (1989, p.5) in using the signifier SF to designate ‘an increasingly heterodox array of writing, reading, and marketing practices indicated by a proliferation of “sf” phrases: speculative fiction, science fiction, science fantasy, speculative futures, speculative fabulation’.

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concepts that have informed and guided my practice as a curriculum scholar and educational research methodologist for more than two decades, namely, story, imagination, and fiction (with particular reference to SF and the ambiguous relations of ‘fact’, ‘truth’ and fiction). I will briefly explain how I think about and use each of these concepts before demonstrating in more detail how I have most recently performed narrative experiments in educational inquiry by deploying imaginative reading and writing practices that I characterize as ‘rhizosemiotic play’. The elemental significance of stories in human experience is succinctly conveyed in two brief lines from Muriel Rukeyser’s (1968, p.115) poem, The Speed of Darkness: The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

In other words, for many purposes in social (and educational) inquiry, the worlds we inhabit (perceptual, existential, phenomenal, imagined, virtual, etc.) can usefully be understood as being made of stories. The idea that the universe is made of atoms is just one of those stories. I should emphasize that my methodological interests in story and narrative diverge from what Michael Connelly and Jean Clandinin (1990) call ‘narrative inquiry’ – an approach to teacher education and teacher professional development that focuses on personal storytelling and that has become popular in many countries, especially Canada and the USA. Connelly and Clandinin argue that much of what we claim to ‘know’ in education comes from telling each other stories of educational experience, and narrative inquiry is thus concerned with analyzing and criticizing the stories we tell and hear and read in the course of our work – children’s stories, teachers’ stories, student teachers’ stories, and our own and other teacher educators’ stories. My initial enthusiasm for Connelly and Clandinin’s conception of narrative inquiry was relatively short-lived, principally because I found their silence on the implications of poststructuralism and deconstruction for narrative-based research to be indefensible. This silence persists in their subsequent work (see, for example, Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). The uses to which I have put concepts of story and narrative in educational inquiry are more aligned with the so-called ‘narrative turn’ in the social sciences from the mid-1970s onwards, during which narrative theory migrated from literary studies to many other disciplines (see, for example, Louis Mink, 1974; Donald Polkinghorne, 1988; Laurel Richardson, 1990; Richard Rorty, 1979; Lawrence Stone, 1979). As Kenneth Knoespel (1991, pp.100-1) writes:

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Chapter Two Narrative theory has challenged literary critics to recognize not only the various strategies used to configure particular texts within the literary canon, but to realize how forms of discourse in the natural and human sciences are themselves ordered as narratives. In effect narrative theory invites us to think of all discourse as taking the form of a story.

My initial response to this invitation was to examine the ways in which the discourses of curriculum areas in which I have a special interest – environmental education and science education – are configured as stories, with particular reference to poststructuralist questioning of narrative authority in the sciences and other disciplines. Many of these inquiries were framed by my practical interests in appraising the adequacy of the conventional narrative strategies used by science and environmental educators in their work and with exploring possible ways of expanding their range and variety (see, for example, Gough, 1991, 1993a, 1993b, 1994b)

Fictions, ‘facts’ and ‘truth’ These initial inquiries led me to explore ways in which the types of stories we usually classify as fiction – and the modes of storytelling that produce them – might inform reading and writing in educational research (see, for example, Gough, 1994a, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2002). The question at issue here is whether it is possible, at least in principle, to establish intersubjectively reliable distinctions between ‘fiction’ on the one hand and particular constructions of ‘reality’ that we can call ‘factual’ or ‘truthful’ on the other. Although it is defensible to assert that reality exists beyond texts, much of what we think of as ‘real’ is – and can only be – apprehended through texts. For example, most of what we call history is inaccessible to us except in textual form. Furthermore, much of what we call ‘direct’ experience is mediated textually and intertextually (see Gough, 1993c). What is at issue here is not belief in the real but confidence in its representation. As Richard Rorty (1979, p.375), puts it, “to deny the power to ‘describe’ reality is not to deny reality” and “the world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not” (Rorty, 1989, p.5). In other words, the conventional binary opposition of reality and fiction – and other binaries implied by this opposition, such as fact/fiction and real/imaginary – does not mean that it is possible to distinguish clearly between textual representations of the world ‘out there’ and other worlds constructed in texts. My own doubts about the referential adequacy of such binaries do not constitute an antirealist position but, rather, contribute to

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my distrust of storytelling practices that seem to be motivated by what Sandra Harding (1993, p.193) calls “the longing for ‘one true story’ that has been the psychic motor for [modern] Western science”. Desires for ‘one true story’ have driven the construction of narrative strategies in which fact and fiction are mutually exclusive categories and particular kinds of facts, such as ‘scientific facts’ and ‘historical facts’, are equated with ‘reality’ – claims to ontological status for the worlds that scientists and historians imagine. Fact and fiction are much closer, both culturally and linguistically, than these narrative strategies imply. A fiction, in the sense in which it derives from fictio, is something fashioned by a human agent. The etymology of ‘fact’ also reveals its reference to human action; a fact is the thing done, ‘that which actually happened’ (OED), the Latin factum being the neuter past participle of facere, do. In other words, both fact and fiction refer to human performance, but ‘fiction’ is an active form – the act of fashioning – whereas ‘fact’ descends from a past participle, a part of speech that disguises the generative act. Facts are testimonies to experience and, in Linda Hutcheon’s (1989, p.57) words, are “events to which we have given meaning”. Thus, historical facts are the testimonies that historians make from their experiences of using disciplined procedures of evidence production and interpretation to construct meaning – to produce events that are meaningful within their traditions of social relationships and organisation. Similarly, scientific facts are testimonies to the experiences of scientists as they use their specialized technologies to generate and inscribe data. Donna Haraway (1989, p.4) demonstrates how closely fact and fiction can be related in her description of biology as a narrative practice: Biology is the fiction appropriate to objects called organisms; biology fashions the facts ‘discovered’ from organic beings. Organisms perform for the biologist, who transforms that performance into a truth attested by disciplined experience; i.e., into a fact, the jointly accomplished deed or feat of the scientist and the organism… Both the scientist and the organism are actors in a story-telling practice.

Performing educational inquiry as ‘actors in a story-telling practice’ means, in part, seeing fact and fiction as mutually constitutive – recognizing that facts are not only important elements of the stories we fashion from them but also that they are given meaning by the storytelling practices which produce them. Thus, I argue that the binary opposition of fact and fiction is itself a fiction – a story fashioned to rationalize the strategies used by modernist

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researchers in the sciences and social sciences to produce facts. Rather than thinking in these terms, I suggest that there may be some virtue in reconceiving all the stories we tell in education as fictions – as stories fashioned for particular purposes – especially those that most resolutely proclaim that they are ‘factual’. As Le Guin (1989, p.44-5) writes: Fiction in particular, narration in general, may be seen… as an active encounter with the environment by means of posing options and alternatives, and an enlargement of present reality by connecting it to the unverifiable past and the unpredictable future. A totally factual narrative, were there such a thing, would be passive: a mirror reflecting all without distortion… but fiction does not reflect, nor is the narrator’s eye that of a camera… Fiction connects possibilities… and by doing so it is useful to us.

If we think of all stories of educational inquiry as being fictions, we may be less likely to privilege without question those that pretend not to be, and more likely to judge each story on its particular merits in serving worthwhile purposes in education.

Thought experiments The academic curricula and research protocols that predominate in most education systems and institutions in modern, Western, industrial nations (and in systems and institutions modeled on them) tend not to teach learners that “truth is a matter of the imagination”, despite the crucial roles that imagination (literally the ability to produce images in one’s mind) has played in the development of many disciplines. For example, thought experiments have been particularly significant in the history of the physical sciences. The term ‘thought experiment’ came to the English language in the late-19th or early-20th century through translations of papers by the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach (1897, 1905) in which he used the mixed German-Latin word Gedankenexperiment (literally, experiment conducted in the thoughts).2 Some philosophers now use the term in a relatively narrow sense. For example, Roy Sorensen (1992, p.255) defines a thought experiment as “an experiment that purports to achieve its aim without benefit of execution”, which might be because circumstances preclude physical testing procedures. Other writers, such as James Brown (2004, p.1126), prefer a looser characterization: 2

Some authors (e.g. Martin Cohen, 2005. p.55) credit Mach with coining Gedankenexperiment, but Johannes Witt-Hansen (1976) clearly establishes that Danish physicist and chemist Hans Christian Ørsted used the term in 1811.

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It’s difficult to say precisely what thought experiments are. Luckily, it’s also unimportant. We know them when we see them, and that’s enough to make discussion possible. A few features are obvious. Thought experiments are carried out in the mind and involve something akin to experience; that is, we typically see something happening in a thought experiment. Often there is more than mere observation. As in a real experiment, there might be calculating, some application of theory, guesswork, and conjecture. The best way to get a grip on what thought experiments are is to simply look at lots of examples.

Some of the best-known examples of thought experiments are those performed by the innovative physicists who pioneered what we might now call postmodern physics in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. As Aspasia Moue, Kyriakos Masavetas and Haido Karayianni (2006, p.61) note, these experiments were often the subjects of conversations or correspondence with each other, and were used to get their points across and to dramatize the revolutionary and/or paradoxical aspects of their theoretical discoveries or explanations. Erwin Schrödinger’s cat (quantum mechanics) and Albert Einstein’s elevator (general relativity) and train (special relativity) are now understood as significant ‘events’ in the histories of these disciplines. Since the term ‘thought experiment’ entered the English language, it has been applied retrospectively to similarly significant speculations in physical science, including James Maxwell’s demon (thermodynamics, circa 1871), Galileo Galilei’s free fall experiment (disproving Aristotle's theory of gravity, circa 1638), and Simon Stevin’s inclined plane (geometry and physics, circa 1583).3 These scientific thought experiments are a species of fiction – stories fashioned along the lines of “let’s say this or that is such and so, and see what happens…” (Le Guin, 1979, p.156) and they thus work in the way that Le Guin characterizes fiction above: they connect possibilities and by doing so are useful to us. Despite the ubiquity and utility of thought experiments in the history and philosophy of science, science education textbooks and curricula rarely foreground their significance and, where they do, tend to diminish their imaginative dimensions. Recent studies in the UK (see, for example, Gilbert & Reiner, 2000; Reiner, 1998; Reiner & Gilbert, 2000) suggest that school and university physics textbooks tend to conflate thought experiments with thought simulations. In simulations, the behavior of a physical phenomenon is illustrated rather than tested, theory is taken for granted and embedded rather than being tentative and emergent, and the 3 See Brown (1991) for descriptions of these and other thought experiments in the natural sciences.

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outcome is assumed rather than anticipated (this distortion of an important concept in science is similar to the distortion than many science teachers and textbooks reproduce by persistently representing demonstrations of physical phenomena – such as a heating a bimetallic strip until it bends – as ‘experiments’). It should be clear that thought experiments are not only the province of science. As Le Guin (1979, p.156) points out, many SF stories can be read as thought experiments. Thus, for example, in Frankenstein Mary Shelley (1992/1818) writes: let us say that a young doctor creates a human being in his laboratory… In Dune, Frank Herbert (1968/1965) writes: let us say that massive desertification threatens a planet very like Earth… In The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin (1969) writes: let us say that humans are androgynous… Le Guin (1979, p.156) also insists that such thought experiments are neither extrapolative nor predictive – their form is not, “if this goes on, this is what will happen” – but, rather, are attempts to produce alternative representations of present circumstances and uncertainties; within stories so conceived, “thought and intuition4 can move freely within bounds set only by the terms of the experiment”: The purpose of a thought-experiment, as the term was used by Schrödinger and other physicists, is not to predict the future – indeed Schrödinger’s most famous thought-experiment goes to show that the ‘future,’ on the quantum level, cannot be predicted – but to describe reality, the present world. Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive (emphasis in original).

Thought experiments in science and literature are not only comparable imaginative practices, but also – in some circumstances at least – may be complementary in other ways. For example, in Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science, Katherine Hayles (1990, p.xi) examines the late twentieth-century preoccupation with nonlinear dynamics in both literature and science and demonstrates how different disciplinary traditions may simultaneously be informed by “isomorphic paradigms”: {D]ifferent disciplines, sufficiently distant from one another so that direct influence seems unlikely,… nevertheless focus on similar kinds of problems [at] about the same time and base their formulations on isomorphic assumptions.… Different disciplines are drawn to similar problems because the concerns underlying them are highly charged within 4

On the role of intuition in scientific thought experiments see Brendel (2004).

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a prevailing cultural context. Moreover, different disciplines base the theories they construct on similar presuppositions because these are the assumptions that guide the constitution of knowledge in a given episteme. This position implies, of course, that scientific theories and models are culturally conditioned, partaking of and rooted in assumptions that can be found at multiple sites throughout the culture.

More recently, David Butt (2007) has shown that Ferdinand de Saussure and Albert Einstein were engaging in similar epistemological projects at around the same time, with Saussure introducing the principle of relativity of sign systems just as Einstein was introducing the principle of relativity of time and space. Butt also demonstrates that the texts of certain modernist poets (e.g. Wallace Stevens, Kenneth Slessor) and novelists (e.g. D.H. Lawrence) enact similar linguistic thought experiments to those conducted by Einstein and other theoretical physicists of his era. During the past 4-5 years I have become more aware of the similarities between thought experiments (in science and literature) and the ‘narrative experiments’ I have attempted to perform and represent in educational inquiry. In the remainder of this essay, I will demonstrate some of the imaginative reading and writing practices that have been generative for me (and, apparently, for my peers).

Narrative experiments and rhizosemiotic play My approach to any question, problem or issue of educational inquiry is now shaped by my methodological disposition to produce texts of the kind that Laurel Richardson (2001) calls “writing-stories” and that I call “narrative experiments” (Gough, 2004a). Richardson (2001, p.35) argues (persuasively in my view) that: Writing is a method of discovery, a way of finding out about yourself and your world. When we view writing as a method, we experience ‘languagein-use,’ how we ‘word the world’ into existence … And then we ‘reword’ the world, erase the computer screen, check the thesaurus, move a paragraph, again and again. This ‘worded world’ never accurately, precisely, completely captures the studied world, yet we persist in trying. Writing as a method of inquiry honors and encourages the trying, recognizing it as emblematic of the significance of language (emphases in original).

Like Richardson (2001, p.35), “I write because I want to find something out. I write in order to learn something that I did not know before I wrote it”, and I increasingly find it generative to bring objects of

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inquiry into intertextual play with Deleuze and Guattari’s geophilosophy and ‘fictions’ in the broadest sense of the term. I use the term ‘essay’ here both as a verb – to attempt, to try, to test – and as a noun. In theoretical inquiry an essay can serve similar purposes to an experiment in empirical research – a methodical way of investigating a question, problem or issue – although I find more appropriate analogies for my work in the experimental arts than in the experimental sciences.5 Both ‘essay’ and the related term ‘assay’ come to English speakers through the French essayer from the Latin exigere, to weigh. Thus, I write essays to test ideas, to ‘weigh’ them up, to give me (and eventually, I hope, my colleagues) a sense of their worth. In order to demonstrate how I go about writing “to find something out” I will focus on a process that I have deployed in three narrative experiments inspired by Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) figuration of the rhizome – a process that I characterize as rhizosemiotic play. My ‘reports’ of these experiments are available elsewhere (Gough, 2004b, 2006, 2007), and my intention here is simply to demonstrate some textual strategies that I use to perform such experiments, with particular reference to the generativity of intertextual readings of selected fictions in catalyzing them.

Deleuze and Guattari’s geophilosophy Deleuze and Guattari (1994, p.5) map the “geography of reason” from pre-Socratic times to the present, a geophilosophy describing relations between particular spatial configurations and locations and the philosophical formations that arise in them. “Philosophy”, they say, “is the discipline that involves creating concepts” through which knowledge can be generated. As Michael Peters (2004) points out, this is very different from the approaches taken by many analytic and linguistic philosophers who are more concerned with the clarification of concepts.

5 For example, in a 1950 interview, the abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock was asked: “Then you don’t actually have a preconceived image of a canvas in your mind?” He replied: “Well, not exactly – no – because it hasn’t been created, you see. Something new – it’s quite different from working, say, from a still life where you set up objects and work directly from them” (quoted in Pinar, 1994, p.7). Richardson (2001, p.35) makes a parallel point about writing as research: “I was taught… as perhaps you were, too, not to write until I knew what I wanted to say, until my points were organized and outlined. No surprise, this static writing model coheres with mechanistic scientism, quantitative research, and entombed scholarship”.

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Deleuze and Guattari (1987) created a new critical language for analyzing thinking as flows or movements across space. Concepts such as assemblage, deterritorialisation, lines of flight, nomadology, and rhizome/rhizomatics clearly refer to spatial relationships and to ways of conceiving ourselves and other objects moving in space. For example, Deleuze and Guattari (1987, p.23) distinguish the “sedentary point of view” that characterizes much Western philosophy, history and science from a nomadic subjectivity that allows thought to move across conventional categories and move against ‘settled’ concepts and theories. They also distinguish “rhizomatic” thinking from “arborescent” conceptions of knowledge as hierarchically articulated branches of a central stem or trunk rooted in firm foundations. As Umberto Eco (1984, p.57) explains, “the rhizome is so constructed that every path can be connected with every other one. It has no center, no periphery, no exit, because it is potentially infinite. The space of conjecture is a rhizome space”. In a world of increasingly complex information/communication/ knowledge technologies, the space of educational inquiry is also becoming a ‘rhizome space’ that is more hospitable to nomadic than to sedentary thought. Rhizome is to a tree as the Internet is to a letter – networking that echoes the hyperconnectivity of the Internet. The structural reality of a tree and a letter is relatively simple: a trunk connecting two points through or over a mapped surface. But rhizomes and the Internet6 are infinitely complex and continuously changing.

RhizomANTics I began “RhizomANTically becoming-cyborg: performing posthuman pedagogies” (Gough, 2004, p.253) as follows: Make a rhizome. But you don’t know what you can make a rhizome with, you don’t know which subterranean stem is going to make a rhizome, or enter a becoming, people your desert. So experiment (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p.246). So I shall. This paper is a narrative experiment inspired by Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) figuration of the rhizome. It is a textual assemblage of

6

See, for example, the Burch/Cheswick map of the Internet available at http://tiny.cc/3mo3d Accessed 21 April 2010.

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Chapter Two popular and academic7 representations of cyborgs that I hope might question, provoke and challenge some of the dominant discourses and assumptions of curriculum, teaching and learning. Emboldened by Deleuze’s penchant for inventing new terms for his figurations,8 I have coined the term ‘rhizomANTic’ (sometimes ‘rhizomantic’) to name a methodological disposition that connects Deleuze’s rhizomatics, ANT (actor-network theory), and Donna Haraway’s (1997, p.16) ‘invented category of semANTics, diffractions’ (my caps.).9 Diffraction is ‘an optical metaphor for the effort to make a difference in the world’, which Haraway (1994) also represents by the activity of making a ‘cat’s cradle’ – a metaphor that imagines the performance of sociotechnical relations as a less orderly and less functionalist activity than the word ‘network’ often conveys. As my reference to Haraway’s work suggests, my engagement with ANT leans towards those aspects of the theory that John Law (1999) characterizes as ‘after-ANT’. In an annotated bibliography on Law’s ANT Resource Home Page, he refers to Haraway’s (1997) Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©_Meets_OncoMouse ™ as ‘the best-known example of the different and partially related radical feminist technoscience alternative to actor-network theory. The “afterANT” studies in this resource in many cases owe as much or more to Haraway as to ANT itself’.10 I also use the term rhizomantic because much of this essay is about ants.

Why ants? Ants came to my rescue when I was struggling to expand a hastily written abstract into a presentable conference paper. My abstract, titled “Becoming-cyborg: performing posthuman pedagogies”, did little more than point to the proliferation of cyborg bodies and identities in sites of educational practice and signal my intention to draw on theoretical frameworks provided by Deleuze and ANT to explore the pedagogical implications of this proliferation. I wrote (with unwarranted confidence) that my paper would “demonstrate how a becoming-cyborg teacher might deploy popular and theoretical conceptions of cyborgs as heuristics in educational work”, but I had very few ideas about how I might do this. 7

I use the terms ‘popular’ and ‘academic’ to register my perceptions of difference across sites of cultural production, not to inscribe a binary distinction (fn. in original). 8 Rosi Braidotti (2000: 170) argues that “the notion of ‘figurations’ – in contrast to the representational function of ‘metaphors’ – emerges as crucial to Deleuze’s notion of a conceptually charged use of the imagination” (fn. in original). 9 Drawing attention to the ANT in semantics is gratuitous, but if I don’t someone else will (fn. in original). 10 http://tiny.cc/m9p3w (fn. in original; access confirmed 21 April 2010).

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In searching recent literature on cyborgs and education I found “A manifesto for cyborg pedagogy?” by Tim Angus, Ian Cook and James Evans (2001), an account of teaching a university course that was explicitly grounded in ANT. I was impressed by the authors’ thoughtful theorizing of cyborg pedagogy but I was curious as to how Deleuzean (con)figurations might ‘add value’ to their approach. That was when the ants appeared – from several directions simultaneously. In retrospect, I can only surmise that my frequent reading of the acronym ‘ANT’ brought them out of the recesses of my memory into the forefront of my consciousness. I recalled the theoretical ants in Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987, p.22) recollections of writing A Thousand Plateaus – “we watched lines leave one plateau and proceed to another like columns of tiny ants” – and in Patricia O’Riley’s (2003, p.27) description of rhizomes as being “like crabgrass, ants, wolf packs, and children”. I recalled my son’s fascination with the game SimAnt in the mid-1990s and the giant mutant ants from movies such as Them! (1951) and Empire of the Ants (1977). But the ants that clamored more insistently for my attention were those that populated some of my favorite fictions, such as H.G. Wells’ (1905) The Empire of the Ants, Bernard Werbers’ (1991) Les Fourmis trilogy, Philip K. Dick’s (1991/1969) short story, “The electric ant”, and Rudy Rucker’s (1994) novel, The Hacker and the Ants. The most generative fictional ant came from Jerry Prosser’s (1992) graphic novel, Cyberantics, which purports to be an annotated version of an illustrated children’s book written by an eccentric cyberneticist as a report of his achievements in building (and setting loose) a cybernetic ant. Cyberantics is an ingenious (and very amusing) metafiction, a story that, in Patricia Waugh’s (1984, p.2) words, “draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality”. As a metafiction Cyberantics functions as a complex system generating multiple interpretations and displays the properties that contemporary science calls chaos and complexity. Thus, it explores and illustrates, in a form accessible to children and adults alike, an important correspondence between postmodern science and literature. As Peter Stoicheff (1991, p.85) writes, “metafiction and scientific chaos [and I would add scientific complexity] are embraced by a larger revolution in contemporary thought that examines the similar roles of narrative, and of investigative procedure, in our ‘reading’ or knowledge of the world”. Cyberantics can therefore be understood as an alternative representation of a postmodern science education text. It embeds stories of modern science, a delightful children’s story, and a satire suitable for children and adults,

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within a complex and complicating metafiction that inhabits a conceptual space shared by much postmodernist science and poststructuralist cultural theorizing. I realised that Cyberantics exemplifies what is missing from Angus et al.’s (2001) manifesto for cyborg pedagogy: their work is cyber without the antics, that is, it lacks the art, paradox and humor that might motivate us to imagine and invent maps of networks that experiment with the real rather than provide mere tracings of it. It is rewarding to note that the authors of this manifesto have also found this critique to be generative in their own further work (Evans et al., 2008). Without Cyberantics I doubt that I would have coined ‘rhizomantic’ or appreciated the interpretive possibilities of this neologism. As soon as I wrote the word ‘rhizomantic’ as ‘rhizomANTic’ I realized that it signified concisely my suspicion that ANT cannot wholly be accommodated by rhizomatics – it fits, but it sits a little awkwardly and uncomfortably. I was then able to demonstrate the extent of this fit by comparing Haraway’s and actor-network theorists’ approaches to writing cyborgs with each other and with the implications of Deleuze and Guattari’s work.

Fictions as catalysts of rhizosemiotic play It is beyond the scope of this chapter to describe the two other examples of rhizosemiotic play to which I refer above. Nevertheless, I want to emphasize that ‘fictions’ – in a broad sense – were again crucial. “Shaking the tree, making a rhizome: towards a nomadic geophilosophy of science education” (Gough, 2006) was inspired by Peter Gabriel and Youssou N’Dour’s (1989) song, “Shaking the tree”, which celebrates the women’s movement in Africa, and led me to imagine rhizomes “shaking the tree” of modern Western science education by destabilizing arborescent conceptions of knowledge. Other ‘fictions’ animating this essay include Salvador Dali’s witty sculpture, Homage to Newton, and Amitav Ghosh’s (1997) The Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of Fevers, Delirium, and Discovery, an SF thriller that imagines a counter-history (and counterscience) of malaria. This essay too has evidently been generative for my peers (see, for example, Margaret Somerville, 2008). Similarly, “Changing planes: rhizosemiotic play in transnational curriculum inquiry” (Gough, 2007), was inspired by Ursula Le Guin’s (2004) collection of linked SF stories, Changing Planes. Le Guin’s pun (‘planes’ refers both to airplanes and to planes of existence) helped me to ‘play’ with Deleuze and Guattari’s argument that modes of intellectual inquiry need to account for the planes of immanence upon which they

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operate – the preconceptual fields presupposed by the concepts that inquiry creates. Curriculum inquiry currently operates on nationally distinctive planes of immanence, and I speculate that the internationalisation of curriculum studies might, therefore, require curriculum scholars to be able to change planes – to move between one plane of immanence and another and/or to transform their own planes. Each of these essays takes seriously Deleuze’s (1994, p.xx) assertion that a philosophical work should be “in part a kind of science fiction”. However, as I hope I have demonstrated here, taking Deleuze ‘seriously’ does not prevent a writer from having a little fun.

A pause in the middle of things: rhizosemiosis and rhythm Deleuze and Guattari (1987, p.25) explain that rhizomes have no beginnings or ends but are always in the middle: beginnings and ends imply a linear movement, whereas working in the middle is about “coming and going rather than starting and finishing”. I agree with Elizabeth St. Pierre (1997, p.176) that we must learn to live in the middle of things, in the tension of conflict and confusion and possibility; and we must become adept at making do with the messiness of that condition and at finding agency within rather than assuming it in advance of the ambiguity of language and cultural practice.

Thus, I have no desire to ‘conclude’ this essay but will simply pause “in the middle of things” to reflect briefly on my “finding agency” within the ambiguities of language and cultural practice represented and performed by thought experiments, narrative experiments, and rhizosemiotic play. To reiterate Brown’s (2004, p.1126) comments on thought experiments in science, it is “difficult to say precisely what thought experiments are”, and I would say the same for the narrative experiments I perform. But some of the features of thought experiments (in science) to which Brown refers are also apparent in my narrative experiments, which “are carried out in [my] mind” and “involve something akin to experience”; that is, I “typically see something happening” (rhizomes shooting, ants roaming), but “there is more than mere observation”. As in a scientific experiment, there is usually “some application of theory, guesswork, and conjecture”. I agree with Brown that “the best way to get a grip on what [narrative]

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experiments are is to simply look at lots of examples”, and I invite readers to peruse in further detail those I have referred to here, among others.11 Some of the finest and most inspiring examples of narrative experiments are those performed by great novelists, and their reflections on their own writing processes can be illuminating. For example, Virginia Woolf (1980, p.247) wrote to Vita Sackville-West in 1926: Style is a very simple matter: it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can't use the wrong words. But on the other hand here I am sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas and visions, and so on, and can't dislodge them, for lack of the right rhythm. Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than words. A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it; and in writing (such is my present belief) one has to recapture this, and set this working (which has nothing apparently to do with words) and then, as it breaks and tumbles in the mind, it makes words to fit it. But no doubt I shall think differently next year.

At present I could say that ants created a wave that broke and tumbled in my mind – and I made words to fit it – but no doubt I too shall think differently next year (or even sooner).

References Angus, Tim, Cook, Ian, & Evans, James. (2001). A manifesto for cyborg pedagogy? International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 10(2), 195-201. Braidotti, Rosi. (2000). Teratologies. In Ian Buchanan & Claire Colebrook (Eds.), Deleuze and Feminist Theory (pp. 156-172). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Brendel, Elke. (2004). Intuition pumps and the proper use of thought experiments. Dialectica, 58(1), 89-108. Brown, James Robert. (1991). The Laboratory of the Mind: Thought Experiments in the Natural Sciences. London: Routledge. —. (2004). Peeking into Plato's heaven. Philosophy of Science, 71(5), 1126-1138. Butt, David. (2007). Thought experiments in verbal art: examples from Modernism. In Donna R. Miller & Monica Turci (Eds.), Language and Verbal Art Revisited: Linguistic Approaches to the Study of Literature (pp. 68-96). London: Equinox.

11

For a more complete list of my narrative experiments go to http://tiny.cc/rvoon

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Clandinin, D. Jean, & Connelly, F. Michael. (2000). Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative Research. San Francisco: JosseyBass. Cohen, Martin. (2005). Wittgenstein's Beetle and Other Classic Thought Experiments. Oxford: Blackwell. Connelly, F. Michael, & Clandinin, D. Jean. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2-14. Deleuze, Gilles. (1994). Difference and Repetition (Paul Patton, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press. Deleuze, Gilles, & Guattari, Félix. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Brian Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, Gilles, & Guattari, Félix. (1994). What is Philosophy? (G. Burchell & H. Tomlinson, Trans.). London: Verso. Dick, Philip K. (1991/1969). The electric ant. In We Can Remember It For You Wholesale: Volume 5 of the Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick (pp. 290-308). London: Grafton. Eco, Umberto. (1984). Postscript to The Name of the Rose (William Weaver, Trans.). New York: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich. Evans, James, Cook, Ian, & Griffiths, Helen. (2008). Creativity, group pedagogy and social action: a departure from Gough. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40(2), 330-345. Gabriel, Peter, & N’Dour, Youssou. (1989). Shaking the tree [Song]. London/Paris: Peter Gabriel Ltd/Editions Virgin Musique. Ghosh, Amitav. (1997). The Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of Fevers, Delirium and Discovery. New York: Avon Books. Gilbert, John, & Reiner, Miriam. (2000). Thought experiments in science education: potential and current realization. International Journal of Science Education, 22(3), 265-283. Gough, Noel. (1991). Narrative and nature: unsustainable fictions in environmental education. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 7, 31-42. —. (1993a). Environmental education, narrative complexity and postmodern science/fiction. International Journal of Science Education, 15(5), 607-625. —. (1993b). Laboratories in Fiction: Science Education and Popular Media. Geelong: Deakin University. —. (1993c). Neuromancing the stones: experience, intertextuality, and cyberpunk science fiction. Journal of Experiential Education, 16(3), 917.

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—. (1994a). Narration, reflection, diffraction: aspects of fiction in educational inquiry. Australian Educational Researcher, 21(3), 47-76. —. (1994b). Playing at catastrophe: ecopolitical education after poststructuralism. Educational Theory, 44(2), 189-210. —. (1996). Textual authority in Bram Stoker’s Dracula; or, what’s really at stake in action research? Educational Action Research, 4(2), 257265. —. (1998). Reflections and diffractions: functions of fiction in curriculum inquiry. In William F. Pinar (Ed.), Curriculum: Toward New Identities (pp. 94-127). New York: Garland. —. (2001). Learning from Disgrace: a troubling narrative for South African curriculum work. Perspectives in Education, 19(1), 107-126. —. (2002). Fictions for representing and generating semiotic consciousness: the crime story and educational inquiry. International Journal of Applied Semiotics, 3(2), 59-76. —. (2004a). Read intertextually, write an essay, make a rhizome: performing narrative experiments in educational inquiry. In Heather Piper & Ian Stronach (Eds.), Educational Research: Difference and Diversity (pp. 155-176). Aldershot: Ashgate. —. (2004b). RhizomANTically becoming-cyborg: performing posthuman pedagogies. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 36(3), 253-265. —. (2006). Shaking the tree, making a rhizome: towards a nomadic geophilosophy of science education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 38(5), 625-645. —. (2007). Changing planes: rhizosemiotic play in transnational curriculum inquiry. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 26(3), 279294. Haraway, Donna J. (1989). Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science. New York: Routledge. —. (1994). A game of cat’s cradle: science studies, feminist theory, cultural studies. Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science, and Technology, 2(1), 59-71. —. (1997). Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©_Meets_ OncoMouse™: Feminism and Technoscience. New York and London: Routledge. Harding, Sandra. (1993). Introduction: Eurocentric scientific illiteracy – a challenge for the world community. In Sandra Harding (Ed.), The ‘Racial’ Economy of Science: Toward a Democratic Future (pp. 1-22). Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

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Hayles, N. Katherine. (1990). Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press. Herbert, Frank. (1968/1965). Dune. London: New English Library. Hutcheon, Linda. (1989). The Politics of Postmodernism. London and New York: Routledge. Knoespel, Kenneth J. (1991). The emplotment of chaos: instability and narrative order. In N. Katherine Hayles (Ed.), Chaos and Order: Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science (pp. 100-122). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Law, John. (1999). After ANT: topology, naming and complexity. In John Law & John Hassard (Eds.), Actor Network Theory and After (pp. 114). Oxford: Blackwell. Le Guin, Ursula K. (1969). The Left Hand of Darkness. New York: Ace. —. (1979). The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction. New York: Berkley Books. —. (1989). Some thoughts on narrative. In Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (pp. 37-45). New York: Grove Press. —. (2004). Changing Planes. London: Victor Gollancz. Mach, Ernst. (1897). Über Gedankenexperimente. Zeitschrift für Physikalischen und Chemischen Unterricht, 10, 1-5. —. (1905). Über Gedankenexperimente. In Erkenntnis und Irrtum. Skizzen zur Psychologie der Forschung (pp. 183-200). Leipzig: Verlag von Johann Ambrosius. Mink, Louis O. (1974). History and fiction as modes of comprehension. In Ralph Cohen (Ed.), New Directions in Literary History (pp. 107-124). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Moue, Aspasia, Masavetas, Kyriakos, & Karayianni, Haido. (2006). Tracing the development of thought experiments in the philosophy of natural sciences. Journal for General Philosophy of Science, 37(1), 6175. O’Riley, Patricia A. (2003). Technology, Culture, and Socioeconomics: A Rhizoanalysis of Educational Discourses. New York: Peter Lang. Peters, Michael. (2004). Geophilosophy, education and the pedagogy of the concept. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 36(3), 217-231. Pinar, William F. (1994). Autobiography, Politics and Sexuality: Essays in Curriculum Theory 1972-1992. New York: Peter Lang. Polkinghorne, Donald E. (1988). Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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Prosser, Jerry, & Geary, Rick. (1992). Cyberantics. New York: Dark Horse Comics. Reiner, Miriam. (1998). Thought experiments and collaborative learning in physics. International Journal of Science Education, 20(9), 10431058. Reiner, Miriam, & Gilbert, John. (2000). Epistemological resources for thought experimentation in science learning. International Journal of Science Education, 22(5), 489 - 506. Richardson, Laurel. (1990). Narrative and sociology. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 19(1), 116-135. —. (2001). Getting personal: writing-stories. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 14(1), 33-38. Rorty, Richard. (1979). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. —. (1989). Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press. Rucker, Rudy. (1994). The Hacker and the Ants. New York: Avon Books. Rukeyser, Muriel. (1968). The Speed of Darkness. New York: Random House. Somerville, Margaret. (2008). A place pedagogy for ‘global contemporaneity’. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40 (Online at http://tiny.cc/vvcdq). Sorensen, Roy A. (1992). Thought Experiments. New York: Oxford University Press. St. Pierre, Elizabeth A. (1997). Methodology in the fold and the irruption of transgressive data. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 10(2), 175-189. Stoicheff, Peter. (1991). The chaos of metafiction. In N. Katherine Hayles (Ed.), Chaos and Order: Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science (pp. 85-99). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stone, Lawrence. (1979). The revival of narrative: reflections on a new old history. Past and Present, 85, 3-25. Waugh, Patricia. (1984). Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of SelfConscious Fiction. London: Methuen. Witt-Hansen, Johannes. (1976). H.C. Ørsted, Immanuel Kant and the thought experiment. Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, 13, 48-65. Woolf, Virginia. (1980). The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Volume 3, 19231928 (Joanne Trautmann Nigel Nicolson, Eds.). London: Hogarth Press.

CHAPTER THREE WHAT IS TEACHING, AS DISTINCT FROM LEARNING? TOWARDS A PHENOMENOLOGICAL ACCOUNT OF THE TEACHER AND IMAGINATIVE EDUCATION FOR UNIVERSITIES TODAY JUDY LATTAS

A question for our time What is teaching, as distinct from learning? In the proliferation of the phrase ‘teaching and learning’, and the increasing normalisation of its correction into ‘learning and teaching’ - or simply ‘learning’ - this is a question for our time. Teaching is everywhere lauded in the new university. Yet its repudiation is being led by those in the highest places in higher education policy and the scholarship of teaching. It is not to its old rival, research, that teaching is losing out; rather it is to a new preoccupation with the student, and a new rhetoric in which there are no more teachers, only learners. In this chapter I respond to the disappearance of teaching in the discourse of learning with a contemplation of its specific character, and a contribution towards a phenomenological account of the university teacher. Imaginative Education (IE) practitioners who are interested in the conditions of possibility of their contributions to the shaping of the future of education, in primary and secondary as well as tertiary institutions, need to be able to grasp what might be called the essence of teaching. This is in a professional world that is overfull of truths (in terms of statements of teaching excellence, shifting historical models and popular iconography) and yet is losing the symbolic mechanism through which the truth of teaching may be revealed. An object may only have truth, or an essence, when it is defined against other objects that belong to its conceptual

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universe - and in the case of the binary opposition, an object that complements and completes it. For the teacher, the other object is the student. Teacher and student emerge together in a relation of reciprocal identity, mutual exclusion and mutual exhaustion. Each is for the other, a mirror of the other; but is not the other. It is this norm of reciprocally clarifying meanings that is retreating with the advance of a totalising construction of learning. The idea that ‘we are all learners’ is part of the discourse of ‘lifelong learning’ that has come with the embrace of new technologies of knowledge production and distribution, and their decentring of the educational institution (Biesta, 2004, 2006; Haugsbakk & Nordkvelle, 2007). Willing to meet the challenge head on, educational administrators sought to secure their markets by mapping their place in the unlimited resource pool of the internet, and by tapping into the emerging rhetoric. Schools and universities now prepare the student for a lifetime of learning (rather than for a job, or for entry into an elite circle of knowledge keepers). The apparent democratisation of access to education, and democratisation of the order of knowledge, attracted those interested in overturning the hierarchies of power in the teacher-student and academyworld relation. They grafted their studies of the psychology of learning and co-creation of knowledge (‘constructivism’1) onto the discourse of ‘student-centred’ and ‘student-led learning.’ The result has been a surge of interest in the constructivist pedagogies of Problem Based Learning (PBL), Enquiry Based Learning (EBL), Discovery Based Learning and so on. In Australia, several universities are introducing measures to expand the take-up of these pedagogies across the board, in the arts and humanities as well as the sciences and vocational training programs (Lattas, 2009b). It is in these pedagogies that the conventional role of the teacher is most deeply questioned, and, in much of the literature, recast (if not relinquished) in the role of ‘facilitator’ (Lattas, 2009a; Biesta, 2004). In an extreme constructivist position, a renunciation of teaching can be found in the articulation of a goal of ‘learning without teaching’: a flattening out of the teacher-student order to the extent that not only are there no podium style lectures, but no instruction takes place, no texts or preferred readings are set, and no disciplinary foundation is established. The teacher is neither represented nor required in the pure PBL/EBL classroom. In the field of education, IE literature has contributed substantially to an appreciation of the critical importance of imagination. The IE 1

Inasmuch as it can be called a single theory: Derry, S. (1996)

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classroom is concerned with the capacity of each person to think, through the imagination, in such a way as to create that individual grasp of shared meanings that we call knowledge. However, there remains to be appreciated the critical importance of imagination to the capacity of each person to think in such a way as to picture and to create a world of shared meanings in the first place; and the crucial part that teachers play in all the paths that might open up along the way for IE pedagogy. This is what the maverick phenomenologist and political philosopher, Hannah Arendt, has insisted is necessary, in her contribution to the philosophy of imagination. Arendt’s point is that without the imagination, we would be unable to develop that “enormously enlarged empathy through which I could know what actually goes on in the mind of all others” (1982, p.43); that is, we would be unable to project a place for our own thought among the imagined standpoints of other people. This is the common world that Arendt defends, in all her writing, as the public realm; and crucial to the continued creation of this world, she argues, is the teacher (Lattas, forthcoming; and see below).

In the post-Humboldtian university, teaching must account for itself The profession of teaching in a university context is very different from the profession of teaching in primary and secondary schools. University lecturers are not expected to be experts in teaching, only in the discipline within which they have expertise as scholars. This was the original European understanding in relation to the school teacher as well, but as the public schools expanded (behind the banner of democracy) into a compulsory, mass system in modernity, and the idea expanded that all children were to be seen as educable, teachers were subject to specific training regimes that focused on the emerging theories of learning and the social uses of enlightened teaching. Universities have undergone the same transformation into a mass system in more recent decades. To date, however, there has been no requirement of its teachers to undertake programs of study and professional certification in teaching, other than some voluntary postgraduate diplomas that provide development opportunities and specialisation. University students are assumed to be sufficiently able to learn, and sufficiently disciplined, motivated and self selecting, to take responsibility for their own investment in the field of higher knowledge production. It is still the routine for academics to be put to work as tutors and lecturers without any studies in teaching per se. Whilst increasingly

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now applicants are required to have experience and a statement of teaching philosophy in order to fill an academic position, the essential qualification is a commitment to knowledge in the form of a higher degree and publications in a field of research. The historical convention to which this broad expectation applies comes from a certain ideal of the professor that was drawn up by German humanist Wilhelm von Humboldt. This is the figure that Baert and Shipman (2005) reflect upon in their critical analysis of the effects of ‘audit culture’ on the contemporary university. In their identification with a discipline, the professional intellectuals proposed by Humboldt would be highly committed, self regulating scholars who could manage their own profession, and be held to safeguard their culture’s intellectual legacy. Baert and Shipman are interested in the general decline of the Humboldtian paradigm, but its specific effects in the area of ‘learning and teaching’ can be considered from their account. Where this paradigm of the professor holds, the ability to teach is entrusted to the sense of dedication and obligation to the discipline, and more broadly, to the tradition and continuity of intellectual life that the scholar brings to the host institution and its students. The scholar’s memory of having been inspired and drawn successfully into the life of the mind by his or her own great teachers and mentors is considered sufficient induction into the arts of teaching. It is only recently, under the rubric of a set of discourses drawn from the preoccupations of business, that this situation has come to be considered too full of risk to be taken on trust. As Baert and Shipman describe, the public’s trust in the authorities of the state’s institutions, including its universities, has been encouraged to fall quickly by a number of forces converging upon and carrying into the new discourses of accountability, transparency, monitoring, quality assurance, risk management, and so on: in short, the discourses of audit culture. The current spike of activity in ‘learning and teaching’ is a response to the march of these discourses into the university, and into areas of its operation newly seen as dark and lacking scrutiny. Teaching is one of these dark spots. The perceived need for measures to assure quality and full reporting has meant that the implicit tie that linked the quality of teaching to the strength of a scholar’s disciplinary commitment is lost, or has to be made explicit in the terms demanded of that discursive configuration. Given their corporate origins and market articulations, these terms are geared towards the known forms and destinations of an education product (or at the very least, a marketable set of standpoints and skills), which drives an

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instrumentalist grasp and command of the ‘resources’ in question (intellectual life). More specifically, once the qualifying association of research to teaching is lost, other qualifications are deemed necessary to found an ability to teach. This is the expertise in teaching per se (in the form of certifiable training) that is called for, in the university as much as in school, as a measure of transparency and comparability. The ‘researchteaching nexus’ becomes a particular (and newly heralded) virtue, rather than a general (and assumed) one, as the necessary relation between the two activities of the professor is no longer understood, and must be articulated as a form of excellence (one among a number of forms). In a university movement rapidly turning ‘post-Humboldtian,’ a perceived vacuum in founding myths of the essence of teaching becomes a key site for determinations of the future shape of intellectual life in the university. Here the issue of suggested models of the teacher is critical.

Master (didactic) vs midwife (maieutic): ‘Satan or Socrates’ In PBL/EBL writing, the ideal model of teaching (such as it remains in the idea of facilitating) is the maieutic one, or the Socratic model of the teacher as midwife. This is set against a model of the teacher as master, cast as the traditional (often identified as didactic) model. The master here is a holder of knowledge, a revered high scholar who inducts selected learner-apprentices into the hallowed ranks of the enlightened few. The erudition of the master is delivered to the learner-apprentice in a direct transmission from one who is full of knowledge, to one who lacks knowledge. The mode of delivery is the lecture, sent via podium speech, and received in silence by passive listeners. To this caricature is counterposed the preferred account of the facilitator-midwife. This quasi-Socratic figure assists in the delivery of knowledge that comes from within the learner-labourer. Both learner and teacher here are maternal figures in that one is heavy with the child of her thought processes, and the other is primarily nurturing and supporting. Rather than being full of knowledge, the facilitator-midwife is equipped with the kind of skill and wisdom that comes from experience and not scholarship. It is the learner who is full of knowledge. Authority, along with expert knowledge, is repudiated in the teacher on this model. So, in the current Wikipedia consensus (‘Constructivism, learning theory,’ May 30, 2009), the first sentence under the ‘role of the instructor’ makes an opposition of facilitators and teachers: “According to the social constructivist approach, instructors have to adapt to the role of facilitators

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and not teachers” (my emphasis); it is reinforced in a final remark that “instructors act as facilitators rather than as teachers” (my emphasis). Many of us would include facilitation as one of our teaching modes; it is a skill that is used well, for example, in university tutorials. It is still considered teaching. Here, however, citing various constructivist exponents, the roles are set against each other, in contrasting approaches and resources: A teacher tells, a facilitator asks; a teacher lectures from the front, a facilitator supports from the back; a teacher gives answers according to a set curriculum, a facilitator provides guidelines and creates the environment for the learner to arrive at his or her own conclusions; a teacher mostly gives a monologue, a facilitator is in continuous dialogue with the learners.

Links suggest a reader consult the Wikipedia entries of ‘Socratic method’ and ‘maieutics’. A belonging together of constructivism and the midwife idea of teaching (as given over to facilitation) is widely supported in practitioner accounts (although not without contestation within the broader literature: Boghossian, 2006). Leading ‘radical constructivist’, Ernst von Glasersfeld, is cited most consistently, with a paragraph referring to his words in a 1995 publication finding internet replication and a loose application. Glasersfeld, meditating on the difference between ‘teaching’ and ‘training,’ and the reality that children learn in different ways and at different times,2 wrote that for him “this implies an important principle. Teachers must never be seen, nor indeed ever see themselves, as mechanics of ‘knowledge transfer’. Rather, they should feel and act as the intuitive helpers who, in Socrates’ words, ‘play the role of the midwife in the birth of understanding’” (Glasersfeld, 1995, p.383). Glasersfeld himself does not counter-pose the notions of teacher and facilitator, but the contrast he makes between the delivery of the teacher’s knowledge and the facilitation of its delivery from within the learner is mapped onto that opposition. Theodore Christou (2008) goes so far in the demonising of the teacher’s knowledge as to propose a choice of ‘Satan or Socrates’ in the title of his account. Christou offers a critique of the conceit (the ‘immodestly-veiled hybris’ of which he says the devil is accused by the poet Milton) of assuming as teachers that we possess any knowledge that is complete, stable or fully grasped. Against this sin of excessive pride, the new truth of active learning is advanced to the point that the aims of 2

He is writing about learning mathematics by means of reflective abstraction

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teaching are rendered unlikely: “the child is only to a slight extent educable by the teacher” (Christou, 2008, p.179) and the teacher’s fall is given in terms of the ever-expanding category of the learner: “Educators, consequently, cannot ever know. They must always learn” (p.180). Setting a preoccupation with ‘the putting in of knowledge’ against ‘the Latin root of education being ‘educare’ — drawing out,’ Christou concludes with an invocation of the maieutic model of facilitation: Socrates, millennia earlier, provided a metaphor for pedagogy that posited the educator in a position of modesty and reciprocity towards the learner. The pedagogue is, in accordance with this educational perspective, a midwife. Teaching and learning are akin to birthing - the drawing out, in other words - of knowledge... The educator neither creates the child nor deposits it in the expectant mother. The pedagogue-midwife facilitates, prompts, encourages, reflects, and responds. Any forceful pulling or withdrawing, in birth, as in learning, is violent and cruel. (Christou, 2008, p.180)

For some writers, the levelling effect of the constructivist model of the teacher as midwife does not go far enough in the demoting of the teacher to fellow learner. An idea of the leaderless group, within which students learn most substantively from each other, and not from any one-on-one exchange (including that imagined in the student labourer and midwife helper scenario) is put forward as the ideal of facilitation. This is argued, ironically (given the military’s love of hierarchy), in one publication on adult learning by a major in a UK army training school, who maintains that facilitating “is a different approach to learning from the more traditional didactic and Socratic approaches”. The question is one of power; its asymmetries and concentrations of privilege. He asks, “how does the facilitative method differ from the more traditional methods which stressed a dependent relationship of the learner on the teacher? At its most simple, the relationship between facilitator and learner is one of interdependence” (Stuart, 1989). Here the teacher-facilitator as ‘Learner Number One’ (Lattas, 2009a) is imagined as just one point in a horizontal network that links the learners (and their learning) with each other. Feminist pedagogy has most prominently featured the midwife conception of the teacher role. In the 1986 collection Women’s Ways of Knowing, the idea of the teacher as midwife was elaborated in a reference to the maternalist feminist paradigm of the early 1980s. “The midwifeteacher’s first concern”, write Mary Belenky et al, “is to preserve the student’s fragile newborn thoughts, to see that they are born with their truth intact” (Belenky et al, 1986, p.218). Feminist composition studies in the U.S. have warmly embraced a constructivist account of the facilitator-

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midwife for the writing teacher, responding to its foregrounding of the creative process and its granting of ‘ownership’ of this process to the writing student. It is within the sphere of feminist composition studies that the metaphor has had its furthest critical development, with attempts to open it up to the rhetorical complexity of ‘voice’ (Ryder et al, 2001) and a post-modern ‘cyborg’ discourse (Pinkston, 2004). While its democratic mission is clear, I find this model of the teacher, as it is being advanced in constructionist literature, to be just as problematic as the traditional ‘didactic’ model that these writers hold up for rejection. In both accounts, knowledge is understood to come from outside the scene of learning. It is brought in by the master for delivery to the students; or it is brought in by the students, for assisted delivery by the facilitator. In neither case is knowledge co-created. The question emerges: what is necessary for the co-creation of knowledge? Against the grain of much of the discourse of co-created knowledge, I suggest that it is the teacher’s authority. One critic of mother-teacher pedagogy is Gail Stygall (1998). Stygall has experience of collaborative learning, and she points out that a danger of trying to put into practice the disappearance of the teacher in constructivist ideology is that the position of authority is simply defaulted to a student’s fellows: Discipline does not necessarily disappear when the teacher moves away from the head of the classroom. We should expect discipline to continue to operate, if in different forms. With collaboration, we have simply deputized our students to act, in the absence of instruction to the contrary, as those who discipline; that is, using the social roles they bring to the classroom. There are two discourse consequences: first, some student will take up the role and voice of the teacher, directing students to the task of collaboration; second, whatever gender roles students bring to class will necessarily be part of the talk of the group. In both cases, institutional discipline is still operating despite the liberal hope that the need for the teacher...will eventually wither away. (1998, p.255)

In her 1994 essay ‘The Teacher’s Breasts’ and her 1997 book, Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment, Jane Gallop offers an equally important critique of maternalist pedagogy. Gallop is a well-known feminist theorist who was herself formally charged with sexual harassment - not because of any sexual bullying or innuendo, she maintains, but simply because she exhibited the kind of power and authority over her students, including her female students, that any senior professor would, male or female. This violated an unspoken honour code amongst feminists, she says. In the situation of the university, she finds that when feminist teachers assume

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any kind of authority, instead of being like sisters or mothers, they are accused of being authoritarian and of betraying the cause. They are seen as being ‘as bad as the men’, and so worse than the men, for calling themselves feminist. This can go so far as to be called a form of sexual harassment of women students. This is actually what she found herself accused of, in the university which had put her in the position of teacher. Her plea is for the teacher’s authority to be recognised and defended as legitimate and necessary.

Arendt: teaching, authority, responsibility, ‘for love of the world’ The philosopher who provides the most powerful recognition and defence of the teacher’s authority is Hannah Arendt (1958/1993). It is in her account of authority that we can find the answer to the question with which we began: What is teaching, as distinct from learning? The answer, quite briefly, is responsibility. The teacher, essentially and uniquely, assumes responsibility. This is not the responsibility of being held accountable for a program or institutional outcome. It is responsibility ‘for the world’ as such; the common world that the teacher inherits and represents as holder of its truths, such as these have been determined to the best of our knowledge. By virtue of the positions that they take up in our systems of education, teachers are obliged to assume responsibility; responsibility for a world that they did not create personally and might indeed long to have turned out differently (Arendt, 1958/1993, p.189). It is for love of the world, in all its imperfection and unknowable depth, that educators discover within their professional identity and their commitment to a subject (or discipline), the authority that they need to teach. This is the essential qualification; no amount of teacher training, in Arendt’s view, can take its place. In education this responsibility for the world takes the form of authority... Although a measure of qualification is indispensable for authority, the highest possible qualification can never by itself beget authority. The teacher’s qualification consists in knowing the world and being able to instruct others about it, but his authority rests on his assumption of responsibility for the world... it is as though he were a representative of all adult inhabitants, pointing out the details and saying to the child: This is our world. (p.189)

The child for Arendt is the newcomer who brings the promise of renewal for the world, through acts that must remain unforeseen by the

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old. A faithful and noble representation of the world as it exists for the teacher is a necessary precondition for the arrival and vital interventions of the new; in Arendt’s words, “Exactly for the sake of what is new and revolutionary in every child, education must be conservative; it must preserve this newness and introduce it as a new thing into an old world” (pp.192-193). This is the notion of natality that runs through all of Arendt’s work. Like Stygall, Arendt is mindful of the effect of the teacher who disavows authority and leaves the field open to the group of students. The consequence is majority rule and conformism: “By being emancipated from the authority of adults the child has not been freed but has been subjected to a much more terrifying and truly tyrannical authority, the tyranny of the majority” (p.183). The principle that the student’s world should be autonomous is the first of three basic assumptions that Arendt identifies and considers flawed. The second is the belief that the ability to teach can be disengaged from knowledge of a subject and commitment to a discipline. In Arendt’s account, it is a belief that actually defeats the antiauthoritarian ambitions of progressive education. Under the influence of modern psychology and the tenets of pragmatism, pedagogy has developed into a science of teaching in general in such a way as to be wholly emancipated from the actual material to be taught... This in turn means not only that the students are actually left to their own resources but that the most legitimate source of the teacher’s authority as the person who, turn it whatever way one will, still knows more and can do more than oneself is no longer effective. Thus the non-authoritarian teacher, who would like to abstain from all methods of compulsion because he is able to rely on his own authority, can no longer exist. (p.182)

The final flawed measure that Arendt identifies is “the substitution of doing for learning and of playing for working” (p.183). Whilst Arendt was writing this piece in the context of 1950s America and the “puzzling question of why Johnny can’t read” (p.174), in each of these assumptions there are parallels with the principles of contemporary constructivism3; or at least that version of constructivism that is determined to renounce any distinction between the teacher and the student. Indeed, this renunciation of the distinction is specifically cited by Arendt: Thus what makes the educational crisis in America so especially acute is the political temper of the country, which of itself struggles to equalize or 3 For example: empowering the learner; eschewing the subject or discipline; engaging through practical activities more than theoretical readings.

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to erase as far as possible the difference between the young and old, between the gifted and the ungifted, finally between children and adults, particularly between pupils and teachers. It is obvious that such an equalization can actually be accomplished only at the cost of the teacher’s authority. (p.180, my emphasis)

Mythologising the Arendtian teacher: ‘heart & hearth’ If the insight of Arendt is accepted in the current context, the essential character of the teacher is the assumption of responsibility. Like Atlas, the teacher must carry the world upon his or her shoulders. In answer to the Socratic figure hailed in large part by the constructivists, it is tempting to propose an alternative model drawing on the legend and the name of Atlas. Of the Greek mythic pantheon, however, I find that it is another divinity that captures more powerfully the task with which the teacher is invested. Two of the goddesses of ancient Greece are known figures of wisdom; Mètis and Athena. These may be cast as characters in the constructivist myth of learning, in my idea. Mètis is the mother of Athena. Like all mothers in antiquity (and today, on the level of the symbolic order) her ‘seminal’ role in production is discounted in favour of the father; in this case, Zeus. Mètis is a trickster figure with ‘magical cunning’ but she is unable to stop Zeus from appropriating her powers of wisdom and creativity for himself.4 In the story, Zeus swallows whole his former adviser when he comes to fear a prediction that she will bear a son whose power will rival his. Mètis was pregnant with Athena, who is subsequently born, fully formed and fully armed, from the body of Zeus. Athena in turn is crowned a goddess of wisdom and the arts. In the constructivist myth, the learner, like Athena, springs forth already loaded with her own truths while the teacher, like Mètis, cannot be seen to have a productive role. Zeus, glorious and self-proclaimed autodidact, is mirrored in Athena, rather than challenged or outdone by the child he fears born of the woman. Mètis as trickster can do no more than facilitate the successful birth of Athena from within the darkness of her own effacement. A mythic figure of Greek origin who carries the world in a less obvious, but more important way than Atlas, and who may be held to narrate the scene of learning (and the role of the teacher) in a less obvious, but more important way than Mètis and Athena, is Hestia. Hestia is the goddess of the heart and hearth, but is almost without legend. She is said to have had no temple, but is at the origin of all temples, in that the early 4

In the poems of Homer he assumes the title of Mêtieta, ‘wise counsellor’.

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forms (the Cretan ‘hearth houses’ at Dreros and Prinias) had a hearth as their central and essential feature. ‘Hestia comes first’ is a phrase from Greek antiquity. The name of this divinity, Hestia, is the ancient Greek word for the heart; the heart of the family (symbolised by its fireplace) and the heart of the community or common world (symbolised by the prytaneum or public hearth). She had her Roman parallel in Vesta, whose cult was of the ever-burning hearth fire. Vesta, like Hestia, was honoured for her vow to remain a virgin. It is the responsibility to spark up the fire of life (in its key relational dimensions: oikos and polis), and keep it alight (for the continuity of these necessary spheres of human being) that Hestia embodies in her myth. One of the twelve Olympian gods, it is her eternal flame that is carried in the present day Olympic torch. Only in the ritualised steps of a ceremonious quenching, cleansing and rekindling of the flames could a household or a community allow its hearth fire to die out. Although it is as divine keeper of the domestic realm that Hestia is most readily recalled, she was also official keeper of the public-political realm; a lit torch from her perpetual fire (in the city prytaneum) would be relayed to any new outpost of Greek establishment. It is her special role (her authority and sacred honour) to preside over and to maintain the possibility of both private and public worlds. Having no family life (the vow to remain a virgin), and making no appearance in the political realm (remaining without legend), Hestia belongs to neither realm, and yet is custodian of each. She is responsible for keeping alive and passing on to new generations the warmth and vitality of the distinctively human relations that each realm is able to forge. Heart and hearth; the appropriateness of these mythic themes for an account of modern pedagogy can be found in the contributions of selected writers on the philosophy of teaching. Here, the heart (invoked as love), and hearth (spark and flame) have the potential to take a leading role in the contemplation of what is essential in teaching. Recalling one of his great teachers, Raimond Gaita writes in ‘The Pedagogical Power of Love’ (2001) that it was his teacher’s love of the world that was responded to with trust, and in time, renewal (Gaita’s book Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception, which he dedicated to this teacher): “The quality of his attention to the things he loved made me trust their value and to trust in him”. In ‘The Teacher’s Enthusiasm’ and ‘The Teacher’s Vocation’ Andrew Metcalfe and Ann Game (2006) offer a phenomenological account that also founds itself on that peculiar kind of love that the teacher embodies out of passion and concern for the world; it is, say Metcalfe and

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Game, “the teacher’s non-subjective love that allows students to trust them: the teacher’s authority is love”. What Metcalfe and Game try to identify and analyse is the energy that is generated in a classroom that comes alive with good teaching. They begin with some comments they found to be highly significant, from the interviewees they consulted in their research project on teachers who change lives. ‘What good teachers have is passion. The spark. Kids pick up on their excitement, and that makes them curious.’ ‘She was so enthusiastic, she was just such an inspiration to me, and I think she ignited something in me.’ (Metcalfe & Game, 2006, p.92)

In the analysis of Metcalfe and Game, the terms around which they seek to understand this energy as emerging in the situation of the classroom (in the relations created between teachers and students, rather than brought in from outside by either party), are all grasped as arising from the ethical form of the ‘I-Thou’ relation explained by the philosopher Martin Buber. The terms are secularisations of the mystical appearances of passion, calling, faith, and giving; and they appear in accounts such as this: Passion, enthusiasm and inspiration are all concepts from religious tradition, pointing to a spiritual and soulful vitality that emerges when people come together. The hum of the classroom involves everyone, yet is beyond the control of even the teacher: something happens, without anyone making it happen. This is an understanding of spirituality that places it within the ordinary world... (Metcalfe & Game, 2006, p.98)

In my account, the situation understood in a phenomenological construction by Metcalfe and Game could be given as well in the terms that the interviewees offered in trying to capture their experience: ‘spark;’ ‘ignited;’ terms, that is, of hearth as well as heart. Raimond Gaita, who was interviewed as part of the research project of Metcalfe and Game, recalls the representation that was preferred by his own life-changing teacher. The image is one of the flame, and the relay: ...he told me that there are two ways to think about teaching. One is to dream of pulling a switch that will make a thousand lights come on. Another is nourished by the image of passing a candle from one person to another. (2001)

Fire and flame images help to characterise the essential condition and essential movement of the world, which is one of emerging always as an

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effect of withdrawing and presenting. The individual flames of a fire persist only momentarily, withdrawing into darkness and springing to new life in a constant dance which ever threatens to be lost and go cold. It is the teacher’s responsibility, I suggest, to keep guarding this fire and keep sparking its flames, the small flares which fleetingly light up and burn, and just as quickly are gone. In the iconography of fire, as in the thinking of phenomenology, the constancy and continuity of the world cannot be separated from the drama – the anxiety, the work and the wonder – of change. Gaston Bachelard writes in The Psychoanalysis of Fire, “...we cannot speak of a world of the phenomenon, of a world of the appearances, except in the presence of a world which changes in its appearances... only those changes that are caused by fire are the deep, striking, swift, marvellous and definitive changes... Through fire everything changes” (1938/1964, p.57). The teacher’s burden of needing to take on and to pass on a world that is always in the process of being eclipsed, in its renewal, is well captured in the image of having repeatedly to kindle a fire that equally threatens to go out, and go out of one’s control. Bachelard’s appreciation of fire, I note, goes beyond even his appreciation of his responsibilities as a teacher: “...I still take special pride in the art of kindling that I learned from my father,” he says. “I think I would rather fail to teach a good philosophy lesson than fail to light my morning fire” (1938/1964, p.9). The essence of teaching, on the perception that I am advancing here, is found not only in that ‘good teaching’ that exists in the moment of highest blaze, and that is easy to romanticise. It is there also in the burden of ‘bad teaching’, the failed efforts and the stultifying routines that dampen down and threaten to extinguish the learner’s own liveliness, as in William Blake’s conception in the ‘Songs of Experience’ (‘The Schoolboy’, who cannot “take delight/Nor sit in learning's bower/Worn through with the dreary shower”). For even the best of teachers, a constant flipping between inspired and uninspired performances is the norm of their experience. And it is not just a matter of ‘inspiration’. Relations of power both enable and disable the ability of students to participate in the teacher’s project of trying to represent the old world faithfully, for the sake of its renewal. I do not mean to offer here some idealised and mystical ‘Song of Innocence’ in the thought of Hestia, as if some sort of Pentecostal fire comes down from on high in the moment of true teaching, and wipes everyone clean of all the social attributes and histories that lead students to respond to, resist, or remain alienated from the appeal of the teacher. The scene of teaching and learning that ‘heart and hearth’ describe is not incompatible with the sociological idea that we are subjects of discipline,

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for example; that we must ‘learn how to learn’ through all the internalisations of control that Michel Foucault traced in the institutions of modernity. It is wishful thinking and misrecognition of the role of authority to imagine that forms of discipline do not belong in the classroom; and whilst it is necessary to pursue the goals of equality and social inclusion, it would be ludicrous to believe that we can have arrived there in some moment of pedagogical magic. The task is always to bring ideas to life. This is the attempt to return them, in the imagination of students, to the moment of their composition, when their freshness, their compelling context and their sudden expansion of what was thought possible, can be appreciated to the point of engagement. Like a ‘dead metaphor’, all of the ideas which make up the human world can go cold, becoming calcified and unmoving. Hestia’s vow is to keep in play the warm flicker of life that carries the possibility of regeneration, of creating a new world in response to the old.

Derrida and the liminal position of the professor: rethinking the master In the perception of Jacques Derrida, it is a vow contained in the very word ‘professor’, etymologically “a profession of faith, a belief, a decision, a public pledge, an ethico-political responsibility” (Derrida, 2001, p.39). Philosophically for Derrida, as for Arendt, it involves a certain love of the world and engagement in the course of its determinations, or “promising to take a responsibility that is not exhausted in the act of knowing or teaching” (p.38). Among other elaborations, Derrida takes his meditations upon this responsibility into the field of human rights – the discourse of human rights and its call upon the institutions of the university. I explore this call upon the university (and its call upon the discourse, in the name of ‘student engagement’) in another paper (Lattas, forthcoming). Anne O’Byrne (2005) has written an excellent account of Derrida and Arendt in their common critical defiance of the creep of instrumentalism into education, and I do not need to repeat it here. My further contribution at this stage is to draw out from this account two points that highlight the critical importance of taking seriously the question that drives my discussion here: What is teaching, as distinct from learning? The first is about the relevance, to university education, of the Arendtian intervention in school education (Arendt insists very clearly in ‘The Crisis in Education’ that what she is saying applies to the teaching of children, and not adults as learners). The second is about the determinations of

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instrumentalism and what they are making of the teacher figure in the post-Humboldtian university. Arendt wrote of her discourse of the authority of the teacher, who faithfully represents the ‘old world’: But this holds good only for the realm of education, or rather for the relations between grown-ups and children, and not for the realm of politics, where we act among and with adults and equals. In politics this conservative attitude – which accepts the world as it is, striving only to preserve the status quo – can only lead to destruction... unless human beings are determined to intervene, to alter, to create what is new. (1958/1993, p.192)

As O’Byrne is careful to describe, Arendt’s idea of education is that it offers a quasi-public sphere posed between the private realm governed by the family, and the world as such. It makes transcendence possible by safeguarding the conditions through which newcomers are encouraged to act on their responses to what an old world has set up for them (Lattas, forthcoming). Acting, as Arendt argues in The Human Condition, is always a matter of intervention, an interruption of seeming necessity with something new, something that might take its determinations elsewhere. Derrida’s idea of the professor has a comparable conception, in that the university teacher-researcher occupies a space at the boundary of the public realm that affords a unique kind of authority, one that emerges (and must be constantly renewed) in the burden of responsibility, and that can turn itself to face the tyrannies of both familial and political forms of authority. Here it is not the naturalised inequality of adults and children that is crucial, but the opportunity that is given in the space of this inbetween (an opportunity offered by the university, with its mix of students young and old, as much as by the school). The opportunity, and the form of authority to which it corresponds, is not incompatible with a democratic principle of equality. “The key”, states O’Byrne, “is the educator’s liminal position” (O’Byrne, 2005, p.398). I note that it is the liminal position taken by the non-maternal character of Hestia that is a key to my own mythologising of the teacher figure in this paper. As to be expected in the thought of Derrida, there is an impossible (n)either/(n)or involved, making the assumption of responsibility by the teacher very challenging. While O’Byrne reads the thought of Derrida from L’Université sans conditions (2001), elsewhere he explains the teacher’s dilemma as one caught between the model of the master and the model of self-effacing mediator, which turn out, quite impossibly, to be one and the same.

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A master must initiate, introduce, form, and so on, his disciple to this [possibility of philosophy]. The master who himself must have been previously formed, introduced, initiated remains someone other for his disciple. Keeper, guarantor, mediator, predecessor, elder, he must represent the word, the thought or the knowledge of the other: heterodidactic. But on the other hand, whatever the cost, one will not renounce the autonomist and autodidactic tradition of philosophy. The master is nothing but a mediator who must efface himself. How can the necessity of the presence [avoir-lieu] of a master and the necessity of his effacement [non-lieu] be reconciled? What unbelievable topology do we require to reconcile the heterodidactic and the autodidactic? (Derrida, 1990, p.520-521)

I do not claim to reconcile this dilemma, but only suggest that it might be in rethinking the tradition of the master, in all its aporias, that a more adequate model than the constructivist midwife might emerge for the postHumboldtian university. After all, to continue my parable of ancient Greek mythology, Hestia, like Mètis, was swallowed whole (by her father Kronos); but in this case, she was yielded up again. Indeed, she was rescued by Zeus - the very ‘master’ who had appropriated the reproductive power of the first ‘teacher,’ and given birth to his own mirror image in Athena, the fully armed ‘learner.’ The task of rethinking the master has begun (Cahen, 2001; Cohen, 2001; Peters & Biesta, 2009) and still remains. Providing a rich beginning is Maurice Blanchot: The master gives nothing to know which does not remain determined by the indeterminable “unknown” he/she represents, unknown which does not affirm itself by the mystery, the prestige, and the erudition of he/she who teaches, but by the infinite distance between A and B... to go to the familiarity of things while reserving their strangeness, to relate to everything by the very experience of the interruption of relations, this is nothing other than to hear something speak, and to learn how to speak. The relation of master to disciple is the very relation of the spoken word... (Blanchot, 1969, 4)

To characterise such a relation of master to disciple as a ‘putting in’ of knowledge, so that it may be contrasted with a ‘drawing out’ of knowledge, is more than a problem of knocking down straw men. It misses the very co-creation of knowledge that constructivists claim as their central truth. To determine that the facilitator-midwife can only deliver the knowledge that comes from outside the classroom, in the form of the student’s own prior understandings (delivered ‘with their truth intact,’ Belenky et al, 1986, p.218), is just as problematic as it is to determine that

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the master-expert can only deliver the knowledge that that comes from outside the classroom, in the form of his or her own prior scholarship. My suggestion, and that of others including Metcalfe and Game, and Harriet Morrison (1988), inspired by Merleau Ponty, is that knowledge might be considered as something that comes to pass within a classroom; something that is sparked, more precisely, in a situation. This is the point at which people are brought to respond to the world of ideas around the recreated fire of their first appearance on a public stage; it is a bringing to life, if I understand Blanchot, that brings into play at once the familiarity and the strangeness of the ideas, the human imaginings, that make up our common world. The role of the teacher here is fundamental, and I offer my contribution towards its re-mythologisation as just one step among the many others that will be needed to bring it to the fore in contemporary pedagogical studies. In the meantime, it is important to question the doctrine of the teacher as midwife because of its contribution to a situation in which the world is left to be carried along on its present determinations, with diminishing chances for a concerted renewal. As O’Byrne puts it, “now that authority in political life is either absent or highly contested, what becomes of responsibility? Who is responsible? According to Arendt, no-one and everyone” (O’Byrne, 2005, p.398). It is a gap that defaults to the demands of the market, and the ordering of our age of technology as described by Martin Heidegger (1954/1977). With respect to the university, the demands of the market are for a learner-led consumption of education ‘packages’, bundles of knowledge for which no teacher takes responsibility (in the broader sense of ‘for love of the world’). Teachers, inasmuch as they persist as content guides and product brokers (Lattas, 2009a), are to be considered as just another resource of the learner-consumer. It is here, in the grasp of technology, that the constructivist idea of the facilitatormidwife adds its weight to the push for a disappearance of the teacher in the totalising conception that ‘we are all learners’ (precisely that ‘no-one and everyone’ to whom is left the future of education). Heidegger described the operation of modern technology’s instrumentalism as a rendering of everything, including the human, into ‘standing reserve’; into a resource “ordered to stand by, to be immediately at hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering” (1954/1977, p.17). The teacher, as midwife, is so ordered to stand by, in my view. To be a ‘facilitator’ (only) is to put oneself at the behest of the learner, whose requirements are one’s first and only concern; it is to be on call in their labour; it is to hold one’s calling in reserve. With regard to the teacher’s distinctive responsibility, I submit that to be made

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to stand by is to be made a bystander. This is what is intolerable in the ‘pure’ form of constructivism that makes an opposition of the teacher and the facilitator. I conclude with a perspective on the place of these deliberations in the developing philosophy of Imaginative Education. In this volume, the practitioner-theorists of IE have offered accounts of responsible teaching that include insights into the life of the body (Egan, 1997; this volume) and of the soul or psyche (Neville, 2005; this volume), as these dimensions of the distinctively human come into significance in the IE classroom. My account of responsible teaching concerns the life of the mind, as it features in the classrooms of the modern university. Arendt, in the Life of the Mind (1978), described thinking (as opposed to knowing, following the Kantian distinction) as a political responsibility, involving an open, critical and self-critical form of questioning that never ceases to search for the meaning of our world. She also described judging (again in conversation with Kant) as a ‘broadened’ form of this task of thinking, one that ties in the imagination, as it is this that makes possible a consideration of the points of view of other people, and breaks one out of the determinations of one’s own interests and beliefs in universal principles. “To think with an enlarged mentality”, she writes in an oft quoted phrase, “means that one trains one’s imagination to go visiting” (1982, p.43). It is my contention, in this chapter, that only with a continued insistence on the distinction between the teacher and the learner are these capacities for thinking and for judging, and so for living responsibly the life of the mind, defended and maintained for the regeneration of our common world.

References Arendt, Hannah. (1958/1993). Crisis in education. In Hannah Arendt (ed), Between past and future: Eight exercises in political thought. New York: Penguin Books. —. (1982). Lectures on Kant's political philosophy; edited and with an interpretative essay by Ronald Beiner. Brighton: Harvester. —. (1978). Life of the mind. London: Secker and Warburg. Aristotle. (1936). On the soul; Parva naturalia; On breath. (Hett, W.S., Trans.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bachelard, Gaston (1938/1964). The Psychoanalysis of Fire. (Alan C. M. Ross, Trans.) Boston: Beacon Press. Baert, Patrick & Alan Shipman. (2005). University under siege? Trust and accountability in the contemporary academy. European Societies, 7, 1, 157-185.

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Belenky, Mary Goldberger, Nancy & Tarule, Jill. (1986). Women’s ways of knowing: The development of self, voice, and mind. New York: Basic Books. Biesta, Gert. J.J. (2004). Against learning: Reclaiming a language for education in an age of learning. Nordisk Pedagogik, 24, 70–82. —. (2006). What’s the point of lifelong learning if lifelong learning has no point? On the democratic deficit of policies for lifelong learning. European Educational Research Journal. 5, 3-4, 169-180. Blanchot, Maurice. (1969). l’entretien infini. Paris: Gallimard. Boghossian, Peter. (2006). Behaviorism, constructivism, and socratic pedagogy. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 38, 6, 713–722. Cahen, Didier. (2001). Derrida and the question of education. In Derrida & education, (ed) Gert J. J. Biesta and Denise (Jpa-Kuehne. London; New York: Routledge. Cohen, Tom. (2001). Jacques Derrida and the humanities: a critical reader. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press. Constructivism (learning theory). In Wikipedia. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(learning_theory) Accessed May 30, 2009 Derrida, Jacques. (2004). Dissemination. (Johnson, B., Trans.). New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. —. (1990). ‘Les antinomies...’The Right of Philosophy French ed. Esprit 6.6. —. (2001). The future of the profession or the university without condition (thanks to the “Humanities” what could take place today). In Jacques Derrida and the humanities: a critical reader ed. Tom Cohen. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press. Derry, Sharon. (1996). Cognitive schema theory in the constructivist debate. Educational Psychologist, 3, 3/4, 163-174. Egan, Kieran. (1997). Ironic understanding and somatic understanding. In Kieran Egan (ed), The educated mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Elliott, Brian. (2005). Phenomenology and imagination in Husserl and Heidegger. London: Routledge. Gaita, Raimond. (2009). The pedagogical power of love. Keynote Address, Victorian. Association for the Teaching of English, 4 May, 2001. Available from http://alumni.cfsnc.org/?page=2008GradYanuck. Accessed May 30, 2009.

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Gallop, Jane. (1994). The teacher’s breasts. In Jill Julius Matthews (ed) Jane Gallop Seminar Papers, Canberra: Humanities Research Centre A.N.U. Gallop, Jane. (1997). Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment. Durham: Duke University Press. Glasersfeld, Ernst von. (1995). Sensory experience, abstraction, and teaching. In Constructivism in education, (369-384), Leslie P. Steffe and Jerry Gale (eds). Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Gordon, Mordechai. (2001). Hannah Arendt and education: Renewing our common world. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. Haugsbakk Geir & Yngve Nordkvelle. (2007). The rhetoric of ICT and the new language of learning: A critical analysis of the use of ICT in the curricular field. European Educational Research Journal, 6, 1, Available: http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pdf/validate.asp?j=eerj&vol=6&issue=1& year=2007&article=1_Haugsbakk__EERJ_6_1_web, Accessed May 30, 2009. Heidegger, Martin. (1954/1977). The Question Concerning Technology. (Lovitt, W., Trans.) In The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 3-35. Johnston, James Scott & Simpson, Timothy L. (2006). The use of Socrates: Earl Shorris and the quest for political emancipation through the humanities. Educational Studies, 39, 1, 26-41. Kant, Immanuel. (1787/1929). Critique of pure reason. (N. K. Smith, Trans. & Ed.) London: Macmillan, (German first edition of original work published 1787). Lattas, Judy (2009a). Dear learner: Shame and the dialectics of enquiry. International Journal of the Humanities, 6, 11. —. (2009b). Inquiry based learning: A tertiary perspective. In Agora (Journal of the History Teachers’ Association of Victoria), 2009. Lattas, Judy (forthcoming). ‘Student engagement’: thoughts on the anniversary of the Tiananmen student uprising. Chapter in collection of papers from the Seventh International Conference on the Humanities (Beijing, China, 2-5 June 2009), ed. Kang Tchou. O’Byrne, Anne. (2005). Pedagogy without a project: Arendt and Derrida on teaching, responsibility and revolution. Studies in philosophy and education, 24, 389-409. Metcalfe, Andrew & Ann Game. (2006). The teacher’s enthusiasm. The Australian Educational Researcher, 33, 3.

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Morrison. Harriet B. (1988). Seven gifts a new view of teaching inspired by the philosophy of Maurice Merleau Ponty. Illinois: Northern Illinois University Educational Studies Press. Neville, Bernie. (2005). Educating Psyche: Emotion, imagination and the unconscious in learning Second edition. Greensborough, Vic.: Flat Chat Press, Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE. Peters, Michael & Biesta, Gert. (2009). Derrida, deconstruction and the politics of pedagogy. New York: Peter Lang. Pinkston, Ashley N. (2004). Being cyborg, teaching writing: Figuring a feminist practice in the computer composition classroom. MA thesis, North Carolina State University, Available: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/theses/available/etd-11232004171817/unrestricted/etd.pdf, Accessed May 30, 2009. Ryder, Valentina Abordonado, Barbara Heifferon, & Duane Roen. (2001). Multivocal midwife: The writing teacher as rhetor. In Laura GrayRosendale & Sibylle Gruber (eds), Alternative rhetorics: Challenges to the rhetorical tradition. New York: SUNY Press. Sartre, Jean Paul. (1940/1972). Psychology of the imagination (Frechtman, B. Trans.) London: Methuen. Stygall, Gail. (1998). Women and language in the collaborative writing classroom. In Susan C Jarratt & Lynn Worsham (eds.). Feminism and composition studies. New York: Modern Language Association. Trifonas, Peter Pericles & Michael A. Peters. (2004). Derrida, deconstruction, and education: Ethics of pedagogy and research. Oxford: Blackwell.

CHAPTER FOUR CONCEPT EXTERNALIZATION AS A TOOL FOR TEACHING MATHEMATICS MIKE BUTLER

“…where there is a sign, there man cannot be, and that where one makes signs speak, there man must fall silent.” —Michel Foucault

Introduction As a modestly learning disabled student, I often faced difficulties absorbing complex systems of information I encountered while moving through higher education. Semantic conventions, topic-specific jargon, contradictory information and a lack of contextual grounding would often confuse me immensely. To keep pace with my peers, I was driven to seek out different ways of organizing these challenging information systems in ways that made more sense to me. My first significant attempt at restructuring information in a more accessible format came while studying the seven Greek modes of western music theory during my undergraduate work. I developed a system using colored beads hanging from embroidery floss and toothpicks within a matrix made from grid-patterned closet organizer shelves to create a threedimensional image of the overlapping relationships and harmonies amongst the different scales. Showing the patterns of notes and their evolution across musical time brought compositions to visually stimulating embodiments even non-musicians could recognize and appreciate. This model proved very effective for me and through word of mouth, I ended up using this tool to successfully give music lessons to over a dozen people during my last years in college. The effectiveness of this conceptual externalization (CE) technique inspired me to explore whether even more complex systems could be accessed through this approach. I chose the field of mathematics since it is

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an oft-cited subject of intimidation and difficulty amongst everyday people as well as a discipline I am not personally comfortable with. As it was the process of modeling elements of music theory that opened the door to that field for me, I hoped to find a similar foothold within the discipline of mathematics during my graduate research. I began the math-modeling project by immersing myself in the subject matter with an eye towards patterns and relationships amongst the parts that might allow for generalizations and the establishment of contextual connections so that seemingly disparate information might be brought together into more coherent wholes. It soon became evident that the study of mathematics could reasonably be understood as a relatively linear, evolving conceptual process where advances in one facet facilitated growth in another. For instance, the conception of new types of arithmetical processes necessitated the development of more complex types of numbers while abstracting these basic procedures then led to the generalization we find in algebra. This body of knowledge expanding over time brought to mind the image of an upside-down cone, a picture that ultimately became the underlying framework onto which I built all the constituent parts I identified in my examination. The model presented here is simply one example that should be seen only as my personal foray into the infinitely complex field of mathematics. Judgment on what should be included and how representations were built were made with an eye towards simplicity, clarity and an appeal toward lay-audiences. Ultimately, laymen and scholars alike are encouraged to draw upon this technique to develop their own models that are directly relevant to their studies. While this manifestation of externalizing concepts is unique, the general concept is far from new. For instance, Cundy and Rollett (1961) published a popular book showing how to build physical models of different mathematic structures and processes. While mainly focused on geometric forms, they also touch on mechanical, logic and computing models. Writing from years of demonstrated classroom success with their creations, they proffer: The human mind can seldom accept completely abstract ideas; they must be derived from or illustrated by, concrete examples. Here the reader will find ways of providing for himself tangible objects which will bring that necessary contact with reality into the symbolic world of mathematics. (Cundy & Rollett 1961, p.13)

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The overarching purpose behind the development of my particular model was to demonstrate the design process and potential value of concept externalization. Taking the abstract and intangible and making it something more visceral and even personal can create an appeal to a wider audience than is currently being tapped into. When used in an appropriate setting, this approach to information has the potential to serve as a critical bridge for students to gain access to more traditional forms of notation and information presentation, whatever the field of study.

Foundations of the modeling process To effectively present an unorthodox technique such as this, keeping underlying intentions, assumptions and methods as transparent as possible seems prudent. To that end, I will now spell out some relevant details in the development of this modeling process. My approach to accomplishing this project first involved my reimmersion into the world of mathematics. Though I’d taken math classes in school up through college calculus, I sought to reexamine math from its most elementary subjects, drawing all the while on my experiences creating the music model – relying on imagination, visual thinking and sketching to help highlight relevant features and encourage retention while also fostering sincere engagement. From these inquiries, I sought to distill key descriptive elements of math’s structure and underlying distinctions that could then be translated into physical representations.

Ontological and epistemological assumptions Integral to my application of the concept externalization process is the view that the perception of information is subjective rather universally defined. To accurately assert any sort of universal knowledge would require some form of universal perception which seems impossible to prove since there would be nothing to compare it against for validity testing. If, however, our only knowledge of objects and ideas comes from ascertaining their properties rather than tapping into some sort of omnipresent understanding, the discernment of practical effects and functioning within the given environment becomes the most efficient way to operate. Translating information between mediums brings into play the concept of coherence, or logical consistency. For the models to be effective, a suitable level of coherence has to be maintained between formats. The

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tools described below, such as judgment, generalization and functionality, help to define the boundaries of structure, intention and ultimately the appropriate level of coherence for a model within a given situation.

Judgment A great many decisions requiring judgment calls are necessary when creating a model such as this, both in the gathering of information and in the design process. While these decisions are guided, in general, by the context and goal of the situation, admittedly they also include bias, both conscious and otherwise such as in the aesthetic leanings that affect the choices of materials, tools, images, etc. I don’t present the judgments made for this example model as definite or final, but rather as manifestations of the most thorough understanding I could come to under the constraints at the time. I strongly encourage readers/viewers to scrutinize my work in hopes of continuing improvement.

Generalization Generalization, or the ability to ascertain a unity amongst unconnected parts, has been described as critical to our survival, “…because it would otherwise be impossible to deal with the complexity of input information and the amount of computations it requires” (Meystel, 1995, p. 10). For this model, I explored different ways of generalizing mathematic constructs, looking for examples that manage a balance between accuracy, clarity and functionality, among other factors. While the process of generalization may be relatively simple to describe, its execution can require many decisions based on the researcher’s judgment. It is at this stage that the subjective nature of the presentation becomes readily apparent. With subjectivity comes disagreement and dissension. These disagreements can facilitate the improvement of the generalization in question. Again, transparency appears to be the most effective guideline when presenting the judgments necessary for the development of this, or any concept externalization model.

Functionality Functionality is a way of describing relationships within a given context, means and end (or goal). The dynamic nature of some goals can be challenging, often there are multiple targets that need to be met in a

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given challenge. Comparing the means to these ends often involves tradeoffs between higher and lower priority goals, requiring careful judgment. It is the judgment process that goes into these trade-offs that can create multiple ‘correct’ answers to the same problem, each depending on the individual viewpoint and bias. Individual judgment is also significant in a function-oriented approach, however, connecting information and delineating the decision making process can often be achieved in a more quantifiable fashion, depending on the ‘concreteness’ of the method and goal – judging whether psychotherapy has been successful is less ‘concrete’ than judging whether a broken bone has successfully healed. Considering the above, I submit a more descriptive definition of a functional approach would be accomplishing a goal(s) within the constraints of the context in which the action is undertaken.

High versus low-resolution models The low-resolution view of mathematics shown here serves as a vehicle for demonstrating the concept externalization process; however, it also offers the benefit of a holistic angle on a subject many people find intimidating and too large to wrap their heads around. By recontextualizing the information into something less overwhelming and even visually engaging, this simple example has the potential to reach out to a broader audience. Higher resolution or 'zoomed in' perspectives of more specific regions within math offer even more ways in which this tool can facilitate the learning process. I suggest a person's intellectual development can only be enhanced by the ability to move between large and small scale perspectives on a subject or collection of subjects. Excessive focus on the trees at the expense of the forest and vice versa can lead to short-sighted decision making with unforeseen consequences. An example of a higher resolution CE model could represent the intended curriculum for a given math program. This edifice could offer students a visual touchstone illuminating the relationships and interdependencies of what might otherwise appear to be disconnected parts. As whole numbers lead into addition and multiplication, soon integers become a nearly self-evident leap into facilitating subtraction. And as the process of division illuminates the need to work with numbers as ratios of each other, fractions, decimals, percentages and even square roots are not far behind.

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The representations of the elementary operations and their requisite parts shown later in this chapter could be expanded upon to show these further facets of arithmetic as they're to be covered in the curriculum. Simply building upon equivalencies is one possible approach – i.e. labeling half of a sphere as ½ and connecting it to subsequent half spheres each labeled 50%, .5 and ¥.25 respectively. Tailoring the model and its level of detail to the particular needs of the math program as well as the resources and aesthetic tastes of the teacher and students is part of the challenge and reward behind CE.

Imaginative education’s types of understanding The multifaceted approach to information presentation that concept externalization utilizes has the potential to be useful in all five phases of understanding described by Kieran Egan (Egan, 1992; 1997). Though Egan’s work only came to my attention after developing the modeling technique described in this chapter, the relevance is clear. The imaginative education framework works alongside the gradual development of language skills to effectively appeal to an individual's learning needs. Similarly, CE uses a wide range of cues to communicate information, from the prelinguistic, somatic appreciation of tactile data such as shape, texture and color, among others, to the complex weave of ironic meaning and subjectivity. This broad capacity allows CE to be relevant in all stages of a person's education. Just as specialized fields such as mathematics or music have developed their own form of written language comprised of unique vocabulary, semantic and syntactic rules, so too do CE models present their message with a kind of visual language defined by the structure, components and rules established during the design and building stages of any given model. The open-ended guidelines for creating externalized concept representations allows for a wide range of applications and linguistic constructions, with the designer's imagination being the biggest limiting factor. Since the evolving phases of understanding build upon rather than supplant each other, CE models like the one presented in this chapter assist the viewer in 'reading' the information across multiple layers of perception. Somatic learning is nurtured through features like self-evident demonstrations of concepts such as the combining of spheres to create a new whole (i.e. one sphere plus two others make three). Distinguishing elements and highlighting patterns with colors also appeal to our prelinguistic understanding of the world, as do the interactive moving

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parts such as the icons showing functions, derivatives and integrals. Additionally spatial relationships help place information into context, such as the way geometry maintains a separate identity until merging with the larger whole in the upper reaches of the algebra section. Beyond the somatic appeal of the visual stimulation, the hands-on procedure of physically building the models gives the user tactile stimulus that can help impress the data upon them. The trial and error process of putting together the derivative and integral models gave me a keener sense of the concept of limit values than I would have imagined. Feeling and seeing the parts fail or succeed required me to absorb the concept I was trying to represent much more deeply than simply working through a set of equations. Another benefit of this approach is presenting information to people without eliciting anxiety or triggering defense mechanisms such as those found in many math-phobic people. This unconscious, somatic response lies in the emotionally charged baggage many people bring to complex subjects like mathematics. With this math model and particularly with my earlier music model I have encountered a good number of people who discarded fearful apprehension for curiosity when examining the unorthodox-seeming contraptions. As language skills develop beyond the purely somatic, stories and simple metaphors begin their appeal. An effective CE model can be approached as a kind of narrative. The math model I built tells a story of concepts rising from prehistory, moving slowly at first, through the types of numbers facilitating new types of arithmetical processes, then evolving into a broader-scoped understanding of numbers and the workings of equations, until reaching a kind of pinnacle where geometry joins the whole to support the elementary components of calculus. This story telling reaches out to our mythic understanding of the world, drawing the viewer in despite preconceived notions of the subject matter. Using contrasting colors and physical arrangements to illuminate opposing constructs, another aspect of mythic understanding is touched upon. “Forming binary oppositions is a necessary consequence of using language...” (Egan, 1997, p. 37). In all three regions of the math tower (arithmetic, algebra and calculus), complimentary processes are presented in opposing colors such as black or white and placed on opposite sides of the cone from each other. Here again, viewers can glean information in an almost intuitive fashion. Giving viewers a physical image to view and interact with has its effective roots in the mental imaging that also begins in this mythic stage of development. For example, the interdependence of calculus, algebra

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and arithmetic are clearly portrayed in their progression up the central cone. By giving the viewer a straightforward, logical image to visualize, the likelihood of retention is greater, while information they learned later can be compared and connected to the mental image they have stored. For example, after exploring a model like the one in this chapter, a student being introduced to exponentiation can imagine its placement within the larger whole, putting it into an understandable context instead of just trying to absorb another disconnected piece of knowledge. Egan (1997) notes that an effective approach for engaging students in the romantic phase of understanding is by “…selecting questions that have surprising or wonder-inducing answers, and not getting tied down in systematic, detailed coverage of an issue” (p.219). This romantic environment is thoroughly established by challenging students to examine both new and familiar mathematic constructs in a hands-on setting where imagination, common sense and personal discovery play out using physical shapes, colors, written labels and the spatial relationships between them. The excitement of using (even creating) a completely new and individualized type of language to address what could be seen as a dry and mundane topic can indeed inspire awe and wonder. Students become like explorers on an expedition into a new world where anything is possible. The process of engaging this new information while designing and/or using three-dimensional representations creates unique experiences with personal discoveries that are their own to cherish and take pride in. The openness involved in the individual judgment students use to make their own sense of the subject matter frees them from being “…tied down in systematic, detailed coverage…” (ibid). Since students in the romantic stage of understanding may potentially struggle with the abstraction process inherent in building these models, greater participation by the teacher can help them find access to this way of viewing information. For instance, the teacher can build an example model of a relevant subject area, explaining the process along the way. Students can then be challenged to copy the teacher’s example but with full license to change details or improvise as they see fit. With an encouraging, enthusiastic facilitator moving about the room, answering questions and alleviating anxieties over the unfamiliarity of concept externalization, students can engage the process on a level appropriate for their stage of understanding. By using math’s conceptual evolution as a broad template to build upon, the functional roots of knowledge building are laid, facilitating student’s growth into the next phase of understanding – the philosophic.

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Since the philosophic stage of understanding involves the search for general laws behind phenomena and the use of this information to expose the ‘concrete particulars’ (Egan, 1997), concept externalization is in a unique position to aid in achieving this goal. The process of CE begins with the exploration of a body of knowledge, seeking out the core structure and underlying generalizations that connect seemingly disparate information. Giving physical form to the structures encountered offers an abstracted way of organizing and recording information that might otherwise be lost or unclear in a linear, written format. Once the general, holistic view is established, a more refined examination can be made of any constituent part, to whatever depth or level of resolution the researcher desires, building further models where appropriate. As new data is acquired, the general model can be adapted or even connected to other CE models, such as the way geometry begins independent of arithmetic and algebra but eventually joins to create a new, compound whole. Thus, a student in a philosophical curriculum can feed the desire to get a more accurate sense of general and interdisciplinary themes, while the door is always open to nail down particulars and detail-oriented information. All the while the ability to develop and utilize abstractions is nurtured into a powerful skill. Further, high-resolution models could be explored based on the lowresolution example pictured in this chapter. Students could start with this rough outline as a general view showing some of math’s core structural characteristics. The facilitator could then discuss the model’s parts and why they were included while others were not. The next phase would challenge individuals or small groups to add more detailed representations of mathematic processes, i.e. exponentiation, develop their own versions of the generalized concepts or even add elements they feel should have been included in the first place. In this manner, students can explore both the very general and the very specific, as the situation warrants. To accomplish these tasks, participants will have to draw upon traditional math notation and information resources to research the ideas behind their chosen subject to design and build effective three-dimensional representations, thereby exercising a diverse array of cognitive tools. This meshing of CE with the established language and notation of math is at the heart of making this approach a practical part of a mathematics curriculum. While laying out the foundations of the modeling process at the beginning of this chapter, it may have become clear that spelling out my own ironic understanding of this project is critical to its long-term viability

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as well as to sincere, intellectual honesty. Subjectivity of perception, relativity of meaning and personal bias all affect the application of this technique. These issues also offer the discerning reader/user opportunities for exploration and improvement. The boundaries that guided me to the choices made for this example model can flex to another’s understanding, opening doors I can’t even imagine. One of the most obvious ‘rules’ that could be changed would be to use computer-modeling software instead of physical components. For me, a physically manipulable structure with readily accessible, low-cost components is vital to the effectiveness of this technique. However, different educators and students with different priorities and resources could easily adapt the CE process to a computerfriendly environment, if they so choose. Another change might be in the degree of generalization deemed acceptable. For example, instead of the simple three-step process I used for representing derivatives and integrals, a more thorough example could be sought that further drives home the notion of limit values. Again, I heartily encourage the critical, ironic thinker to examine my assumptions and discover what works for them and their situation.

Lev Vygotsky and mediated learning Concept externalization's relevance also finds validation in Lev Vygotsky's framework of mediating agents for facilitating learning. The significance of images in communicating information is highlighted in the following comment by two educators working with Vygotsky’s ideas: The image can carry the imagination to inhabit in some sense the object of our study and inquiry. By such means mathematics and physics, history and auto mechanics are not conceived as external things that the student learns facts about but become a part of the student; students thus learn that they are mathematical, historical, mechanical creatures. (Egan & Gajdamaschko, 2003, p. 91)

Vygotsky's distinctions of three major classes of mediators: the material, the psychological and the human all play a role in the modeling process of concept externalization. While much of Vygotsky's writing focuses on children's development of language and literacy from elementary interactions with the real world and their early use of symbols, CE is geared more towards physical systems of signs and their ability to simplify complex topics for people of all ages. Even so, the process of moving between symbolic systems and languages (or coherent bodies of knowledge) has many similarities. “For

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Vygotsky... the true subject of learning is an integrative whole that includes the child, the adult and the symbolic tool provided by a given society” (Kozulin, 1998, p. 3). As children replace objects with signs and ‘representational gestures’ for these objects, they develop, “...a very complex system of speech through gestures that communicate and indicate the meaning of playthings” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 108 in Kozulin 1998, p. 18). With this type of play, the child learns the relationships among symbols, the signifier and the signified, which then forms the foundation for language development (Kozulin, 1998). One way to think of the CE model design and construction process involves a kind of reversal of this language building evolution. Abstract concepts are recontextualized into new representational gestures that speak to the individual designer(s). These new representations can then be ‘played’ with until an effective object or symbol is developed or stumbled upon. From these elementary foundations, the subject matter is thus stripped of debilitating baggage such as the intimidation many feel in the face of complex systems such as mathematics. Students are now an integral part of the language building process of the field and can then delve into the recapitulation process whereby they reengage the system through their own psychological and newly developed material tools along with the mediation of a human facilitator. The value of these psychological tools in Vygotsky's conception of cognitive development cannot be overstated. Psychological tools are those symbolic artifacts – signs, symbols, texts, formulae, graphic-symbolic devices – that help individuals master their own “natural” psychological functions of perception, memory, attention and so on. Psychological tools serve as a bridge between individual acts of cognition and the symbolic sociocultural prerequisites of these acts. (Kozulin, 1998, p. 1)

By opening the door to elaborate or even obtuse knowledge systems with a psychological tool as unique and powerful as concept externalization, a wider population of students can be ushered into a world hitherto restricted to them. And with this added diversity of learning strengths thus included, the potential growth of the newly accessed field is thrown wide open. Another vital element of the learning process researched by Vygotsky was concept formation. He saw concepts as inseparable from images (Egan & Gajdamaschko, 2003). In collaboration with Vygotsky and based on the earlier work of Narciss Ach, Leonid Sakharov developed a

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technique called ‘double stimulation’ where pupils sorted objects distinguished by multiple cues such as size, shape, color as well as textual labels (Kozulin, 1998). This effective approach led other researchers to explore the method further where it was ultimately applied to an educational setting by Jozephina Shif (Kozulin, 1998). Two interconnected types of concept formation were eventually distinguished: the systematic and hierarchically organized theoretical form versus the empirical approach grounded in everyday experience. Both approaches have their benefits and deficits, but when combined together they form a potent mechanism for imparting conceptual information. In working its slow way upward, an everyday concept clears the path for a scientific concept in its downward development. It creates a series of structures necessary for the evolution of a concept's more primitive, elementary aspects, which gives it body and vitality. Scientific concepts, in turn, supply structures for the upward development of the child's spontaneous concepts toward consciousness and deliberate use. (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 194 in Kozulin 1998, p. 20)

Concept externalization encourages this bottom up/top down approach by combining technical, hierarchical information with hands on, empirical exploration of information. As the theoretical data is manipulated by students into real-world representations, the redundant cues and labels such as shape, color, size, spatial distinction and text labels connect directly to Sakharov's technique of double stimulation. Likewise, CE models can also be used as a real-world starting point from which to build hierarchical, theoretical knowledge through the exploration of higher resolution examples as well as connecting to traditional learning resources such as math text books. Again, it bears repeating, the more learning methods appealed to in an education setting, the greater the likelihood of the students being successful.

Translating a concept into an externalization Introduction The process by which concepts are translated into physical forms is unique to the individual or group involved. For instance, some of my music students begin by using textual resources from which they sketch two-dimensional diagrams that eventually lead them into the external, 3D models. Others develop (or use pre-existing) diagrams and threedimensional models from the patterns they discover while practicing with

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their instrument, only later touching on more formal resources to refine and expand on what they’ve already encountered. Particular learning strengths and comfort zones seem to play a significant role in how a student makes the transition from abstraction into externalization. For the purposes of this chapter, I will describe my personal translation process used for developing the mathematics model. For me, learning new information often relies on a visualization process that in turn draws upon imagination, previously encountered images and preconceived frameworks. It is the complexity derived from the interrelationship and evolution of these images that can necessitate a three-dimensional view of the subject matter. For example, mapping out the components of a three-part harmony while moving through time makes little sense to me in standard music notation but when translated into a three-dimensional matrix, the patterns become immediately intelligible to my eye. Working with these images in my imagination alone was sufficient for school until I began to reach more complex subjects in college. I struggled with calculus, for instance. The tricks I’d developed for making sense of arithmetic and algebra were not up to the new information calculus made available to me. This difficulty I encountered contributed significantly to the redirecting of my academic career away from hard science. During my second year in college, the new challenge of studying music theory opened the door to mental images that were elaborate yet still accessible. Attempting to bring some form to these dynamic patterns seemed like the obvious path to follow. From this early effort to the model pictured here, the process I use to translate a concept into some physical form remains basically the same. Working through trial and error, a combination of imagination, 2D sketches and 3D models help me to brainstorm, test and refine my ideas until a suitable representation is found. Of course, all of the previously described forces play a role in the creation of these externalized concepts – judgment, generalization, functionality, etc. For the math model, I sifted through the available data, seeking distinctions, patterns, or natural groupings that seemed to occur in the information. My focus, at first, was on the general picture of mathematics, looking for broad categories or encompassing descriptions. Once these began to become clear, I sought to understand what, more specifically, defined and/or distinguished one region from another. Three-dimensional representations of these key characteristics were subsequently developed using more trial and error, feedback from peers and educators as well as creative thinking. Their design is intended to

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clearly label and/or demonstrate the different areas of math within the larger three-dimensional framework as well as impart some notion of the relationship between these parts, such as the way calculus, algebra and arithmetic are connected, both physically and conceptually.

Prehistory Many researchers have noted patterns and symmetrical representations in prehistoric art that suggest a nascent conceptualization of mathematical and geometric concepts (Newman, 1956). Given this, the structural base on which the entire model is constructed represents these prehistorical foundations. Spray-painted black and labeled ‘prehistoric beginnings of mathematics and geometry’, the bottom of the model is composed of two parts – a particleboard disk about 17” in diameter plus a 4”x 9” Styrofoam cone attached in the middle with nails and glue. Five examples of these early patterns and mathematical constructs are attached to the black cone, spiraling towards its tip.

Figure 1 - Prehistoric conceptualizations of mathematics and geometry

I opted to use a cone in this place because it helps to suggest a progression from the general and undistinguished into a more pointed/directed focus. Similarly, I’ve used a gray 30” tall Styrofoam cone placed upside-down, tip-to-tip with the cone from the prehistory portion to act as the core structure for this mathematics model. A ¼” thick, 30” long wooden dowel connects the two cones together. This reverse cone shape seemed appropriately evocative of math’s expansion

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from its fairly modest beginnings into an ever-broadening field of inquiry. I also hope to imply to the viewer that beneath the surface of this humble presentation lies a great deal more information – what’s seen here is only a glimpse, the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

Arithmetic As the tips of the two cones meet – prehistory becoming history – where early conceptions are developed into rules and operations, ½” wide strips of paper begin winding their way up the entirety of the 30” inverted cone to represent the key laws/properties of arithmetic and their pervasiveness through math’s later manifestations. Each with their own colour of paper, the commutative, associative, identity, inverse and distributive properties, are labeled and demonstrated using traditional mathematical script. For example, “Law of Commutative Addition and/or Multiplication means: 1 + 2 = 2 + 1 OR 1 x 2 = 2 x 1”. The four fundamental operations of arithmetic and the evolving conceptions of numbers associated with them are also presented at this early point in math’s beginnings. A paper strip labeled, ‘Natural numbers: 1, 2, 3, etc’, connects the prehistory section to the addition representation. Similar labels for integers and rational numbers connect to subtraction, multiplication and division, respectively. The operations of arithmetic are shown with simple demonstrations of the processes using 1” Styrofoam spheres attached to the central cone via thin skewers. For instance, a paper label showing 1+2=3 is glued across three side-by-side skewers with one, two and three foam spheres on them, respectively. Subtraction is shown as simply the reverse of addition while multiplication and division are presented in the same fashion only using the equations 2x3=6 and 6÷3=2 for their examples.

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Figure 2 - Core operations of arithmetic: Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division

Algebra One of the basic features distinguishing algebra from arithmetic is algebra’s use of unknown quantities, or variables, in its equations. To present this construct, I simply duplicated the representation of the arithmetic operations using cubes instead of spheres and labeled them with variables rather than specific numbers, i.e. x+y=z. Additionally, the colored strips of paper showing the laws of arithmetic are restated using variables in place of numbers at the same point on the model as the general operations are being represented.

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Figure 3 - Core operations of algebra

The processes of transposition and cancellation are also definitive elements of algebra. While the first allows quantities to be moved, or transposed, from one side of an equation to another, the second involves removing like terms that appear on both sides of an equation. To represent these processes, I continued with the format involving foam spheres and cubes. The example equation I chose was 2+3=x+2 with the x being composed of 3 cubes since it can be solved with either transposition or cancellation, thus facilitating a more aesthetically coherent, circular representation.

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Figure 4 - Transposition and cancellation

Functions Another key facet of algebra are functions, which are defined by Lejeune Dirichlet as, “… a correspondence that assigns a unique value of the dependent variable to every permitted value of an independent variable” (Gullberg, 1997, p. 336). For example, the cost of a portion of flour is a function of its weight. For this model, a car moving in relation to time seemed like an effective concept with which to demonstrate this process. The representation I built is composed of three progressively smaller paper disks mounted on a skewer via separate hubs cut from a plastic straw. The largest disc is in

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back, colored white with the outline of a paper car glued at the edge. The slightly smaller middle disk is gray and has regularly spaced, numbered hash marks. This stationary wheel offers a static context for measuring the distance traveled by the car on the spinning white disk. The front, black disk is the smallest with white marks for measuring the change in time. The front and back disks have short sewing threads glued to their hubs with weights at their ends. The wheels spin after the threads are rolled up onto the hubs and released, offering a working example of a function. Additionally, a paper label identifies the representation and gives brief descriptions explaining the features. In this case, the label in the middle says, ‘Function, a car’s distance over time’ while on the left is noted, ‘Black wheel: shows time changing’ and the right side says, ‘Grey wheel: a static space to measure against’.

Figure 5 - A function, A car’s distance as a function of time

Calculus Exploring functions further, calculus begins by utilizing the concept of limit values to determine the instantaneous rate of change using functions. This dynamicism posed a challenge towards incorporation into the model. In the literature I consulted, the process of finding limit values was often described as a series of progressively refined measurements of a function, eventually leading to a reasonably definitive answer. In a somewhat vain attempt to imply this process, I constructed three more of the above described function models, and attached them diagonally around the top of the central cone. The weighted strings on the turning wheels get progressively shorter between the three functions, suggesting a smaller and

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smaller measurement of the function on the way towards finding the limit value. One group of three functions comparing the car’s speed over time to gauge acceleration is labeled ‘Derivative’ with the description, ‘By measuring the distance a vehicle travels over progressively smaller amounts of time, its speed can be determined’. Below that it says, ‘Here, the gray wheel shows distance traveled’. The converse of this process is shown by a similar group of three function models on the opposite side of the cone labeled, ‘Integral’ and describes the distance traveled by the car over time with the gray wheel measuring the speed traveled.

Figure 6 - A derivative

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Figure 7 - An integral

Geometry Like arithmetic, modern geometry’s roots lay deep within prehistory, as evidenced from the patterns, designs and structures archeologists have uncovered. Early historical accounts describe Mesopotamian and Egyptian ‘rope-stretchers’ (Struik, 1948, p. 7) who used basic geometry to measure land. Representing this phase on the model is a wire wrapped in thread (to evoke the image of a rope) extending from the black, prehistory cone and bending back on itself into the shape of a square at the same height as the beginning of the gray, ‘historical’ cone. The next significant phase addresses the period in which the ancient Greeks brought a systematic approach to exploring geometric figures. First within planes and later in three dimensions, the discipline developed by the Greeks inspired the examination of an increasingly wide variety of shapes. Ultimately, the development of the Cartesian coordinate system established a sort of ‘common ground’ where information could be effectively translated between the mediums of geometry and algebra in what’s now called analytical geometry. Physically representing this evolution was done with a series of geometric figures cut from thin foam board (representing planes) and Styrofoam which are mounted on wooden skewers and stuck into the central cone, spiraling up until the final piece – a conical section – is

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within the 2-sided lattice mounted on the central cone at the top of the algebra section representing analytical geometry. Draped (and glued) across the ramp made by the skewers holding the geometric shapes are ten strips of paper, each describing a different postulate or common notion as presented by Euclid in his book Elements.

Figure 8 - Geometric evolution

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Figure 9 - Analytical geometry

The model as a whole Below are pictures of the complete model from two different sides.

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Figure 10 - Two views of the complete model

Implications to the curriculum and for educators Concept externalization has a wide range of implications within both traditional and imaginative educational settings. Since the building materials and modeling methods are very accessible and low-tech, teachers could try very simple experiments with the technique in their classrooms or lecture halls - a far cry from investing in costly new software or other equipment. For instance, when first introducing derivatives and integrals, the group can first explore the concept of incrementally measuring towards the limit values by creating simple interactive demonstrations of the dynamic concept. The traditional mathematics notation can then be progressively introduced as a way to give students a tool for understanding

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what they’ve built and how it works. Ideally, this approach can communicate to students that the established notation is a convenience established through trial and error rather than a concrete edifice removed from real-world experience, thus humanizing the language of math. As noted in the above examples, CE models can be built at various degrees of resolution depending on the needs of the curriculum. By working from both the high and low-resolution approaches in due course, Vygotsky's and Sakharov's double stimulation approach can be taken advantage of to optimize the learning experience. When integrating concept externalization into more traditional curriculums, it’s important to remember this tool is intended to function as a bridge between the student’s understanding of the world and the language of the new body of knowledge they are encountering. As in the above example, the creative exploration is balanced by the introduction to the methods and terminology of the traditional discipline; the two approaches complement each other. CE also has the potential to flourish within many programs directed at those with learning disabilities. Presenting data in multiple, sometimes redundant formats is possibly the most significant characteristic of this model that suggests it could be useful to a wide range of students, particularly those with disabilities. As the United States National Institute for Literacy notes, For most individuals, and especially individuals with learning disabilities, the more modalities that are used, the better the chance that the input will be remembered. Thus, many programs for individuals with learning disabilities encourage the use of multiple input channels. (NIL, 1999)

While this tool includes more common representation mediums such as color and shape distinction along with traditional written labels, it also taps into a wider range of learning strengths by utilizing diagrammatic distinctions in spatial relationships, demonstrative representations or models within models as well as the experience of hands-on interaction. By offering multiple avenues for a viewer to gain access to the information, more people are likely to be able to participate in the learning process. For teaching mathematics to learning disabled students, one researcher, Asha Jitendra, describes the value of using graphic representations that can allow students to organize information in the problem to facilitate problem translation and solution. The external representation (e.g., diagrams) may serve to reduce a learner’s cognitive processing load and make available

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This is precisely one of the advantages of concept externalization – the structures translated from concepts are readily accessible while purely abstract understandings of mental constructs can become disorganized, transient or lost in the short-term memory. By lightening the amount of disconnected information a student has to memorize, CE can make it easier for people to gain access to the vocabulary and functioning of complex systems. As Cundy and Rollett put it, “There is no doubt that we all appreciate and remember much more easily the properties of something we have actually seen; even more so if we have actually made it” (1961, p.14). By creating representations in more than just the two-dimensional environment, the user’s ability to model a diversity of situations grows, as does the visceral connection they can build with the information. Dr. Jitendra suggests this technique is effective because, “…it emphasizes instruction that goes beyond the mastery of algorithms used to perform operations to focus more on the semantic structure of problems” (Jitendra, 2002). As for individual educators, they will have another tool in their kit that may be used and adapted as they see fit. Another interesting potential of CE is that connecting creative skills with analytical skills opens the door to educators reaching across traditional barriers, enabling art teachers to contribute to science and math while math and science teachers can get their hands dirty with creative projects. If concept externalization became widely implemented, some academics would likely feel threatened by their domains being intruded upon. Different academic disciplines can sometimes clash, as cultures do when they bump up against each other. It’s an understandable response; these sub-cultures value and sometimes even guard their identity. Nonetheless, I hope this and other creative pursuits break down the barriers that offer impedance to students and researchers alike. Reframing established disciplines can contribute to their ultimate longevity as more people are able to participate in and enhance these fields, keeping them relevant and structurally sound as new information becomes available.

Conclusions This modeling technique is offered here as a way to hack yet another pathway through the obfuscating morass that separates too many people from complex systems such as mathematics. Indeed, the notion of turning

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an idea or process into a symbol or model is only one component of a larger framework. The human mediator plays several important roles in implementing CE, not least of which in balancing the enthusiastic encouragement of creativity with functional boundaries aimed at reaching a specific goal. At the same time, access to appropriate information resources will no doubt contribute dramatically to the effectiveness of the learning sessions built around the design and construction of these models. Having access to varying descriptions of the same topic can give would-be model builders a broader sense of perspective from which to develop their own understanding of the subject. Imaginative education’s characterization of the five types of understanding and the associated cognitive tools has great potential to serve as an encompassing framework in which new approaches to systems of information, such as the one presented in this chapter, can flourish. Many of these cognitive tools from different types of understanding are nourished by various phases of the concept externalization process. As Egan notes, the greatest benefits come from building upon pedagogic frameworks established in prior stages of understanding. Thus, exposure to this approach to information in the somatic, mythic and romantic phase of a student’s growth will make it all the more effective as they apply it to complex information encountered as they move onto a philosophic and ultimately, ironic understanding of the world. While focusing on the more elementary aspects of mathematics is expedient for a presentation such as this, it should be noted that CE has the potential to be rewarding at many levels of expertise, the only significant limitation being the knowledge and imagination of the user(s). Serious students of mathematics may find the appropriate model a useful aid to illuminate a difficult concept, but many others have found congenial relaxation in creative activity; and learning proceeds fastest in a pleasurable context. (Cundy & Rollett, 1961, p. 278)

A final point worth highlighting is that I see this conceptual externalization approach as constantly evolving. I’ve experienced its benefits personally and have witnessed its effectiveness in my music students. Eventually, an empirical examination of CE will be invaluable for identifying its strengths and weaknesses as well as its overall effectiveness. Until then, I shall continue to explore further ways in which this technique can become more coherent and useful. I look forward to others, scholars and laymen alike, mulling over the ideas offered here and developing, improving or simply adapting them for their specific needs.

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References Cundy, H. & Rollett, A. (1961). Mathematical models. London: Oxford University Press. Egan, K. (1991). Imagination in teaching and learning: The middle school years. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —. (1997). The educated mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. Egan, K. & Gajdamaschko, N. (2003). Some cognitive tools of literacy. In Alex Kozulin, Boris Gindis, Vladimir S. Ageyev and Suzanne M. Miller. (eds). Vygotsky's educational theory in cultural context. New York Cambridge University Press. Foucault, M. (1998). Aesthetics, method and epistemology. New York: The New York Press. Gullberg, J. (1997). Mathematics from the birth of number. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Jitendra, A. (2002). Teaching students math problem-solving through graphic representations. Teaching Exceptional Children. 34, 4, 34-38. Kozulin, A. (1998). Psychological tools: A sociocultural approach to education. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Mead, GH. (1982). The individual and the social self: Unpublished work of George Herbert Mead (D. L. Miller, Ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Meystel, A. (1995). Semiotic modeling and situation analysis: An Introduction. Cynwyd, Pennsylvania: AdRem Inc. National Institute for Literacy. (1999). From bridges to practice: A researched-based guide for literacy practitioners serving adults with learning disabilities. Viewed 24 April 2009

Newman, J.R. (1956). The world of mathematics. Volumes 1-4. New York: Simon & Schuster. Struik, D.J. (1948). A concise history of mathematics. New York: Dover Publications.

CHAPTER FIVE SHELLS, SPIRALS, AND MUSINGS OF MIRRORS DAVID BULEY AND JAN BULEY

Introduction This article will endeavour to capture an ongoing conversation between two educators about their observations and explorations of imagination in education. David leads courses in music education, and Jan explores literacy and drama with pre-service teachers at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. They continue to question the state of imaginative practice in their own teaching and learning, in the professional landscape of the university, in the schools that they visit, and in their interactions with humanity and the world around them. JAN: I’ll begin here: Are we now teaching students in schools who have completely lost the ability to wonder about things? Are we teaching students who are so desperate to be told – and told quickly – why something is the way it is, that we have completely lost the ability to be curious? Are learners waiting to be told how to think because we are so eager to tell them how to think? Perhaps there is no time for wondering any more. I read somewhere that the average wait time is a maximum of twenty seconds for a Google search engine to fulfill its mission in finding the information we seek. We want facts. And we want facts in a hurry. We seem to live in a hurry up and make your lunch, hurry up and get out the door to school, hurry up and finish your project on the dolphin, hurry up and hand in your peace poetry, hurry up and get in the car to your piano lesson, hurry up and eat your dinner, hurry up and do your homework world. It’s a hurry up lifestyle that many families seem to be trapped in, without time to wonder about an ant that might be attempting to build its shelter in a sidewalk crack. “Sometimes to be sure, imagination is sparked by frenzy. But frenzy is generally not a sustainable life strategy. Quiet the mind. Unplug. A BlackBerry has no icon for imagination. Do one thing at

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a time. Then do no thing at a time” (Liu & Noppe-Brandon, 2009, p.45). Not only is there limited time for children or parents to wonder and push the pause button, but I am beginning to wonder whether schools – due to a preoccupation with accountability and assessment – are eliminating curiosity from the learning environment as well. DAVID: Yes. And it seems that there are increased safety issues associated with a child spending time alone wondering about her life or her place in the world. I think that our education systems work hard to form students in ways of living in the world: becoming aware of dangers, learning how to protect oneself, how to act in society, how to think critically and so on. Educators try hard to help children become inured to social pressures, and the multitude of proclaimed negative influences in their lives. Consequently, in acquiring these life skills, children learn well the habit of noticing very little, inheriting a systematized individuality in opposition to other humans and to their environment. JAN: I’m reminded of a trip to a large hardware store on a Saturday morning, when I happened upon about fifteen children between the ages of eight and twelve years, assembled for a birdhouse-building class while their parents shopped in the store. It was a dreadful event to witness and I have to admit that I was immediately lured from several aisles over by the sound of a child shrieking “But I don’t want my birdhouse to look like that!” I had to go and see what the noise was all about, being mindful that things can be learned from even the most horrific teaching. I watched as the older gentleman from the lumber department (with ‘Art’ embroidered on his store uniform shirt) held up the finished product. The exemplar birdhouse he showed the thirty pairs of eyes was bright blue with an orange roof, and it had a little silver hook on top in order to suspend it from a tree branch, I supposed. Art glanced at his watch, grimaced, and then attempted to show the children how to assemble the triangular pieces onto the ends of the roof. One girl nearest to the aisle got up and left the class, taking her birdhouse pieces with her in search of her parent. The child who had shouted “But I don’t want my birdhouse to look like that!” was still attempting to make his point known, and Art was deliberately ignoring him. Another child began to cry, apparently unable to hold the nails in place and hammer at the same time with the child-size tools provided. Art circulated around the small group, making sure that everyone had the pre-cut pieces in the right place and, with more than one child, hammered the nails into place for them. One older child had already quickly put his birdhouse together and had begun painting it blue and

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orange, mimicking the model that Art had shown the children at the beginning of the session. I walked away in search of the garden hose attachment I had originally set out to purchase, but found myself preoccupied with the birdhouse event. In fact, I left the store emptyhanded because I was so distracted by the teaching and learning about art, with Art. I found myself troubled and questioned the scene throughout the weekend. How did imaginative problem-solving get erased in the birdhouse building? Who designs such events? How is this encounter with proposed creativity imprinted on the minds of children who are born such imaginative thinkers? What is the ‘so what’ of an experience like this?

The experience of wonder DAVID: Do you recall in Through the Looking Glass, (Carroll, 1871) where the White Queen remembers best the “things that happened the week after next.” She informs Alice that a memory that works both ways is far preferable to one that only works backwards. How much of schooling involves an exclusive conditioning of minds to use memory retroactively? Could education be about learning to use our memories both ways: not only backwards, but forwards too—remembering and ‘premembering’, perhaps! JAN: What do you mean by that? DAVID: How about if I explain it this way: How much of a child’s school day is spent recalling factual information? What is 63 divided by 9? What is the capital city of Alberta? Who are the enemies of the Capulets? What is the cambium layer in a tree? When did the British North America Act come into effect? Who was Ernest MacMillan and why is he important in Canadian music? Where is Nunavut? Discrete answers to stock questions about obvious subjects result in stifled imaginations and limited capacities for curiosity. Ah! – here is Marshal McLuhan, waiting to interrupt me. Years ago he noticed something about conceptual transitions from era to era (McLuhan, 1964), and asserted that, “Intensity of stress on visual blueprinting and precision is an explosive force that fragments the world of power and knowledge alike.” He indicated that striving for precision and exactness has the consequence of obsolescing multi-layered questions that may have open-ended answers. McLuhan stressed that an increased concern for ‘perspective’ in late Renaissance art extended toward a concern for

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establishing a single point of view – the development of logical argument with conclusions. Could it be that much of our inherited education system is mired in a desire for one single, quantifiable point of view? Too focused a point of view eliminates the potential for further questions, frames of reference and inquiry. Education that continually opens learners to a world of questions without answers, and to answers that invite further questions, more readily creates opportunities for extension of subject interest, expansion of the mind, and the authentic accessing of the human spirit. What would happen if we could embrace the concept of ‘premembering’? Because I believe this idea has a lot to do with being imaginative. JAN: I am wondering if ‘pre-membering’ happens as it did for Derek. He’d only thought about plaster in connection to breaking his arm as a nine year old, when his mother, a nurse, applied a plaster cast to his arm. Fast forward to twenty-one year old Derek, now a student teacher in a university art class, working on a plaster mask project. The playful tactile reacquaintance with the plaster is a joyous and reckless exploration with the medium. Derek is able to see plaster with new eyes. Much depends on what you have discovered when you have reflected on your own experiences (Greene, 2001). DAVID: Neat. I came to this ‘pre-membering’ idea after spending time with the ideas of aesthetic education as upheld by the Lincoln Center Institute. A significant aspect of aesthetic education evolves from inviting students and teachers into engagements with works of art through previous experiences they have had in their lives. Just like Derek. This, in turn, offers the participants a connection to identifiable aspects of the work of art being experienced. What results are opportunities for noticing specific materials or techniques employed in creating the work, connecting emotionally with the work or aspects of the work, and further intrigue and inquiry about the particular work, the creating artist, and other similar works of art. It’s in the connecting of one’s self experientially to the work of art that aesthetic education realizes its goals. This way of encountering art allows engagement ‘from the inside out’, with connections and inquiry arising from within the learner, rather than through prescribed understandings given out by an arbitrary authority. As Johnson and Lew (Holzer & Noppe-Brandon, 2005, p. 82) attest, “The capacity to discover art in the experiences of everyday life is the experience of wonder that feeds the imagination and motivates child-initiated learning.” This is the

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sort of engagement I call ‘pre-membering’, and involves becoming familiar with various aspects of the art before we meet the art itself. This can include direct experiences in having played within a possibly limited artistic medium before experiencing a work that significantly employs that medium. JAN: I’m thinking about the spiralling that took place for both of us as a result of our Lincoln Centre week... how, after exploring the making of a structure and only being able to use curved lines, and then witnessing that really neat twisting roof garden sculpture, my eyes were opened to seeing spirals everywhere in New York City. Lamp-posts that had just been lamp-posts took on new beauty, the way traffic snaked down Avenue of the Americas held new intrigue. Even conversations overheard on the subway revealed beauty in their layers and snippets. I came home with my mind brimming with poetry and we had lengthy conversations about the new connections we were both seeing. All of this, spiralling out of a concoction of experiences with the world. DAVID: We seem to be fixated on imagination within the arts. For me, and I suspect for you too, that’s because I inhabit the arts in all of my waking and sleeping life in some way or another. And I’m very comfortable there. JAN: So what makes us comfortable there and when are we uncomfortable? DAVID: I’m uncomfortable when a product is promoted as being more important than the quality of the process that gets to the product. JAN: I agree with that, and I also think we’re both more comfortable being a bit deviant. We’re not comfortable conforming. Liu and NoppeBrandon (2009) talk about that too when they elaborate on the importance of breaking out of the mundane or the expected. Maybe deviation is connected to freeing oneself, and freeing oneself is key to releasing the imagination process, I think.

Responsibility and the art of noticing DAVID: But not all education that has a product as its goal – a performance of some sort or a test – is necessarily unimaginative. Perhaps this depends on what we mean by goal. I recall my high school classes in

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trigonometry, aiming for a very specific ‘O Level Examination’ with a lot of memorization needed, but taught in ways that were amusing, odd, and, in retrospect, rather imaginative. As I think about it now, however, there was a fair amount of responsibility given over to the learner. I have also sung in choirs where the conductor avoided imposing a particular meaning on a piece being prepared for performance. Yet, he fully expected that each singer would take responsibility for connecting deeply, imaginatively and spiritually with that music. Through an integrated process of delving deeply into the elements and structures of the music and some of the motivations of the composer, we were immersed into a conviction that without such connections being made by each member of the performing ensemble, no true performance (product) would have become possible. But the goals of that process of learning the piece for the ‘test’ of the performance were about each performer taking the responsibility for acquiring a degree of meaning in that preparation. I doubt whether any two performers took the same meaning for that process or in the music itself, but quite certainly each of us was engaged imaginatively throughout the process. I think what I experienced in those choirs is realized fully in the concept of R. Murray Schafer’s Theatre of Confluence. Schafer, an important Canadian composer and educator, explains this concept as “a kind of theatre in which all the arts may meet, court and make love. Love implies a sharing of experience; it should never mean the negation of personalities. This is the first task: to fashion a theatre in which all the arts are fused together, but without negating the strong and healthy character of each” (Schafer, 2002, p. 26). Schafer expects that each participant shed the envy of ‘other’ in order to relish a complete self-emptying kenosis. This is a lofty goal, but one which provides a powerful grounding for truth in the artistic experience – whether for performer/creator or audience/ viewer. Could imaginative education be a place in which no personality is negated for the sake of some so-called correct way of seeing the world? JAN: Cool! Immediately I am reminded of the first time that I heard R. Murray Schafer’s Snowforms (Schafer, 1998). For me, attending to and listening to a piece of music is a holistic experience. It is a journey. Much of that journey is dependent on where the listener is, mentally and emotionally, when entering the space. Have I ever witnessed a snowstorm outside my window? Have I heard and really listened to the wind whistling around a crack in my doorway? But would it matter if I hadn’t? Program notes and comments about a painting at a gallery often tell us what someone thinks we should know, and while these snippets can be interesting and propel us to want to know more, they can also be reasons

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for closing down curiosity. “I guess that’s all I need to know about why Handel wrote Messiah,” one might conclude after reading program notes at a concert, or, “Oh. That’s what the painting is about.” Imaginative teaching and learning should be about opening up new possibilities and inviting listeners and participants to consider a new viewpoint or to look – to really look – again. I’m recalling the visits to the Metropolitan Museum that we made as part of the Lincoln Centre Institute. After finding a spot on the carpet in front a piece of art, the first question posed each time was: “What do you notice?” From this seemingly simple question, the group members would name what they noticed in a painting, making guesses as to how the paint was applied perhaps, making statements about things they saw. “I notice that the painting has a border of yellow and blue.” “I notice that there is a ladder in the far right corner going up to the window.” “I notice that the lady in the painting looks old and is looking across the lake at something.” “I notice that the painting is done on a license plate.” DAVID: And that noticing is absolutely unlimited, infinite and can go on every time you look at that same painting when you return to the gallery next year, or fifteen years from now. And it’s the same for every single person who has been asked simply to notice. We have a paper wasps’ nest suspended in our living room. Whenever people come to our house for the first time – students, friends, children, family – inevitably and eventually, someone will notice something about the wasp nest. Many think it’s a bees’ nest. Some wonder how it got there, whether there are any living residents inside it. We rarely say much about the presence of the nest. “I never realized that they were so strong.” “Look at the colours in the grey parts!” And so the work of art made by the wasps continues to illicit questions and noticings and wonderings. Even we continue to notice and wonder about it. JAN: So how does one come to some degree of comfort in questioning and wondering aloud? How is it that I am so comfortable in using my imagination in teaching and learning, and yet in the classroom next to me, the grade four teacher feels compelled to use scripted curriculum documents with predesigned worksheets? What holds one human being captive and yet frees another? There are many experienced and novice teachers who seem to fear any deviation from a prescribed curriculum or meticulously planned lesson. I’ve seen it so often: those lesson plans that state in the first sentence, “The learner will be able to produce electricity at the end of this 40 minute session.” How ludicrous to make an assumption about learning prior to the learning taking place. And how refreshing to

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have a child discover something completely new when presented with materials. So I return to the ‘So what?’ of schooling. Is my role to tell children that this is an oyster shell and this is where oysters live and this is what oysters eat and this is how the pearl is made so that they can achieve and acquire the various factoids in their brains and retrieve them successfully for a science test in six weeks’ time? Or is my task to place a shell before them and invite them to wonder about where it lives, how it feeds, how on earth it might be connected to a pearl and passionately and joyously work with them in discovering more about an oyster shell? How much more imaginative thinking is involved in following a series of meandering dendrites in the brain fed by curiosity and inquisitiveness? Letting the shell and the curiosity of the learner lead the teaching and learning, so to speak. DAVID: And what might the shell’s purpose be? Half of the problem for teachers and their use of curriculum documents is that sooner or later there is going to be a test on the nature of shells. And the teacher’s accountability, for the sake of the students, parents and employers and the world at large, is wholly wrapped up in the answers to the questions about that shell. What is the correct interpretation of that shell found on the beach? Who says that there is one interpretation that is correct? But I want to spiral back to Murray Schafer for a moment: As participants in his creations – what Schafer refers to as ‘co-operas’ – we recognize ourselves in the characters, or at least fragments of ourselves in various aspects of the characters. Whether as performers or audience or both at once, we recreate these ancient stories and reawaken these timeless entities as transcendent and transformative encounters and experiences. I contend that these experiences occur when we recognize ourselves in the mythical mirrors created through processes like Schafer’s Theatre of Confluence. This is a liberating process, and one that I believe can be achieved in many more realms of education. I think imagination actually concerns the ability to look at something, experience something and think about something and perceive multiple possibilities of meaning for the same thing. So the shell could be someone’s house, the shell could be an earring, the shell could be a mountain, the shell could be a shell on the beach, the shell could be a boat, or the shell could be an ashtray or anything at all. The limitations on the meaning have everything to do with an inability to mythologize and wonder about the shell. Because of course, someone once discovered how the oyster makes a pearl: someone dared to wonder about it. Unfortunately, that person’s passion for

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learning: that person’s discovery, was eventually locked into a textbook. Someone else decided it is important knowledge, another person designed a test, and now someone who doesn’t know how the pearl gets made is perhaps deficient in knowledge – and doesn’t get to continue along the same educational paths as those who believed without question what they were told. JAN: It seems to me that a worthy goal of the teaching and learning enterprise is inviting learners to notice what has yet to be noticed, then. The shell on the beach is not only a shell on the beach, although that object – the shell – placed into the hands of a two year old on her first trip to the beach is a magnificent object. Transforming it into a counting tool for a math lesson or the character of a turtle in a story-telling session requires considerable letting go of how one might have perceived an ordinary shell. And in my opinion, this ability to see new connections is essential to the whole letting go. It’s safe to simply only see a shell as a shell. The naming of the object has been given to us by someone perhaps perceived as more knowledgeable in ‘shellness’. And we may not feel a need to go beyond this label. But, being open to seeing the shell as other – that’s another Maxine Greene gift.

Of time and timelessness DAVID: I think imagination erupts anywhere, and can erupt from anywhere. There doesn’t need to be a box outside of which one thinks for imagination to pervade one’s thought processes. For example, a story of why the loon got its spot erupts from an imaginative way of seeing the world, and so, education that feeds the imagination will readily propel the mind to be opened up to infinite possibilities of meaning. This can happen when we listen to music. Aaron Copland suggests that one’s imagination ‘takes fire’ in the act of listening to a piece of music. In discussing the ability to hear music, he speaks of the imagination as a gift. “One other gift is needed – this one perhaps the most difficult and at the same time the most essential. The gift of being able to see all around the structural framework of an extended piece of music. Exactly in what manner do we sort out and add up and realize in our own minds the impressions that can only be gained singly in the separate moments of the music’s flowing past us?” (Copland, 1952, p. 15). In the act of listening “around a structural framework”, the listener creates meaning for herself out of the intermingling of the elements of the music, whilst recollecting (there are of course parallels to Socrates’

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promotion of anamnesis here: ‘making present again’) things already present in the mind, as Copland suggests. To educate is to ‘draw out’, is it not? So in a sense an educator is one who draws out of minds ideas that are already present, and have already been present for generations. JAN: How often do teachers overlook drawing on prior knowledge to spark imaginative thinking about something new? What happened to starting a lesson by asking kids what they know about shells or insects or electricity? Instead, we’re too quick to dive in, deliver the goods, test the goods and wrap things up to move onto the next unit. We do too much telling, talking and testing and not enough mucking about and meandering. Again, it really is a time-related issue. The evaluation of learning is driving the curriculum. I was in a school last week to witness the Aboriginal curriculum components within an outdoor education program. As I toured the school, we approached the end of one hallway and I was told to avoid opening the door of this particular classroom because the Educational Qualifications Assessment of Ontario (EQAO) test preparations were taking place. Apparently, the quarantined children were not to be interrupted by anyone opening a door. Later, when I went in to visit the children in their classroom during their ‘refreshment break’ they were busy predicting how many seeds were in the watermelon snacks they were enjoying. There was much laughter and some really imaginative estimation happening. The room was physically stuffed with the possibility of wonder. On a table by a wall of windows there was a fascinating display of taxidermy waterfowl, and outside, a storytelling campfire area and painted tipi were clearly visible. Nature posters showing the effect of acid rain and global warming covered the classroom wall nearest to me. The children had attached Post-It notes with their thoughts, questions and fears onto the posters. Someone had crafted a letter to a politician, and there was art work depicting the plight of the black bears if they continued to be lured to the town dump for their meals. One child turned to me and said, “I wonder how many watermelon seeds would fill our garbage can!” My eyes riveted on the stack of EQAO booklets on the teacher’s desk while I pondered his question and the stagnant quality of the content fermenting inside the testing booklets. DAVID: That’s ironic isn’t it! I recall my GRE test: The rules said that I couldn’t look at the questions about the text before I had read the text. Thus I was forced to read a story about something that I might or might not have been interested in, without being allowed to foresee any questions that I might want to ask about that story prior to reading it. This was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. It seemed completely

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counterproductive to taking an interest in and responsibility for my own learning. And the purpose of this? High stakes. Admission to graduate school. Maybe the saddest part is that I did relatively well on the test. But of course, the folks that own the schools – the test makers, the taxpayers, the parent-teacher associations, the school boards, the Ministries of Thinking (for they are the schools’ real estate owners) are still seeking statistics that validate their institutions and proclaim those institutions’ viability and necessity. So the reality for the student is that she is going to have to show, at some point in her life, that she knows certain things about a shell, and those certain things will always be related to a commonly held understanding of the purposes of a shell. How do we balance imaginative ways of thinking about that shell with the product and expectations of specific knowledge about it? JAN: Frankly, I’m worried that we have less time, and place less importance on the showing of learning in imaginative ways. In schools, it seems that too many teachers are still focused on easy canned assessment and evaluation strategies. Choices are limited to pop quizzes and final exams, writing a paper about Romeo and Juliet or requesting that learners create a poster about global warming. What about the kid who wants to dance his understanding of The Colour Purple (Walker, 1982) or show his knowledge of the atomic bomb by producing a radio play about it? It seems to me that these kinds of ‘showings’ invite the learners to place themselves squarely in the story, and push kids to connect to their inner narratives in vulnerable and daring ways. Adam, an education student, wears hearing aids in both ears, and his challenges as a clinically deaf child were undiagnosed until he was four years old. His project showing his literacy journey involved covering the outside of a large lampshade with heavy black paper. When he turned the lamp on, no light shone through it. Only when he removed the black paper covering the lampshade did the viewer live his journey more fully. We were all able to connect to Adam’s lived life and his hearing challenges through a provocative and imaginative sculpturing of his story. For a few moments during his presentation, we all became deaf learners. DAVID: I think that this idea of drawing out prior knowledge has more to do with a patient and persistence commitment to drawing out knowledge not merely of experiences a particular person may have had, but rather knowledge that is part of the mythic experience that all of us have had from the beginning of Time. Mercia Eliade says, “one frees oneself from the work of Time by recollection, by anamnesis” (Eliade,

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1962, p. 89). Later he advocates immersion in mythic experience as a healthy approach to living imaginatively in the world (p. 141). I’m interested in hierophony – the ritual encountering of mythical events. How might we as educators better create opportunities that enable our students to ‘pre-member’ the material of inquiry, creating a hierophony around it? I use this term hierophony because I think that something like Joseph Campbell’s (2004) ‘aesthetic arrest’ is a suspension of time, in which the sacred realm is encountered. These are the sorts of ‘aha’ moments that occur when we are ‘pre-membering’ something with which we are engaging authentically and emotionally. Much of R. Murray Schafer’s Patria cycle delves deeply into the creation of hierophony, and arises out of a shared experience of myth (Schafer, 2002). In his case, he creates the story line for a series of works of music theatre, yet it is an ancient story: one that has been heard many times. It incorporates archetypes with resonance to the stories of the Ojibway Star Maiden, Beauty and the Beast, Ariadne and Theseus, as well as many others. Those of us who participate in these works (and the word is participate, whether as a performer or an audience member, for all are necessarily part of this Theatre of Confluence) are immersed in the myth through various means, re-entering them each time in new skins. JAN: (giggling) I’ve got a skin story. I remember in my first year of teaching when an eight-year old boy named Clayton brought a snake skin into the classroom one morning. There were predictably children who would not touch it. Clayton told a quick story about it and then sat down at his desk. Because we likely had math or spelling, I asked him to put it away so he wouldn’t be distracted. I cringe now, thinking of the learning connections that were overlooked because of my agenda. Why didn’t I measure the skin with the kids and then predict how many snakeskins would extend down the school hallway? Or why didn’t I brainstorm all of the snake information the kids had filed away in their brains and take off from there with a whole study of snakes or something like that? Instead, Clayton’s treasure sat on the science table at the side of the room. But throughout the week Clayton kept pulling us back to what really mattered. He dropped pearls of his knowledge about snakes during news time, or at recess time, or as we ate lunch together. “A snake’s related to an alligator,” he said one morning. “I think he sheds his skin and then he eats it,” he added. We all had many questions. “Where did you found it?” asked Tamara. “Where is the snake now?” queried Angela. Duncan giggled his comment aloud: “I wonder what the snake is wearing today without his skin? Maybe he traded it for a turtle’s shell.” And Evan

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observed that, “You can see right through the skin like it’s made of wax paper.” Finally, Curtis, a shy, older boy who rarely contributed to any discussions, asked to measure it. “How long is it?” I asked him, as he set it gently on the carpet next to his ruler. “Bigger than my shoe,” he grinned. The snake skin stayed on the science table all year, and the questions never shriveled. The librarian heard about it and gave us several books about snakes and reptiles. The Grade 10 Biology teacher talked about it with me in the staff room, and loaned the class a big jar with a rattlesnake specimen pickled inside it. Clayton continued to educate all of us and we all got caught up in the mystery of that snakeskin by constantly revisiting the stories and mythology about it. And at the end of the year Clayton moved on to Grade 4 and so did his snake skin. I remember the last day quite vividly. We were all cleaning up – desks emptied, art cupboards cleaned, bulletin boards dismantled, and eventually even the science table was cleared. I asked Clayton if he needed to take his snakeskin or could I keep it and share it with next year’s group? He assured me that he needed to take it with him. Clearly the learning, the wondering and the imagining about the snakeskin was far from complete. And I continue to wonder about snakeskins when I see them now – twenty-five years later.

Retracing the labyrinth DAVID: What happens to the imagination when we revisit something again and again? In Schafer’s Patria Cycle Epilogue, And Wolf Shall Inherit the Moon (Schafer, 2002), we’ve both been part of a yearly pilgrimage to a wilderness site that includes six hours of portaging through the often brutal but always beautiful Canadian Shield in order to live in an unplugged wilderness with sixty other people for eight days. We spend our time together at this ‘Wolf Project’ creating the ritual that will unite the Princess of the Stars with the Wolf, who have been hoping for this moment for thousands of years and in various forms. In our sojourns we participate in forest encounters and journeys, sometimes within the same format as previous years. But are they the same? Of course not. We revisit and are immersed in the rituals each year, and each time we open ourselves to the surprise of new meanings in our meanderings. JAN: Okay. I’m connecting your comments about revisiting something to the importance of reflective practice. It is well documented in research that reflective practice makes for better teachers (Schön, 1987) and students in our education program are required to write ‘reflective

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journals’ in many of our courses. I usually bring a mirror to class when I talk about reflection with my education students. This year, as we were brainstorming all that we knew about mirrors, a student piped up that the first thing he thought about when he saw the mirror I’d brought was his wilderness first aid course. I’d forgotten all about the use of a mirror in the wilderness, should one find oneself lost in dense bush. The student’s comments led to a wonderfully rich discussion about the connections between being lost and reflecting on where you’ve been and the difficulty, often, in retracing your steps. “Sometimes you get so lost in the woods that reflecting on where you walked for hours only makes you panic,” he said. “And besides, you don’t necessarily want to retrace your steps,” added another student. It was the chatter about anxiety that resonated for me, since I firmly believe that in order to be truly reflective, one must be prepared to do some personal squirming and ask some difficult questions about process and product. Simply keeping a journal isn’t enough. We all know that routines are ingrained, and we get used to thoughtlessly repeating rituals and comfortable practices within our daily lives. Pitching the same tent in the same location in the same campground for ten years isn’t going to teach us much about pitching a tent. However, if we stop to examine a specific aspect of the pitching of the tent one year – the haste with which we erect the tent during an impending storm or how we react when a main tent pole snaps, we’ll discover something new about ourselves, our learning and our relationship to the event’s experiences. Identifying a significant incident that happened, writing about what took place from beginning to end, and then imaginatively examining how the same experience might have been approached differently ‘next time’ is key to expanding and stretching one’s own insights and perceptions about a particular lesson. Often reflection will be triggered by an uncomfortable experience or one where expectations and reality did not match what the teacher or learners intended or hoped to accomplish (Zeichner & Liston, 1996). Critical reflection, then, should invite us to get a little lost in the woods. It should inspire and feed upon a model of inquiry that emphasizes a deliberate investigation into one’s own practices and beliefs. Honest reflection should invite approximation and a ‘just try it and see what happens’ model of learning. It should also encourage us to openly and honestly articulate what we believe, why we believe what we do, and how we got there in the first place. Ultimately critical reflection can help us to uncover problem-solving skills and solutions that we didn’t know we possessed. We might just wander around in the woods for a while. DAVID: Yes. But while wondering is an important aspect of the use of

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the imagination, isn’t it important to use imagination creatively and responsibly? Is there such a thing as wondering unimaginatively? We say that there is no such thing as a stupid question, but is there such a thing as uncreative and irresponsible questioning? JAN: In the same vein, I am dumbfounded by an adult pursuing a teaching profession who questions how to make the colour green, and when told and shown, says, “Really? How do you know that?” Clearly there is a generation of ten to thirty year olds who have limited play experiences, limited experimentation, and limited ‘mucking about’ in their own lives. Inevitably, they also doubt themselves and their ability to predict intelligently. I am also wondering whether the barrage of art classes, two-hour yoga workshops, cello lessons, one-off evenings in sculpture or ‘digital photography for dummies’ has further complicated how we view imaginative use of time. For me, taking a ‘Single Saturday’ course in batik may appear playful, luring and imaginative on the outside. “This is what you’ll be able to take home by noon today,” says the instructor, holding up a perfectly batiked piece of cotton. I squint and marvel at the hot waxes and dyes at the side of the classroom. I’m eager to play, but I only end up sampling the art form with step by step instructions from an expert. I’m not permitted to experiment, but my mind races to Peter Elbow’s philosophy. He says that good imaginative teaching is all about being a bit reckless. A bit careless. Not correcting and stopping all the time (Elbow, 1998). But it’s a different kind of carelessness. In my opinion, it’s got big connections to the endorsement of imaginative play in our places of education. Why don’t we invite more approximation? Time, my friend. Limited time. DAVID: I don’t think I told you about playing a nocturne at midnight across the river at the ‘Wolf Project’ last summer. The piece was to be a quartet with four human players improvising with the sounds of the bullfrogs who might blurt out responses to the lowest pitches of a trumpet and accordion. We agreed to situate ourselves around the lake, and I volunteered to walk through the bush to the far side of the lake, having crossed over a beaver-dammed river. I was so excited about the idea of doing this piece that I walked the trail in the dark (someone else had borrowed my flashlight and the moon had not risen yet) and, upon finishing the nocturne, realized that I couldn’t find the trail. I set off in what I thought was the right direction for the return journey to our campsite. Thankfully realizing that I was lost soon enough – and before I encountered a bear – I stopped to listen, to recall, and to imagine: to listen

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for the sounds of the river’s running water spilling over the rocks, to recall the elevations of the trail, and the obstacles I had encountered on the way, but to imagine them in a reversed and inverted order. Eventually I made my way back – wiser for my recklessness, but only through a re-imagined version of my environment. I was Theseus in the labyrinth, finding his Ariadne thread. In the next day’s light I took the time to walk the same trail, noticing many of the things I’d missed in the dark. I revisited my labyrinth trail with a more heightened respect, awareness and purpose for that trail than I had previously owned. And in this transformational experience I have lived out “the potency of the labyrinth’s symbolism” (Schafer, 1984). JAN: I have a story about hesitating to think critically, but it has a surprise ending. Recently, on our trip with student teachers to Coastal Ecuador, the group was assigned the painting of a school washroom building. We began by painting the entire structure with a thorough whitewash undercoat. Enthusiastic about painting a mural on one wall, the students dove into the project by sketching a rather elaborate scene with a forest and Canadian wildlife. We then assessed the paint colours, only to discover that we lacked brown paint for the moose and beaver. There was an abundance of white, some red and some blue, but there was no brown paint whatsoever. Nor was there any yellow paint. So what to do? “We could paint the moose blue!” suggested Tracy, but the group determined that it wanted to portray the animals as realistically as possible. Although the students were tempted to simply mix a colour and use whatever resulted, they decided to try to create a brown colour from scratch. After some conversation and idea swapping, one participant began blending several colours together. The result was not satisfactory, so another person crushed some dried leaves and added in some soil and powdered charcoal from a firepit nearby. One person found a tree with yellow flowers, and, after adding some of the tree’s blooms, and a dash more of dirt and charcoal, a rather intriguing shade of light brown emerged through experimentation and approximation. The forest and wildlife in the mural were completed with the imaginatively created paint source and I think we were more satisfied with the result than if we had simply opened up a jar of brown paint and used that for our artwork. “Who knew that in the end, we could create the colour we needed?” asked one of the students, beaming. “I had never tried, that’s all.” DAVID: So many students never try. And too many are never encouraged to try. And why? What if educators could become devoted to

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looking at shells with endless possibility for meaning? And should we be able to revisit those shells and those meanings again and again, inexhaustibly imagining about and noticing the shell from an infinite number of viewing points? We can mirror what we have noticed and what we have yet to remember to notice about the shell. The mirror of our learning cannot merely be a test or exam with a quantifiable grade assigned. Surely the mirror of our learning includes being able to recognize one’s self in the stories of the other. Can we revisit and relive our myths and then reflect upon and recollect our experiences? How can we more readily find ways to notice ourselves in the mirrors and rememberings of the new things we encounter? How can we better encourage our students to take imaginative risks so that they, too, can have opportunities to see themselves in their own mirrors? How might we create spirals of inquiry that open all to pre-membering that which we have yet to encounter? How are we locating new learnings in the labyrinths within which we play and learn with our students? JAN: I think it starts with us. We must remember to notice what is around us; to take time to notice with our students and to continually encourage the revisitations of those noticings. And then we must have a mirror ready to show us what is ahead and amongst as well as what is behind and beside us. DAVID: “It is a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,” the Queen remarked.

References Campbell, J. (2004). Mythic worlds, modern words: Joseph Campbell and the arts of James Joyce. Novata, California: New World Library. Copland, A. (1951). Music and imagination. Cambridge: Harvard University Press Carroll, L. (1871). Through the looking glass and what Alice found there. London: Macmillan. Eliade, M. (1962). The forge and the crucible. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers. Elbow, P. (1998). Writing without teachers. London: Oxford University Press. Greene, M. (2001). Variations on a blue guitar. New York: Teachers College Press. —. (1988). The dialectic of freedom. New York: Teachers College Press.

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Holzer, M. F. & Noppe-Brandon, S. (eds.) (2005). Community in the making: Lincoln Center Institute, the arts, and teacher education. New York: Teachers College Press. Liu, E & Noppe-Brandon, S. (2009). Imagination first: unlocking the power of possibility. San Francisco: Josey-Bass. McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media. Toronto: McGraw-Hill. Schafer, R. M. (1984). Dicamus et Labyrinthos. Bancroft: Arcana Editions. Schafer, R. M. (1998). Snowforms: a work for women’s choir a cappella. Indian River: Arcana Editions. —. (2002). Patria: the complete cycle. Indian River: Arcana Editions. Schön, D. A. (1987) Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishing. Walker, A. (1982). The colour purple. Orlando: Harcourt. Zeichner, K.M. & Liston, D.P. (1996). Reflective teaching: an introduction. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

CHAPTER SIX DELIBERATE IMPRECISION: CRITICAL DIRECTIONS IN RESEARCHING IMAGINATIVE EDUCATION DAVID TROTMAN

Recall and imagination are qualities of human experience that are internal and private. I can enjoy my own fantasies and you can enjoy yours, but you cannot access mine, nor I yours. If things were left that way, culture would be static…culture depends on communication…the externalization of what is internal…what is private is made public. —Eisner, 2005, 108

This chapter explores the possibilities and limitations of research design and representation in imaginative education. Its point of departure is, to follow Eisner, an imperative to make possible the external representation of the interior lifeworld. As imaginative phenomena are a significant feature of this interior world, the aim of this chapter is to consider ways in which strategic approaches to research in imaginative education can be meaningfully developed amongst educational practitioners and participants. The lines of discussion that follow then are intended to foreground approaches to research design that resonate with subjective experience and imaginative phenomena. Hence, the field of qualitative research, with its extensive repertoire of methodological approaches, provides particularly fertile ground for this discussion. In particular, the practices of Arts Based Educational Research (ABER) and the bricoleur approach to research method (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008) are given special consideration in this chapter. In this undertaking, I hope to encourage practitioners to explore and extend the scope of the representation of their research in their own educational settings.

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The Imagination Imagination, as many of the contributors to this text have sought to demonstrate, has a particularly important role in the education of young people. Whilst there is a modest history of philosophical interest in imagination in contemporary western societies (see, for example, Satre, 1940; Warnock, 1976; White, 1990), it has, for the most part, been connected to the field of creativity in the expressive arts. In western curriculum traditions the subjects of art, dance, drama, English, media education and music have all made particular claims to imagination and imaginative thinking in some shape or form (Eisner, 1998, 1994; Ross, 1989; Abbs, 1987; Tickle, 1987; Best, 1985) Allied to this, there has been a resurgence of interest in creativity in education as a generic field of endeavour (Fryer, 1996), particularly in the province of primary and early years education (Woods, 1995; Craft, 2000, 2002; Jeffrey & Woods, 2003; 2009). Among the contemporary studies of the field, some have adopted interdisciplinary approaches (Fisher & Williams, 2004; Craft, 2005) while others have drawn on the traditions of ethnographic research to explain creative practice in school settings (Jeffrey & Woods, 2003; 2009). Not surprisingly, imagination appears as an important aspect in studies of creativity, with a number of observers identifying the importance of its role in educational practice and curriculum provision (Beetlestone, 1998; Fisher & Williams, 2004; Wilson, 2005). Fisher and Williams, for example, regard creativity as ‘embodied imagination’: What imagination does is to enable the mind to represent images and ideas of what is not actually present to the senses. It can refer to the capacity to predict, plan and foresee possible future consequences. In short, imagination is the capacity to conceive possible (or impossible) worlds that lie beyond this time and place. (Fisher & Williams, 2004, p.9)

Others, such as Passmore, have drawn distinction between those aspects of language that are commonly associated with imagination: imaging, imagining and the imaginative (cited in Craft, 2005, p.18). Imaging is enabled through various forms of mental representation visual, auditory, olfactory, kinaesthetic, gustatory and other forms of sense data. Imagining involves pretence, supposition, hypothesising and empathy, whilst the term imaginative implies the generation of novel outcomes. Eisner, in his work on imagination, regards image as central to our understanding of the concept:

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The engine of social and cultural progress is our ability to conceive of things that never were, but which might become…To imagine is to create new images, images that function in the development a new science, the creation of a new symphony, and the invention of a new bridge. It is a process critical for the creation of poetry and for innovation in our practical lives. (Eisner, 2005, p.107-108)

Imaginative play, a prominent feature in early years education, should, according to Wyman, extend to “environments where individuals of all ages, backgrounds and walks of life can explore creative possibilities in an unhurried, unthreatened setting”; this, Wyman argues, is the key to more involved, thoughtful and responsible citizens (Wyman, 2004, p.146-147). Notwithstanding the importance of these perspectives in both championing the cause of imagination and clarifying our terms of reference, it remains that only limited attention has been given to developing a more complete and trenchant theorisation of imagination in education. Of the few scholars to have undertaken this task, Egan’s work is probably the most well known (1992; 1997; 2005; 2008). Given the substantial level of interest in Egan’s ideas in this book, it will suffice to note only the main tenets of his approach to imagination in this chapter. Egan, like Eisner and Fisher, also regards imagination to be essentially about the possible (Egan, 1992, p.4). However, in the pursuit of the possible, cultural and cognitive tools become pivotal concepts in this particular framework for imaginative education. Cultural tools include such things as language, writing, forms of numeration, symbols and signs, works of art, diagrammatic representations, maps and so on. Cognitive tools are those “things that enable our brains to do cultural work” (Egan, 2008, p.40), in which we establish reference to past experiences and events. When learned, cultural tools become cognitive tools (Egan, 2005, p.7). Egan argues that imaginative understanding is achieved though different cognitive ‘tool kits’ anchored in our experience of the somatic, mythic, romantic, philosophic, and ironic (Egan, 1997). Crucially, the cognitive tool is one that combines epistemological, psychological and emotional characteristics (Egan, 2008, p.84). Gajdamaschko, in her writing on imagination, explains the appropriation of cultural tools as follows: Imaginative activities develop through the interiorization of correspondent cultural forms that serve as psychological tools. Imagination, which in early childhood appears as a function of play activity, is gradually developed and appropriates new cultural tools in learning activities, and as it changes, it gradually turns into the imagination of adolescence and then into the productive imagination of the adult. (Gajdamaschko, 2005, p.20).

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In order to establish something of the pupil perspective on imagination, my own research in secondary schools provides another ‘take’ on the imaginative experience of young people (Trotman, 2008). This, too, corroborates much of the thinking described above, with students constructing often sophisticated conceptions of imagination within their school and personal lifeworlds: DT: OK, perhaps we can start by deciding what our own definition of imagination might be. Emma: I think it’s when you switch off; when something gets a bit boring and you go into your own world. Jack: Day dreaming, you’re awake but not awake; you’re kind of just staring out of the window…when things are boring…when your brain’s not being challenged, when you’re not working. Christina: Normally your imagination is kind of the fun things that you think of in your mind. Rob: It’s the way your mind interprets things. It’s the way you wish things could be. Laura: Dreams as well; that’s part of your imagination, because you’re switching off, and that’s when your mind gets into gear and you can get ideas from that. Your body’s not in action, it’s just your mind because you are at rest. Ross: Imagination is how you want to see things. Your interests get put in to that. Jack: A separate world where you’d like to be. Christina: And how you express yourself. Pete: Fictional subjects that are in your mind. Emma: I think sometimes it can be mistakes put together. You learn from your mistakes, so then it comes in your mind and you can evolve something new out of it. Christina: I think it’s doing stuff, things, outside the box. It’s like thinking, but you don’t have any restrictions on your thoughts. Pete: Estimating the future.

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Emma: Creativity is kind of how you transform the idea, what the end product is, what you’ve made; whereas imagination is the first ideas, what you’ve come up with yourself.

These accounts, and those that follow, reveal an important correspondence between imagination, identity, privacy and a privileged ownership of personal original thought. They also speak to the methodological demands in undertaking the design and representation of research in this province. Christina: It’s exploration of the mind I suppose. You can go to places where you wouldn’t be able to in reality. Jessica: There’s like two types. There’s imagination where you’re in your own world and that’s your escape, and then there’s like imagination within the real world which is like stepping into other people’s shoes and like imagining the world that way. Samira: I think there’s three different types of imagination. You’ve got your irrational imagination like when you’re dreaming, and then the rational like daydreaming, and then you’ve got your real world kind of thing. Reece: There’s creative imagination and there’s perceptive imagination. Creative imagination is when you are thinking of things or imagining things that you know aren’t going to happen but you want to think of anyway. Perceptive imagination is that you are imagining it even though you know it’s going to happen. Christina: I suppose imagination is a bit of a distraction from the real world. It can be used to disappear into…you can imagine anything. Josie: It is an escape. You can become something else, like stepping into peoples’ shoes. It’s a relief from being yourself a bit isn’t it? From all the stresses and everything. If you go into imagination it is like a release. Tammy: I made a little poem up. Imagination means to me To go beyond reality To think of things that other’s don’t To create your world like others won’t

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In these exchanges, further insights emerge from the ways in which young people are able to conceptualise imaginative thinking, perception and action. Furthermore, the vignettes from Jessica, Samira and Reece resonate with Jungian ideas of the ‘active imagination’: in which participants may deliberately enter into contact with the unconscious, “the solitary experiment of a free individual…the reverse of a guided attempt to master the unconscious” (von Franz, 1964, p.219). The findings from this research also mirror outcomes from small-scale undergraduate inquires conducted by students at Newman University College as part of their own studies of creativity and imagination. Thanks to Tara and Charlotte for these excerpts from their study: Imagination is…? Jenny: to express yourself in different and exciting ways. Mark: to be able to make any idea or story up inside your own head. Luke: the vast mind of which make [sic] random thoughts and creations. Lauren: creating pictures that show what emotion you are seeing. Joe: your mind’s capacity to think deeply into things and create an atmosphere using nothing to help you. Thomas: the ability to take an object and mentally improve its appearance or function. Fran: to be able to create something wonderful from your mind

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Beth: when you think up different stories in your head. Michael: create pictures in your mind’s eye. Jonathan: your own little world where everything you’ve ever thought is there and never stops working. Benito: when you have weird and wonderful ideas, which could be the best or worst to write about. Lucy: to be able to draw pictures in your head Hannah: when you express what you feel by making something up that makes you happy, sad, angry etc. Rachel: your mind going over-blow; you can’t control it. It’s your interpretation of something that is perhaps supernatural that you are recreating in some wacky way. Olivia: being transported to somewhere that you have created. What your mind makes up.

Policy contexts The continuities, not to mention depth, in these pupil accounts stand in stark contrast to the policy rhetorics that typically surround claims to the provision of creative and imaginative education in the school curriculum. In England, recent government-sponsored reviews of both the Primary and Secondary National Curriculum (DCSF, 2009; QCA, 2007) have seen ad hoc endorsements of imagination. In the revised secondary phase programmes, imagination makes appearances in a range of disparate guises in the subjects of art, English, history, geography, maths, modern foreign languages and physical education. Visual imagery, the creation of moods and settings, the construction of new knowledge, modes of personal expression, and visualisation of other times and places are all regarded as facets of imaginative work. The subjects of art and design, English, maths, modern foreign languages and physical education also offer tentative connections between imagination and creativity, in which pupils are encouraged to produce “imaginative images, artefacts and other outcomes that are both original and of value” (art); “use imagination to convey themes, ideas and arguments, solve problems, and create settings, moods and characters” (English); combine “understanding, experiences, imagination and reasoning to construct new knowledge” (maths); use “imagination to

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express thoughts, ideas, experiences and feelings” (modern foreign languages); and as a means to “express and communicate ideas, solve problems and overcome challenges” (physical education) (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 2007). In the primary curriculum imagination fares less well, with creativity and imagination afforded only a marginal position in the six ‘areas of learning’ proposed in the recent national primary review; despite an, albeit unqualified, identification of imagination as an “essential for learning and life” (DCSF, 2009, 76). Although there have been ambitions in some quarters in the UK to extend creativity, and with it imagination, to all areas of the school curriculum (see the National Advisory Committee on Creativity, Culture and Education, All Our Futures report, 1999), recent researches in secondary phase education indicate that imagination continues to reside in the province of the creative arts (Nicholl & McLellan, 2008; Trotman, 2008). In North America, the picture appears to be little different with observers lamenting that “[imagination] is not on anyone’s list of basics, at least not in any national report on the state of our schools” (Eisner, 2005, 108). How might educators then respond to the challenges of designing, researching and representing imaginative experience within these policy contexts? My exploration of this issue with colleagues, students and peers reveals a common polarity; one which many readers will no doubt be familiar with. On the one hand, the public evaluation of the outcomes of imaginative and creative activity is regarded by some as essential to establishing their value, worth and originality. For others, the affective and feelingful personal lifeworld is private and sacrosanct [“…you can enjoy yours, but you cannot access mine, nor I yours…” (Eisner, 2005, p.108)]. Interventions designed to shape the interior lifeworld are then regarded as little more than a euphemism for intrusion, surveillance and subordination. Meanwhile, those who defend an unobtrusive nurturing of imagination are viewed with suspicion by those who regard this as licence for an ‘anything goes’ approach to education. As the reader will be aware, these contrary positions are hardly new. In North America there has been a long-standing interest in the psychology of measuring creativity as a means to making the interior world accessible to public criteria (e.g. Guildford, 1968; Torrance, 1974). In England the ‘debates’ around creativity in the arts prior to the introduction of a National Curriculum were dominated by the issue of assessment, in which themes of ‘feeling’ and ‘reason’ were often presented as contradictory positions (Ross, 1989; Best, 1985; Witkin, 1974). An enduring legacy of this has been that teaching for imagination and creativity has been subject to a polarisation of competing claims. The

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first, that in making creative and imaginative experience public through demonstrable outcomes, practitioners run the risk of distorting and stifling the intrinsic qualities of imaginative and creative practice they seek to promote. Alternatively, if they adopt a position of simply nurturing imaginative and creative growth they expose themselves to the criticism that their practice involves little more than instinct, personal interpretation and tenuous claims to palpable educational evidence - these particular standpoints can be traced to earlier Classical and Romantic traditions, which in western educational systems have manifested themselves in the discourses of traditional and progressive education. In recent years this polarisation has been further exacerbated by demands for particular forms of educational accountability. In North America and England instrumental approaches to educational evaluation have been valorised in the standardisation of educational practice and performative measurement (Ball, 2003; Shirley & Hargreaves, 2006; Wrigley, 2006) - a model of accountability now being mirrored in the education policy of other English speaking countries, e.g. see proposals being developed by Australia’s Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR, 2008, p.19-31).

Researching imaginative education In response to this somewhat bleak point of departure, we will do well to remind ourselves of Herbert Blumer’s (1954) axiom that our research should be faithful to the phenomena under investigation (Atkinson & Delamont, 2008, p.289). Given then the complexity of the field out-lined in the preceding pages, it follows that research designs for imaginative education will be significantly more sophisticated than the instrumental practices currently favoured by many policy makers. Faithfulness to the phenomena of imaginative experience, whilst creating its own particular practical and intellectual demands, offers new possibilities for research practice in imaginative education. Two approaches that are worthy of particular consideration are those in the field of Arts-Based Educational Research (ABER) and Denzin and Lincoln’s (2008) concept of the Bricoleur. It is to these approaches that I now wish to turn.

Arts-Based Educational Research (ABER) Arts-Based Educational Research offers, as the title suggests, a genre of inquiry that embraces a variety of arts–based approaches. According to Barone and Eisner (1997; 2006), this typically involves the creation of

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unconventional and experimental research texts that enhance the perspective of both the researcher and audience and provoke educational questions in the mind of the ‘reader’. To this effect, ABER frameworks utilise particular language forms, means of empathic understanding and exposure to virtual realities (Barone & Eisner, 2006, p.96-98). The first of these strategies involves the use of evocative, contextual and vernacular language. Evocative language, as the name implies, serves to fire the imagination, “inviting the reader to fill gaps in the text with personal meaning” (Barone & Eisner, 2006, p.97). Unlike the language of conventional research texts, expressive language draws on metaphor as a device to enable the reader to connect with re-created experience. Transcending the literal and the finite, the research language is expressive and connotative, like that of the storyteller, poet, dramatist or novelist (Barone & Eisner, 2006, p.97). The language of ABER is also grounded in the use of thick descriptions. These descriptions are fashioned from close observation and are designed to reveal the complexity and unique attributes of the particular setting or context – a typical feature of ethnographic research. In highlighting the use of vernacular language, i.e. language that is not specialized, technical or exclusive, Barone and Eisner illustrate the polyphonic character of ABER texts. Following Bakhtin (1981), vernacular language embodies ‘personal histories, experiences, and outlooks, none of which is necessarily privileged over the others’ (Barone & Eisner, 2006, p.97). This use of ordinary, everyday speech then enables a potential broadening of research audiences that may extend to “onlookers, nonresearcher educational practitioners, educational policymakers, and even members of the general public” (Barone & Eisner, 2006, p.97) – a theme I shall return to later in this chapter. In promoting empathic understanding and virtual realities, Barone and Eisner argue for a mode of research text that entices the reader into a ‘virtual world’; a world that “speaks directly to familiar nearby concerns, even as it raises questions about them” (Barone & Eisner, 2006, p.98). Such texts are designed to temporarily take the reader from their every-day ‘real world’ to one with which they are less familiar, where physical realities are recast into what Suzanne Langer calls ‘composed apparition’ (Langer, 1957). This virtual world of composed apparition involves the reader/audience entering a new psychological landscape, where s/he has to acquire an empathic understanding of its inhabitants. One example that might serve to illustrate the composed apparition of this virtual world is Michael Winterbottom’s (2002) film In this World. In this World traces the harrowing over-land journey of Jamal, an Afghan

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orphan who leaves his refugee camp in Pakistan in order to seek asylum in England. In this World This intimate, yet hard-hitting, response to the asylum controversy follows two Afghan teenagers as they escape from the Shamshatoo refugee camp in Pakistan, along the smugglers' route known as The Silk Road. Travelling through Iran, Turkey, Italy, and France, Jamal and his cousin Enayatullah embark on a desperate journey to freedom. Short on money, lacking proper papers, and forced to travel in trucks, lorries, and shipping containers, the two boys find themselves at the mercy of the people-smugglers who make their living out of others' misery. Shot on digital video, "In This World" is styled as a fictional documentary, using voiceover narration and real refugees and locations (including the now infamous Sangatte camp). The predominantly improvised script creates a powerful piece of guerrilla filmmaking. Building on two engrossing performances from the non-professional leads, and with a striking sense of the psychological effects of displacement and loss that these boys suffer, "In This World" challenges knee-jerk reactions to the asylum debate by questioning the neat bureaucratic distinctions between economic migrants and political refugees. Although it was originally conceived as a response to the UK's on-going asylum debate, the events of September 11th (which occurred while the film was still in preproduction) have given it an additional resonance. More than a response to the asylum issue, it's also a staggeringly persuasive reminder that the

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West's duty to the people of Afghanistan is far from over. As Winterbottom points out, we spent $7.9 billion bombing the Taliban regime. The question remains - how much do we owe those whose lives were ruined as a result? A stark, intelligent, and utterly essential contribution to the asylum debate. In Pashtu and Farsi with English subtitles

Russell, J. (21 March, 2003)

In my view, In this World satisfies most if not all of the criteria for an ABER research text. Having used Winterbottom’s film many times with undergraduate students to imaginatively (and, by association, empathically) explore the theme of global citizenship, I continue to be impressed by the film’s ability to impact on student perceptions of political and sociocultural issues. Moreover, through its mix of evocative music combined with narration and text, it underscores Egan’s reminder that we “think, feel and perceive together” in one unified experience (2008, p.46). It is not possible to say whether Winterbottom had ABER research principles in mind when the film was made; all I can add is that readers should see it and make their own decision. In this World also provides an apposite link to a second set of possibilities for research representation in imaginative education: Denzin and Lincoln’s (2008) concept of the bricoleur.

The Bricoleur According to Denzin and Lincoln we can regard the qualitative researcher as “a maker of quilts, or, as in film making, a person who assembles images into montages” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008, p.5).

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Following Lévi-Strauss’ concept of bricolage (1966), the bricoleur utilises the aesthetic and material tools of his/her craft. Adopting or devising whatever approaches, strategies, methods, and empirical materials are available to them, “if the researcher needs to invent, or piece together, new tools or techniques, he or she will do so” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008, p.5) - much in the way Winterbottom has crafted In this World.

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Afghan carpet, circa 2002

For Denzin and Lincoln, montage becomes a key dimension in the craft of the bricoleur. Analogous to the cinematographic technique of mixing film, sound, narrative and meanings into a new composite form, montage provides “psychological and emotional unity – a pattern – to an interpretive experience” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008, p.7). This view of qualitative research practice has obvious resonance with the field of inquiry in imaginative education, where access to imaginative activity, analysis and representation is undertaken through making selections from a wide repertoire of means and materials. Engaging with the aesthetic aspects of research is well documented in the research literature, particularly in the field of ethnography (Bagley, 2008; Bagley & Cancienne, 2001; Richardson, 1992). For example, Atkinson and Delamont argue that some cultural domains and artifacts can be accessed only through their visual representations and codes (Atkinson & Delamont 2008, p.290). Similarly, the use of non-traditional literary forms, poetry and performance techniques are also well established genres

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of ethnographic research. In this vein, the following abstract in the International Journal of Education and the Arts comes from Blaikie’s (2009) article on a visual and poetic inquiry into the professoriate:

This next example comes from Saunder’s paper in the British Educational Research Journal (Saunders, 2003, p.182): What goes around The natural condition of our existence is to revolve (Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi) I am the greatE the electron and the ecstasy I am MC2 meaning mistress of ceremonies I’m a spinning top, a prayer- or potter’s wheel, I’m the RotoGyrator at the fair your Catherine can’t get enough of tomorrow’s anticyclone over the Irish Sea I invented the roulette the boomerang the spindle for pricking fingers see how the butter thickens and how I chase my tail without getting dizzy the still centre my favourite show am I

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The limitations of printed text prevent further illustration of possible research representations in this chapter. However, readers will be aware of the range of contemporary digital media that offer alternative modes of representation, including those now emerging in the much publicised field of ‘second life’. Such approaches to research representation are of course ‘stock-in-trade’ for those working in the province of ABER. However, Atkinson and Delamont warn of the dangers of collapsing social action, in all its various forms, into a single aesthetic mode (Atkinson & Delamont, 2008, p.287). This is perhaps an important caution in our decisions governing the development of research approaches to imaginative education, where the risk of obstructing audience access through the privileging of one aesthetic form can be particularly acute. There are then a number of significant ramifications for those wishing to develop approaches to research in imaginative education. As the earlier definitions and accounts illustrate, imaginative education involves a range of meanings that transcend curriculum disciplines and boundaries. For Egan and other contributors to the field, this is framed by ideas of the somatic, the mythic, the romantic, the philosophic and the ironic (Egan, 2008). It then follows that imaginative education is both a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary field of inquiry, in which the concept of the bricoleur provides a means to the design and representation of researches in imaginative education. In the work of the bricoleur, montage offers a powerful but complex triangulation of research method and representation. In this regard it is possible to extend the concept of montage to involve ‘patchworks’ that can transcend conventional/traditional text and two dimensional imagery to include, inter-alia, the capture of particular incidents, events and meanings through textures, sound files, moving images, real-time performances, improvisations and reenactments. Necessarily, this means that those who encounter such potentially complex research representations must then develop and refine their dispositions to research interpretation. Eisner’s use of connoisseurship and criticism may help to illuminate something of this disposition, in which we begin “to notice or experience the significant and often subtle qualities that constitute an act, work, or object…” (Eisner, 1998, 85). These qualities are then made public “through the artful use of critical disclosure” (Eisner, 1985, p.93). Montage of the sort described above involves close attention to the relationships and idiosyncrasies that exist amongst the constituent elements, dimensions, aesthetics and often indistinct qualities as experienced by the individual. This is the province of what John Law calls deliberate imprecision:

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If the world is complex and messy, then at least some of the time we’re going to have to give up on simplicities…perhaps we will need to know them [the realities of the world] through ‘private’ emotions that open us to worlds of sensibilities, passions, intuitions, fears and betrayals…Perhaps we will need to rethink our ideas about clarity and rigour, and find ways of knowing the indistinct and the slippery without trying to grasp and hold them tight. Here knowing would become possible through techniques of deliberate imprecision. (Law, 2004, pp.2-3)

Law’s idea of ‘deliberate imprecision’ is fundamental to both the realisation of montage and the development of a necessary mind-set for engaging with the imaginative domain in the representation of educational research. A key concept in this process is allegory: a way of “meaning something other and more than what is being said” (Law, 2004, p.88). Law draws upon allegory as a means of reading between the literal lines to understand what is actually being depicted, much in the same way that Barone and Eisner invite the reader to fill gaps in the text with personal meaning (Barone & Eisner, 2006, 97). To be deliberately imprecise [to not “shoehorn non-coherent realities into singularity” (Law, 2004, p.93)] requires a particular form of rigour in our approach to research in which we seek to enable enhanced powers of individual and collective interpretation. In the creation of montage we not only construct a vibrant representation of research outcomes, we enter a realm of discovery through enactment using allegory to craft what it is we are discovering (Law, 2004, p.92). In this approach, a myriad of qualitative materials can be co-constructed to provide configurations of emerging data in a range of aesthetic and cultural forms. Some of these will be more accessible than others. Some will complement each other, e.g. sound/music, lighting and dance, whilst others may comprise discrete or insular elements, e.g. a narrative or poem. Research texts may also be the product of singular or collective endeavour, but in undertaking critical disclosure this requires research audiences to engage in a communalisation of interpretation: a process which Moustakas, (1994, p.95) describes as a continuous alteration of validity to reveal complete layers of meaning through reciprocal correction. In the province of educational evaluation, montage then offers a potent vehicle for the representation of complex outcomes as a constituent feature of the curriculum programme. In the UK, MacBeath (2006) has provided examples of approaches to educational evaluation where alternative methods of data representation can enrich our understanding of the ‘hard to get to’ aspects of educational outcomes. MacBeath proposes methods that include interviews, focus groups, observations, card sorting exercises,

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sentence completions, drawings and paintings, photo evaluation, diaries, role play etc. (MacBeath, 2006, pp.156-160). Although not as radical as the possibilities offered by montage, these approaches offer a tentative step to encouraging teachers to work beyond conventional evaluative parameters and, equally importantly, present an alternative vision of school evaluation. In common with ABER approaches, the arguments for a bricoleur approach to imaginative education advance both aesthetic agency in educational research and the enhancement of perspectives (Barone and Eisner, 2006, 96). This point is central to the discourse around research analysis and representation, for in the province of imaginative education the need for audiences to be able to adopt multi-perspectival approaches is paramount. In other words, those with responsibility for the evaluation of educational provision must be skilled, first and foremost, in the apprehension of educational phenomena. Put simply, they must be able to adopt a multi-perspectival stance to the representation of educational researches. Adopting such an approach recognises that external reality is not knowable in any direct and emphatic way but, rather, recognises that different participants, groups and communities have their own interpretations and definitions of particular social phenomena. The essential skills of multi-perspective approaches then revolve around a number of important professional practices that include empathy, intuition, our suspension of predispositions and forms of ‘indeterminate judgment’ (Trotman, 2007)

Conclusion The work of particular interests groups such as the Imaginative Education Research Group (IERG) at Simon Fraser University have emphasised the development of curriculum materials and methods for imaginative teaching. However, the development of a complementary methodology for the research and representation of imaginative education remains elusive. As I hope to have outlined in this chapter, there are existing approaches, practices and discourses with which groups such as IERG may wish to engage. Whilst the concept of montage offers a possible strategy for the design and representation of educational researches in imaginative education, adopting these approaches requires educators to be skilled not only in the application of such things as cultural tools, but also in the practice of individual and collaborative research. A concomitant of this is a necessary parallel empowerment of young people as researchers and co-researchers;

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as connoisseurs of their own experiences (Eisner, 1998; 1994; 1985). In the UK there has been an increasing commitment to collaborative inquiry amongst teachers as a means of bringing about fruitful educational change (Street et al, 2005). In some quarters there has also been a serious attempt to position pupils as the chief commentators on their social and educational worlds (Kellett, 2005; Fielding, 2004; Fielding & Ruddock, 2002). The recent history of school inspection in England, however, stands in marked contrast to this, characterised by a culture of audit, surveillance and punitive accountability. Whole-school evaluation, particularly in regard to the promotion of imaginative education, requires a significantly different approach. Crucially, lines of accountability must include the interests of young people, educators, parents, community and funding bodies through a means of critical friendship. This requires a substantially different vision of the external critic from that which currently exists in the UK – a shift from the standards auditor to that of an expert advisor skilled in the art of human affairs (Claxton, 2007, p.43). Many readers will have recognised the compatibility of the ideas expressed in this chapter with the traditions of participative action research. Indeed, much of the discussion in this chapter has signalled a move in that direction. Heron and Reason (2008, p.367) in their account of co-operative inquiry identify four ways of knowing: experiential knowing (the face-to-face encounter with the person or object/artefact involving perception, empathy and resonance); presentational knowing (involving the intuiting of significant form through things such as imagery, painting, sculpture, movement, sound, dance, music, poetry, story and drama etc.); propositional knowing (knowledge of ideas and theories), and practical knowledge (skills, competences and techniques). When combined with the practices of the bricoleur, these approaches offer powerful means for practitioners of imaginative education to conceptualise the design and representation of their research. As I have attempted to argue in this chapter, there is much that we may learn from existing and evolving research practice. For some within the community of imaginative education the wholesale adoption of ABER approaches may align too closely with practices that have come to be regarded as part of the ‘problem’ of progressive education. For others, the collapsing of research data into a discrete aesthetic form may distort research outcomes or impede access to research data. The instrumental alternatives, to which educational programmes can so easily succumb, however, are even more troubling. My hope is that readers may elicit from this chapter a way of approaching research that allows them to demonstrate the worth of their work in terms that are amenable to public

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scrutiny whilst remaining faithful to the phenomena and participants of their inquiries.

References Abbs, P. (1987). Living powers: The arts in education, London: Falmer Press. Atkinson, P. and Delamont, S. (2008). Analytic perspectives. In N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (eds), Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials (3rd edition), London: Sage. pp.285-312. Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (2008). Quality education: The case for an education revolution in our schools, 27th August 2008, Commonwealth of Australia. http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/QualityEducation/Documents/Qua lityEducationEducationRevolutionWEB.pdf (accessed: 12 March, 2009). Bagley, C. & Cancienne, M.B. (2001). Educational research and intertextual forms of (re)presentation: The case for dancing the data. Qualitative Inquiry. 7, 2, 221-237. —. (2008). Educational ethnography as performance art: Towards a sensuous feeling and knowing, Qualitative Research, 8, 1, 53-72. Bakhtin, M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays, Austin: University of Texas Press. Ball, S. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18, 2, 215-228. Barone, T. & Eisner, E. W. (1997). Arts-based educational research. In R. M. Jaeger (ed.). Complementary methods for research in education (2nd edition), Washington DC: AERA. Barone, T. & Eisner, E. W. (2006). Arts-based educational research. In J.L. Green, G. Camilli & P.B. Elmore, Handbook of Complementary Methods in Education Research, Mahwah NJ: American Educational Research Association. pp. 95-110. Beetlestone, F. (1998). Creative children, imaginative teaching, Buckingham: Open University Press. Best, D. (1985). Feeling and reason in the arts, London: Allen and Unwin. Blaikie, F. (2009). Knowing bodies: A visual and poetic inquiry into the professoriate, International Journal of Education and the Arts. 10, 8. Blumer, H. (1954). What is wrong with social theory?. American Sociological Review, 19, 3-10. Claxton, G. (2007). Wisdom: advanced creativity?. In A. Craft, H. Gardner and G. Claxton (eds.). Creativity, wisdom, and trusteeship:

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Exploring the role of education, Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press. pp. 3548. Craft, A. (2000). Creativity across the primary curriculum: Framing and developing practice, London : Routledge. —. (2002). Creativity and early years education: A lifewide foundation, London: Continuum. —. (2005). Creativity in schools: Tensions and dilemmas, London: Routlege. Department for Children, Schools and Families (2009). Primary curriculum review. Available from: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/primarycurriculumreview/downloads/Essential sforLearningandLife.pdf (accessed: 27 May, 2009). Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. (2008). (eds) Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials (3rd edition), London: Sage. Egan, K. (1992). Imagination in teaching and learning: Ages 8–15, London: Routledge. —. (1997). The educated mind: How cognitive tools shape our Understanding, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —. (2005). An imaginative approach to teaching, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. —. (2008). The future of education: Reimagining our schools from the ground up, New Haven: Yale University Press. Eisner, E. W. (1985). The art of educational evaluation: A personal view. Lewes, UK: Falmer Press. —. (1994). The educational imagination: On the design and evaluation of school programs (3rd edition.), New York, NY: Macmillan. —. (1998). The enlightened eye: Qualitative inquiry and the enhancement of educational practice, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. —. (2005) Reimagining Schools: The selected works of Elliot W. Eisner, London: Routledge. Fielding, M. & Rudduck, J. (2002). The transformative potential of student voice: Confronting the power issues. Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association, University of Exeter, September, 2002. —. (2004). Transformative approaches to student voice: Theoretical underpinnings, recalcitrant realities. British Educational Research Journal, 30, 2, 295 -311. Fisher, R. & Williams, M. (2004). Unlocking creativity, London: David Fulton. Fryer, M. (1996). Creative teaching and learning, London: Paul Chapman.

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Gajdamaschko, N. (2005). Vygotsky on imagination: Why an understanding of the imagination is an important issue for school teachers, Teaching Education, 16, 1, 13-22. Guilford, J.P. (1968). Creativity, intelligence and their educational implications, SanDiego, CA: EDITS/Knapp. Heron, J. & Reason, P. (2008). Extending epistemology within a cooperative Inquiry. In P. Reason and H. Bradbury (eds), The sage handbook of action research: Participative inquiry and practice, (2nd edition), London: Sage. pp.366-380. In this World (2002). Directed by Michael Winterbottom [DVD], BBC. Jeffrey, B. & Woods, P. (2003). The creative school: A framework for success, quality and effectiveness, London: Routledge. Jeffrey, B. & Woods, P. (2009). Creative learning in the primary school, Abingdon: Routledge. Kellett, M. (2005). How to develop children as researchers: A step by step guide to teaching the research process, London: Paul Chapman. Langer, P. (1957). Problems of art, New York: Scribner’s, quoted in Barone, T. and Eisner, E. (2006) in J.L. Green, G. Camilli and P.B. Elmore, Handbook of Complementary Methods in Education Research, Washington DC: AERA. pp. 95-110. Law, J. (2004). After method: Mess in social science research, London: Routledge. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1966). The savage mind (2nd edition), Chicago: University of Chicago Press. MacBeath, J. (2006). School inspection and self-evaluation: Working with the new relationship, London: Routledge. Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods, London: Sage. National Advisory Committee on Creativity, Culture and Education (NACCCE) (1999), All Our Futures: Creativity, culture and education, London: DfEE/DCMS. Nicholl, B. & McLellan, R. (2008). We’re all in this game whether we like it or not to get a number of As to Cs.’ Design and Technology teachers’ struggles to implement creativity and performativity policies. British Educational Research Journal, 34, 5, 585–600. Craft, A. (2005). Creativity in schools: Tensions and dilemmas, London: Routledge. Qualifications and Curriculum Authority [online]. Available from: http://www.qca.org.uk/qca_12195.aspx [accessed 3 August 2007]. Richardson L. (1992). The consequences of poetic representation: Writing the other, writing the self. In C. Ellis and M.G. Flaherty (eds),

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Investigating Subjectivity: Research on lived experience, Los Angeles: Sage. pp125-138. Russell, J. (2003). In this world. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2003/02/21/in_this_world_2003_review.sh tml (accessed 04 October 2009). Ross, M. (1989). (ed) The claims of feelings: Readings in aesthetic education, London: Falmer Press. Satre, J.P. (1940). The Imaginary (trans, 2004), London: Routledge. Saunders, L. (2003). On flying, writing poetry and doing educational Research, British Educational Research Journal. 29, 2, 175-187. Shirley, D. & Hargreaves, A. (2006). Data-driven to distraction: Why american educators need a reform alternative-and where they might look to find it, Education Week, 26, 6, 32-33. Street, H., Temperly, J. & Jackson, D. (2005). Improving schools through collaborative enquiry, London: Continuum. Tickle, L. (1987). The arts in education: Some research studies, London: Croom Helm. Torrance, E.P. (1974). Torrance tests of creative thinking, Lexington: MA: Personnel Press. Trotman, D. (2007). Liberating the wise educator: Cultivating professional judgment in educational practice. In A. Craft, H. Gardner & G. Claxton (eds.), Creativity, wisdom, and trusteeship: Exploring the role of education, Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press. pp.158-166. ² (2008). Imagination and the adolescent lifeworld: Possibilities and responsibilities in the national secondary review. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 3, 2, 125–133. von Franz, M. -L., (1964). The process of individuation. In J.C. Jung (ed). Man and his Symbols, London: Aldus Books Ltd. pp.157-254. Warnock, M. (1976). Imagination, London: Faber and Faber. White, A. (1990). The Language of Imagination, Oxford: Blackwell. —. (2005). (ed) Creativity in primary education, Exeter: Learning Matters. Wilson, A. (2005). (ed) Creativity in primary education, Exeter: Learning Matters Witkin, R. (1974). The intelligence of feeling, London: Heinemann. Woods, P. (1995). Creative teachers in primary schools, Buckingham: Open University Press. Wrigley, T. (2006). Another school is possible, London: Bookmarks Publications. Wyman, M. (2004). The defiant imagination, Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre.

CHAPTER SEVEN IMAGINATIVE EDUCATION: NURTURING OUR SOCIAL ECOLOGY DAVID WRIGHT

The pattern which connects: Why do schools teach almost nothing of the pattern which connects? ... What’s wrong with them? What pattern connects the crab to the lobster and the orchid to the primrose and all four of them to me? And me to you? And all six of us to the amoeba in one direction and to the back-ward schizophrenic in another? —Bateson 1988: 8 There is a story which I have used before and shall use again: A man wanted to know about mind, not in nature, but in his private large computer. He asked it (no doubt in his best Fortran), ‘Do you compute that you will ever think like a human being?’ The machine then set to work to analyse its own computational habits. Finally, the machine printed its answer on a piece of paper, as such machines do. The man ran to get the answer and found, neatly typed, the words: THAT REMINDS ME OF A STORY. —Bateson 1988: 13

Introduction Here I want to work with imagination as a quality of relationship rather than something that is perceived or asserted or experienced individually. This identifies imagination as ‘something I am participating in’. The focus is not on a thing. It is on a process of participation, of being in or becoming through relationship. It is in this respect a relationship that arises through ‘the pattern which connects’. When that subject matter is enriched through inquiry into the quality of the relationship opportunities to tease out meaning are extended further. Meaning is constructed or imagined rather than seen or argued or encountered. This identifies imagination as a form of knowing and reflection upon the process of imagining as a form of

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epistemological inquiry. Any such inquiry has ramifications beyond the desire to know. Knowledge arises in context and inquiry is informed by consciousness. In this regard, “we make a world for ourselves by living it” (Maturana & Varela, 1987). This sort of radical constructivism suggests, via von Glasersfeld that “knowledge does not reflect an 'objective' ontological reality, but exclusively an ordering and organization of a world constituted by our experience” (cited in Whittaker, 2003). Thus, it is through the experiential compounding of meaning that imagination constructs a way of living. A focus on imagination, relationship, constructivism and context has marked the Social Ecology program offered at the University of Western Sydney (UWS) since 1988. From its earliest days Social Ecology at UWS emphasised an integrated, participatory approach to learning. This has come to be discussed in terms of ‘ecological thinking’. Ecological thinking leads us to the view that we are part of the systems in which we operate, and we cannot avoid taking responsibility for the impacts we might have (even ‘inaction’ has a consequence). Because we cannot place ourselves completely outside our contexts, we need to also explore non-analytical and more subjective ways of exploring them. (Social Ecology Postgraduate Student Handbook, 1995)

Courses in ‘Social Ecology’ are offered through several organisations. The most widely known are those offered by the Institute of Social Ecology in Vermont, USA. The institute was formed under the influence of eco-libertarian Murray Bookchin (1982), and continues thus, despite Bookchin’s 2006 death. The UWS model did not arise under Bookchin’s direct influence or that of any other prior model. It is a construction of disparate staff (bought together in the Hawkesbury Agricultural College prior to its inclusion in the University of Western Sydney), and reflects overlapping interests and the limited capacities of the institution to accommodate those interests. Nevertheless founding staff have identified several influences. These include Bookchin’s work but also that of the Tavistock Institute and Steiner’s Camphill movement. Alongside this the contributions of systems theorists such as Bateson (1972, 1988), von Foerster, von Glasersfeld, Maturana and Varela (1980, 1987) and Emery and Trist (1972) have been important. To this can be added the influence of deep ecology (Naess, 1989) and archetypal theory (Hillman, 1997). Of influence also was work in ‘systems agriculture’ at UWS (Bawden, 1995), which carried several of the above influences and sponsored then housed initial developments in Social Ecology. The thread linking these, according to long term staff member David Russell, lies in understandings

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of “the co-evolution of any system and its environment”. This interweaving is pivotal in Russell’s response to the question ‘what is Social Ecology’. Social ecology is … a way of integrating the practice of science, the use of technology, and the expression of human values. It draws from any 'body of knowledge' in its pursuit of designing activities that result in selfrespecting, sensitive and social behaviors, which show an awareness of social and ecological responsibilities. (Russell, 1994)

It is worth noting that it is the activity of social ecology, a way of imagining, integrating and designing, rather than any academic field or sub-field that Russell prioritises here. In 1999, a time when UWS enrolments in undergraduate, postgraduate and research degrees in Social Ecology were at their peak, another staff member Brendon Stewart tried to identify Social Ecology as an academic domain. He positioned it within the overlapping fields of Jungian/archetypal psychology, “a ‘sense of place’, home making, ‘imagination in action’, community and organisational theory, the Gaia hypothesis, contemporary systems theory and a biology that favours symbiosis as the coherent and organising function of life” (1999, p4). At first glance this is a fractious bundle. Common ground can be found however in process, and the process is overwhelmingly situated in imagination, interpretation and representation. Metaphor rather than fact is to the fore: biology and culture interconnect through story, feelings are embraced and mystery is welcome. A decade or so years later content could be seen as similar, with less emphasis on psychology and organisational theory and more on education and environment. However, the structure of offerings, as determined by institutional pressures, social pressures and government policy does differ. This could be discussed in ecological terms: Social Ecology, at UWS, has always been a system in evolution, along with its environment. It could also be discussed in political terms. It is a clear example of the systematic inhibition of a marginal field of study in a time of ideological and budgetary constraint. A time in which, by the early 2000s, “the university’s cultural missions have declined at the same time as leaders in politics, economics and the media have lost much of their capacity to understand the world in non-economic terms” (Newfield, 2008, p.15). In 2010 Social Ecology is located in the School of Education in UWS and taught to many students with little awareness of its history, its influences and indeed often its actual existence. Ironically, what was once a specialised study with its own suite of courses has become a small

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postgraduate program and a connected set of individual units, placed within a much larger undergraduate Education major.

Imagination Story and story telling have been central to the enactment of my own social ecology. I came to the work from a background in writing for performance and some of my strongest memories of working with the learning process have built from a story base. An earlier article, ‘Divining the Aleph’ (Wright, 2001) is an example of this. It built inquiry through story, via reference to other story-tellers, and began in the following way; Surely, when one takes the time to reflect upon it, reading and writing must be understood as something truly magical by those denied access to this form of knowing. To find meaning, to make connections and find knowledge, in something which another experiences very differently, could be seen in many ways. It could be seen as bluff… as trickery, even conspiracy, but once it is accepted that meaning is there to be found… it is inevitable that other questions will be asked. …These are the question asked by many ‘foreigners’, suddenly lost in a new language and… cultural reference system and they were, David Abram (1996) suggests, the questions forced upon members of ancient cultures when they first came into contact with phonetic writing systems. Abram tells us that “anthropological accounts from entirely different continents report that members of indigenous, oral tribes” who saw Europeans reading from books “came to speak of the written pages as ‘talking leaves’, for the black marks on the flat, leaflike pages seemed to talk directly to the one who knew their secret” (p.132).

This story telling works, in style and content, with the notion that how we think, interpret and experience is critical in the unfolding of our lives, and that the depths of this are easily overlooked. Humberto Maturana argues that, “what is said can under no circumstances be separated from the person saying it…. All observers are part of their observations” (Maturana & Poerksen, 2004, p.26). The same could be said of imagination. It, like story telling, is not a neutral process. It is a form of participation: a way of engaging with experience. Maturana’s work on the biology of cognition and consciousness draws attention to this by focussing on ways in which we, individually and collectively, ‘bring forth a world’. Maturana argues that this comes about through the process of ‘autopoiesis’. Auto, of course, means ‘self’ and refers to the autonomy of self-organising systems; and poiesis - which shares the same Greek root as the word

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Here, science and imagination are married in a process marked by the participation of the meaning-maker and imagination is an integral element. Through autopoiesis patterns of relationship come to consciousness. Intelligence of this kind brings with it responsibility. Bunnell and Forsythe (2001), who work with concepts developed by Maturana, argue that “intelligence is not primarily the capacity to solve problems; rather it is the capacity to participate in the generation, expansion and operation of consensual domains – domains of co-ordinations of behaviours and emotions through living together”. Inevitably ‘living together’ is influenced by emotional history but Bunnell and Forsythe assert, “we all have the bodyhood (including our nervous system) that enables intelligent development – that is our evolutionary inheritance” (2001, p.159). From a biological perspective, imagination is an aspect of intelligence that has an intimate relationship to bodyhood. Maturana and Varela (1980; 1987) argue the case for an equivalence between the molecular processes of life and the experience, interpretation and explanation of those processes. This work is taken further by sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1995) in his theorising around ‘communicative systems’. Luhmann applies Maturana’s analysis of biological change directly to social relationships. Accordingly he describes society as autopoietic on the basis of the ‘communicative events’ that maintain it, thus acknowledging the centrality of the languaging systems that we participate in. Imagination is contained within such communication. It is what enables science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin (1989) to track a creative path, through science, to arrive at equivalent conclusions. They [bodies] arrange things. They make sense, literally. Molecule by molecule. In the cell. The cells arrange themselves. The body is an arrangement in space time, a patterning, a process; the mind is a process of the body, an organ, doing what organs do: organise. Order, pattern, connect. Do we have any better way to organise such wildly different (dream) experiences as a half remembered crocodile, a dead great-aunt, the smell of coffee, a scream from Iran, a bumpy landing, and a hotel room in Cincinnatti than the narrative? - an immensely flexible technology, or life strategy, which if used with skill and resourcefulness presents each of us with the most fascinating of all serials, The Story of My Life (p. 42).

Importantly, Maturana and Varela place this process in a physical domain. They situate cognition as ‘structurally coupled’ with its environment, suggesting that self, which is constantly informed by

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imagination, arises in relationship, and disturbances in the environment that contains that self prompt organisms to consistently re-imagine and restructure themselves, and as a consequence engage and behave differently in the world. If, as is suggested here, we act in correspondence with an environment and consequences unfold leading to further action, imagination is crucial in this unfolding. More recent work extends and strengthens this understanding. Gallese and Lakoff (2005), writing in the journal Cognitive Neuropsychology, assert that conceptual knowledge, of which imagination is a form, is embodied. (They contrast this with the view of imagination as meaningful because of its symbolic import.) This is a most powerful observation. Gallese and Lakoff argue that imagination is actually “mapped within our sensory-motor system”. They conclude therefore that “imagining and doing use a shared neural substrate”. When one imagines seeing something, some of the same part of the brain is used as when one actually sees. When we imagine moving, some of the same part of the brain is used as when we actually move…. We can imagine grasping an object without actually grasping it… The reason is that imagination, like perceiving and doing, is embodied, that is, structured by our constant encounter and interaction with the world via our bodies and brain. (2005, p2)

This is understood by ‘method’ actors. It is less well understood in mainstream education. Ironically, it may not be new knowledge. Philosopher and novelist Stephen Muecke argues something similar, inspired in part he says, by indigenous Australian metaphysics. Muecke assets that “communicative events (like telling a story) do not bridge gaps, but are things that exist,” that a literary text is “defined through its active relations with other things, human and non-human, in a sustaining ecology … that storytelling is a way of keeping things alive in their place” (Muecke, 2009).

Stories of social ecology In the sections that follow I want to offer four stories of constructions of social ecology. Some make more explicit reference to ‘social ecology’ than others but each is designed to extend or enliven a knowledge system: a network of understandings. The first discusses insights offered by a poet, Aaron Williamson. I imagine the story of Williamson as a metaphor for the construction of knowing through imagination. The second addresses a

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colloquium on ‘sense of place’ held north-west of Alice Springs in central Australia. Here imagination is spoken of as deeply embedded in relationships with the physical world. The third describes a workshop conducted by an adult learning theorist on desire, enchantment and learning. The fourth describes processes, practices and responses to the intensive teaching model that is the basis of postgraduate coursework teaching in Social Ecology at UWS. These four stories, offered as interpretations rather than delineations, are intended to both stimulate and illuminate the imagination as well as provide insights into its functioning in diverse settings.

1. The deaf poet, sound and silence Aaron Williamson is a performance poet. He is also profoundly deaf. While deaf, the subject matter of much of what he writes and performs is sound. I remember my introduction to his work. It was late on a Saturday afternoon and I was in the city. I was due to see a show by the writer, actor and director Stephen Berkoff. The show began at 8pm and I needed a bookshop to while away one of those hours with and something to read as I waited for the show to begin. I chose Williamson’s book not because I knew anything of him or its content but because of a quote on the back cover. The quote read, “a book is in the act of becoming. It arises from the futility of searching for its own components. Everything here is fastened into its rigid embrace, especially the futility of its search” (Williamson 1993, p.8). The ‘book’ and its ‘becoming’ caught me. I liked the suggestion that a book, like a story or a performance or any sort of relationship develops a life of its own, that it emerges differentiated from its creator and the circumstances of its creation. I was also drawn to the notion of a book “searching for its own components” and the associated “futility” of that search. I bought the book. Early in the opening section the poet announces, “There is to be an embarkation”. A beginning point. “All is known, charted and gridworked beforehand.” Hope flies, anticipation prevails. “This is in the act of becoming” (p.8). The next five segments in the opening section are composed of overlapping images of ‘becoming’. Williamson writes, the “nib is tracing”, “a mirage (is) beckoning”, “a lightning-rod (is) trawling for ignition”, “the text, snaking, arches along such devious twistings and self delusions towards incendiary gratification” (p.9-10). Curiously now, as I write, I remember I did not learn Williamson was deaf until some time after this first encounter. When I made mention of his

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deafness above, I did it out of need, as a storyteller. For a considerable time, for the writer to be deaf or not did not matter. Despite the fact that his deafness is central to his work, I found my way into his writing without any need to consider such a condition. Subsequently of course, it seems ridiculous that I did not appreciate it. I failed to do so because I was absorbed in his work. I felt so drawn that learning of his deafness came almost as a relief. It released me from the painfully compelling exuberance of his writing. Exactly how or when the impairment became apparent I am unsure. It was as if I, like Williamson, found it convenient not to focus on the obvious truth. “The affliction: Don’t mention it. Untalked around. It speaks itself” (p.22). The relationships constructed by Williamson’s deafness are inescapable. He lives them. But his relationship to sound is of particular interest. He invests the full energy of his imagination in it, something that he cannot have, and in so doing finds it, for himself. He writes of “the sounds of words, trapped in the torso (that) continue with speaking. Silently”. And of being “Possessed by sounds... they have me... I feel them...I catch them before they reach out”. To him, “the text is timpani/ the text is mallet” (p.37). For sound is not denied him. It rises from the ground, up his legs and resonates between his diaphragm and his stomach. This is a sensation he has learned to hear. It resonates alongside his own voice, which “is something I experience primarily physically, through the jaw, in the chest etc. rather than in the site of the inner ear” (personal communication January 11, 1995). Through imagination this experience attains such clarity that the purpose of his writing and performance becomes in part, his communication of his experience of sound. This can be especially confronting. Dyer (1992) describes his performance as a response to profound deafness mediated “not by the use of conventional body language, but by a new and affective ‘language of the body’.” It is, in Dyer’s words, “a deeply felt cathartic experience... a process of public encounter with a most private and intimate anguish” (p.113). Catling (1991) writes, “Williamson’s body spasms are not emotional semaphore, but the violent pulse of the work... It is impossible to know if the moving, explosive purges of language that are spitefully contorting his body are generated from it, or its irritant cause.” Necessarily, any attempt to represent Williamson’s performance in words runs counter to his intent. Williamson not only seeks to but needs to move beyond the verbal to imagine and give form to a means of communication he can become ‘able-bodied’ through. Williamson knows this. “I’d... like to emphasise that my disability is not deafness... but speech as it is used by others and which disables me in terms of social

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exchange... Language literally fails us and yet, we have no other medium, no other direction to turn” (personal communication January 11, 1995). The relationships through which Williamson arrives at language enable him to appreciate both creative expression and the limits of abstract reason. This frustration is accessible to all of us who have sought to understand something beyond our grasp, but in reach of our imagination. The limits of language are the limits of language. For here is the person before language. Not able, finally, to disappear. Capable of human form. (p.67)

Herein lies the metaphor. Williamson’s imagined relationship to sound, which is something I can access with ease, connects me to my imagination: my yearning. As Lakoff and Gallese suggest, such aspiration constructs further networks of relationship. This constructs also a knowledge system, a way of knowing. This, the aspiration and the imagination, is the base from which all knowledge systems grow, within and through the communities that are defined by them. In social ecological terms, the relationships that sustain meaning, that in effect sustain community, are a consequence of a desire to look beyond appearances. The act, rather than the ‘truth’ or even the aesthetics of imagining is what is most important. It is this that ‘brings forth’ the realities we step into. Williamson’s reality is different to my own because I am not deaf. But in creativity and imagination we both construct, enrich and connect our experience and consciousness.

2. Encountering ‘country’ The second Australian national colloquium on ‘sense of place’ occurred at Hamilton Downs, a disused cattle station turned youth camp, 70 kms north-west of Alice Springs in September 1997. In an article published some years later John Cameron and Craig San Roque (2002), the co-ordinators of the colloquium, tried to capture their thoughts on the event. Cameron was, at the time, a Senior Lecturer in Social Ecology at UWS. San Roque was a PhD student at UWS, a Jungian therapist and a long-time resident of Alice Springs. This section draws heavily on their conversation. The aim is to illuminate thoughts on the systemic construction of knowledge through place and to identify imagination as deeply invested in relationships to the physical environment. Cameron describes the process of co-ordinating the sense of place colloquium as that of ‘designing a social ecology’: “the design of the conditions for effective social and environmental interaction using

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ecological principles” (p.76). To understand how this was attempted it is helpful to record some of the assumptions Cameron and San Roque brought to the event. San Roque: In Australia, the country, or at least the Aboriginal country, is a seething mass of consciousness. Rocks, trees, watercourses, hills, ranges, all are impregnated with consciously held meanings, events, stories, all woven in intricate patterns of relationship and embodied in designs, song phrases and dance steps. This is a geographical literature which can be read once one has been taught the language and the perspective. Most of us who now live in Australia, and to some extent are the inheritors of this library, know of the existence of this inland sea of ‘song lines’ but are nevertheless profoundly unconscious of the subtle intimacy of the Creation Being’s life and their role in keeping Aboriginal consciousness healthy and alert. (p. 77) Cameron: So, the interaction between Aboriginal and western senses of place must start from the recognition that Aboriginal people have a completely different conception of the relationship between consciousness and place than most Western people. Our first issue in designing the colloquium was how to bring out this difference, conceptually and experientially, with a varied group of visitors from academia. (p.77)

Thirty academics and research students, from Australia and overseas, were invited to the colloquium. As one of those invited my initial response was to the unexpected diversity of the environment: the richness and variety of plant, insect and bird life, the array of colours and the unflinching power of the MacDonnell Ranges that dominate the view to the immediate south. Of significance early also was the story, told by ethno-botanist Peter Latz, of the watercourse that runs beneath the sandy riverbed that traverses the property and feeds the underground forest that peeks its branches above the red-brown earth. This and additional stories told by Latz and other locals, including Aboriginal custodian Bobby Stuart, enlivened the environment and made it, for me, considerably more than harsh scrubland. The majority of these stories were told in the opening sessions of the colloquium. A period described by Cameron as a “day and a half of explanation of the depth of layering of Aboriginal stories of place, and why it isn’t culturally appropriate or realistic to tell more than the outer layer to visiting white folk at the outset” (p.78). San Roque observed: “Some of the group were powerfully moved by the end of (this day and a half), and understood they were in a different country in which different forces were at work on them”. He added, “there are techniques and

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protocols for becoming accustomed to Aboriginal country and there are techniques (emerging) for recognising and decoding the communication from country” (p.79). One of the methods employed to extend this decoding was a voluntary ‘morning dream circle’. San Roque argued this “was to enhance the participants’ capacity to remain open and vulnerable to pre-conscious perceptions, to allow dream imagery to help in binding human consciousness to the place”. He situated this in the context of traditional Aboriginal practice. “It is the custom among some aboriginal groups to have what is often called in English ‘the morning news’, when soon after waking, people will chatter, mutter and pass on the news from the night, this includes the news from dreams” (p.79-80). Another of the methods used was gendered retreats and performances. For one day male and females separated and, under the guidance of locals, gathered to talk, sing, make music and learn. This sought to acknowledge, among other things, the depth of difference in traditional male and female relationships to place, something traditionally marked in Aboriginal communities. This separation culminated in performances by the men for the women and by the women for the men. It was followed, the next day, by a group excursion several kilometres up a nearby series of canyons to a natural waterhole. ‘Fishhole’ is a deep oval pool, and something completely unexpected in such a hot, dry location. It is accessible only on foot following a walk along a series of rising and falling, rock strewn, broad, deep, dry canyons. The pool, a third the size of a football field, nestles between overhanging rock formations and is a consequence of the temporary surfacing and settling of artesian water. During the walk to Fishhole two conference keynotes were delivered. The first, on immigrant hardship in outback Australia from a rock platform mid-way up the face of a canyon. The second, on hidden and repressed parts of our culture, from the sandy bottom of a deep canyon. In each the physical place contained and ordered the content powerfully. In both Cameron observed, the speakers addressed “what lay beyond the visible and immediate” (p.84) and in the process revealed something of the depth of engagement in place that had by then arisen. In reflecting on the ‘design’ of the colloquium Cameron and San Roque write of the adaptive nature of the process. While Cameron argues the difficulties in containing the potentially deranging influence of country, San Roque argues the need to recognise the limits of human influence. “Fortunately” he says, “it (the design) wasn’t just left to you and I. The country acts as both deranger and container”. They agree finally that

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design is far too strong a word for their accomplishment and their roles could be better described as ‘catalytic agents’. Acknowledging this leads finally to the role of country. San Roque describes the colloquium as something arranged “so that we could begin to think about such things in a place that still has the power to influence human being and human thought”. Cameron agrees. “I have a feeling that although our planning and catalysing helped, it was the quality of this presence that was most important and most enduring. Perhaps this is one of the hallmarks of a social ecology” (p.88). Cameron’s reference to the particular qualities of the place is the crucial observation. Imagination seems almost too soft a term to describe the construction of meaning in such a location. Here imagination has also constructed responsibility and this is reflected in the custodial relationship to country accepted by Bobby Stuart. I remember most particularly a story he told to myself and three others in the final days of the colloquium. His story depicted a nearby section of the MacDonnell mountain range as a consequence of the interaction between a collection of mythological beings and as he told the story I could read the story in the mountain range too. I could read it in the rises and falls that he pointed to, in the outcrops and escarpments, in the ridges and valleys, in the wavering tensions of this fragile, fractured scape. I could see this person chasing that person and at that place making camp. I could see the tension of the pursuit and the weapons and the old men and the young girl. I could see the place where the spear was thrown and the place of transformation where death gives birth to new life, which then becomes myth. This is the place where the story becomes the mountain range: not explains, not creates, but becomes the mountain range. It becomes in the telling. Without the storyteller and the moment and the place of the telling I would not have encountered this mountain in this way. In telling the story of the range the custodian tells his story of its coming into being: the story he has learned, responded to, remembered, embellished perhaps, made his own such that he can pass it on to others, who will pass it on again in their own way, as I have here. The story creates the land, in relationship. Language imagines it as dust or myth (hence the importance of indigenous language as a reservoir of local social ecological understanding). In maintaining a story, a custodian maintains relationships that enrich being. In this case, near that particular mountain range and the particular land in its vicinity Stuart testified to its creativity: its divinity. To the degree to which we share in it, it is our creativity too: our cathedral, our text, our social ecology – alongside other cathedrals, other texts, other relational knowledge systems – embracing, encompassing and being expressed through us.

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3. Re-enchantment In November 2008 at a conference on ‘Critical Pedagogy and Participatory Learning for Social Transformation’, adult learning theorist Peter Willis opened his presentation (titled ‘Evocative portrayal for Transformative Learning’) in characteristically irreverent style. “All you people talking about critical pedagogies, popular education and democratic education need to push your imagination,” he said. “What you should be talking about is social ecology.” In retrospect, Willis describes this as both an intellectual and an emotional assertion. First the intellectual rationale: The big thing I discovered about social ecology is its wholeness and its location of human endeavours and struggles in the larger organic and inorganic world. I also felt that social ecology could be taken to include a caring approach that could encompass all forms of human action – loving, consuming, ploughing, building, bombing etc. I found that critical pedagogy, while important - even essential - for keeping some kind of protective guard over freedoms in human cultural life, seemed to me to be limited to largely logical, rational discourse and linguistic exchanges.

Then the emotional: I think a feeling of academic inferiority may also generate my strong reaction to exclusively critical approaches. I often have felt a kind of superciliousness among critical pedagogy devotees as if there is a concern with being right rather than being good. My background seeks goodness and wisdom. (personal communication April 17, 2009)

The workshop Willis constructed built around “dramatised ‘imagistic’ presentations of episodes of educational practice”. He drew the images from a work of cinema – the film As it is in heaven - and invited those present to “imagine themselves in actions, as educators, in similar circumstances.” An online reviewer responded to As it is in heaven in the following way. “The story is simple. The characters are stereotypical archetypes that are predictable in their every line and action… but at the core of this sincere film is something real and close to our hearts” (Retrieved 16, April, 2009 from http://www.tonight.co.nz/reviews/asitisin heaven.html). The strong archetypal images and clearly identifiable role-types that the film works with make it ideal for Willis’ purposes. After viewing a segment of the film and discussing responses Willis set up a series of improvised interactions between workshop participants via representations of featured characters. This process was designed to “create vicarious imaginal experiences through presentation of dramatised educational

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enactments to evoke in learner/educators their own imaginal responses”. The intention is, according to Willis, “a transformative maturing process by which a person becomes consolidated in their self story and related self images and seeks to manifest strong authenticity and integrity in life” (Willis, 2005). For an educator Willis says, such exercises offer a phenomenological encounter with the experience of educational work and an opportunity for students to “become aware of how… (such work) sits with their aspirations and self stories”. Such processes are in turn critical, reflective, imaginative, constructive and an exemplar of learning. The exercise was introduced as an abbreviated version of an extended workshop Willis runs with his adult education students. He describes this as ‘re-enchantment education’, in that it “tries to focus the mind on the images that are placed before it… and allow space for an evocative response of imaginal acceptance, which is a kind of enchantment”. The voyage to re-enchantment is he says, “the imagistic mythopoetic journey”: an exploration of the stories that give meaning to our lives. It is ‘open and emancipatory’, collaborative, respectful and ‘somehow embodied’. Timothy Leonard (2008) describes mythopoetic teaching in the following way. Grounded in story telling, mythopoetic pedagogy strikes awe in the hearts of new learners and establishes the domain upon which they are focussed. It shows how reasoning is done within that domain and informs the community of the consequences of the… work…. Through engaging students in experiments, conversations and… presentations it challenges them to imagine the real, to illustrate their understandings, to critique each others’ work, to participate in a drama that is truly beautiful. (p. 90)

I encountered the term ‘mythopoesis’ - which Willis is led to through his interest in archetypal theory, Jungian ‘individuation’ and Heron’s (1992) heuristics - subsequent to my introduction to Maturana and Varela’s ‘autopoiesis’. In autopoiesis ‘self’ is encountered also, but rather than through cultural myth or story it arises in the personal experience of embodied encounter. It is sensed or felt. Because personal experience is necessarily socialised through story, autopoiesis is also an extremely powerful encounter with the imaginal. It is an encounter that has allowed me, for example, to locate myself (via story) in culture and community through reference to my participation in a biological system that is interpreted by consciousness: to identify, validate, and mythologise my own encounters. Here intersections with mythopoesis arise. Through these processes I bring feeling, emotion, ideas, language and story to considerations upon experiences I have participated in. These acquire a mythic character when it is patterns rather than particularities that are the

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focus. When reflection enables these stories to be placed in consciousness rather than simply enacted these become what Patrick Harpur (2002) calls ‘soulful’ encounters. “Without soul,” says Harpur, “without imagination and its daimons, the world is laid waste” (Harpur 2002, p.284). It is this depth of engagement that leads Willis to prefer the descriptor ‘social ecology’ to ‘critical pedagogy’: a move beyond critical analysis, with its focus on elite and authoritative knowledge systems, towards a creative imagining of the encounters that enable the construction of resilient, sustainable relationships, through engagement and participation. Through processes of this kind Willis, like Cameron and San Roque, acts as a catalyst for the emergence of a social ecology: a form of selfhood that is structurally coupled to the environment – the place, the community, the systems of thought – that contain the self and change as the self too is changed. This active embrace of the radical constructivist position that ‘we make a world for ourselves by living it’ places imagination in direct relationship to the future that we will, sooner or later, be inhabiting.

4. Performing social ecology Willis’ acquaintance with Social Ecology at UWS began when he was invited in 2003 to a postgraduate residential as a ‘scholar in residence’. The residential, which is a 4-5 day intensive teaching block, is central to the pedagogy of Social Ecology postgraduate coursework degrees at UWS. It is run in the opening weeks of each semester and is designed to provide structure and content for the project work that students undertake in following weeks. That content comprises an introduction to ideas and processes as well as intellectual and emotional engagement with a community of inquiry: a social ecology. These events work through a performative structure, as described by performance theorist Richard Schechner (1977). Schechner describes performance as a process that arises between the activities of ‘arriving and ‘dispersing’. Positioned thus, performance moves through a series of phases. These commence with the recognition of a “breach (norm-governed social relations are challenged)”, and conclude with “reintegration or social recognition and legitimisation of irreparable schism (the breach is overcome or accommodated)” (p. 121122). Each residential commences with a ritual opening. Peter Willis described his experience of this in the following way. The opening ceremony, with John Cameron’s dignified ritual of ecological awakeness, respect and welcome, included moments of silence and that old greenie staple, ‘cleaning up’. I thought it had the effect of making us

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‘valued visitors’, but as pilgrims of learning and active environmentalists. (Willis unpublished notes 2003)

This is followed by an introduction, of sorts. Often, but not always, humour is a part of this. In 2003 a comprehensive set of interviews were used to inquire into students’ experience of the residential. One student (let’s call her Shirley) described her experience of this introduction in the following way: With the first residential I had a real sense of stepping back and watching what was happening and feeing quite amazed and deciding the whole thing was like a mad hatter’s tea party and I wasn’t quite sure where I fitted in….

Another, Sarah, commented similarly; … each time I have come to the residentials, particularly the first one of the year… the ways that staff have introduced themselves have been very creative… like it just drops all those barriers immediately…. they are accessible people, they have a sense of humour and they make mistakes and they are like everyone else. The ability of the staff to engage students is great.

A ‘theme’ is decided on for each residential. This informs the selection of guests as well as the pedagogy of staff, but its principal role is as a provocation to students. Themes have included: ‘Questioning compassion: taking action’; ‘Radical action in a changing world’; ‘Beyond managerialism: Other ways of knowing and being’; ‘Inclusiveness: dilemmas, reflections, designs’. The theme aids in the construction of Schechner’s ‘breach’. It challenges students to imagine relationships between the theme, their own experience and the learning they encounter. Importantly, the event allows plenty of time for learning beyond teaching sessions. Naomi described it thus: (It comprises) learning by experiences, everyday experiences, be they exercises in the class, interaction with other people or interaction with myself… (these are) all teaching me things... the biggest thing I noted is that a lot of learning happens without words, just through being in the environment and absorbing it through my skin as well as through words and information.

Ruth, when asked to comment on possible changes to the course said, “I wouldn’t want to see (the) creativity and responsiveness and sensitivity and that spark (that is central to the course) somehow dispersed and mainstreamed”. This is evident also in observations of Peter Willis.

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Following the intensive students return to their home and workplaces: to forests and farms, communes and suburbs, community centres, classrooms, councils, publishing houses, health practices, agricultural coops and more in Australia, New Zealand and sometimes beyond. When back home students undertake their individual project work, supported by online contact. Project documentation is finally submitted 3-4 months after the introductory event. The power of a residential gathering such as the one I have been part of is its capacity to create a catalytic space for students to mature as activists and writers. On the one hand there are opportunities in the scheduled interaction times for students to clarify their ecological ideals and plan grounded ways to put these into practice. At the same time the academic program provides opportunities for students to explore more deeply the academic foundations of their work and of ways to write about and critique their social ecological projects. (Willis unpublished notes 2003)

Schechner’s performative analysis is helpful in a number of ways. It helps to appreciate the depth of commitment that so many students feel towards the process. Experiential encounter is central to this. Its transformative power lies in the immersion in process. Self and subject matter are constantly intertwined, as imagined by Shepherd, in the context of scientific research. If we are conscious of how our research is symbolic of ourselves, we can try out solutions in the laboratory as well as integrate them into our lives. Our inner and outer lives become progressively linked. Solutions to technical problems may even present themselves in our dreams... once we solve the inner issue, the energy seems to withdraw from the topic. (Shepherd, 1993, p.122)

This necessitates that the conclusion of the event is emotional for many, and then symbolically or ritualistically marked.

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While not all staff would identify the process in performative terms – disciplinary skills, interests and vocabularies differ – each would attest to the residential as a structured process with overlapping emotional and intellectual encounters that invites analysis, interpretation and active imagination. It enables learning to be recognised as a process arising in relationship to the contexts within which it occurs. In my case this was and is a systemic understandings of process and the transformative discourses generated therein. Thus my learning (that of my students) arises out of and feeds back into its source. It contributes to something larger than itself. This means that my pedagogical practice and the teaching and learning arising from it are creating something other than learned content. They are creating a knowledge form – an epistemology - which the self and others can participate in. This has a future orientation and a systemic or ecological underpinning.

Concluding comments Augusto Boal (1992) works with equivalent understandings. To him theatre, the art of looking at ourselves, is “a form of knowledge”. He extends this by arguing that this perspective as much as the practice is “a means of transforming society” that “can help us build our future rather than just waiting for it” (Boal, 1992, xxxi). Eugene Gendlin argues similarly: “We do not first interpret things, we live and act in them. We inhale and cry and feed. We are already within interactions (situations, practice, action, performance…)” (Gendlin, cited in Todres 2007, p.33). “The lived body,” Todres adds, “provides the intimacy needed for knowledge as meaningful practice” (2007, p.33). The characteristics of such knowledge deserve to be discussed alongside the way in which imagination is a part of it. However, it is the larger perspective that most demands appreciation. This is that an effective understanding of process instils awareness of and responsibility for the manner in which we participate. This identifies imagination as a social action and the consequences of this action as something for which we must take responsibility. This makes sustainability a base line in the valuing of experience, it presupposes ethical considerations and affirms the centrality of conscious awareness to our collective encounter. The four ‘stories of social ecology’ revolve around a common axis: the powerful dynamics of the construction of meaning via applied imagination. Williamson, San Roque and Cameron, and Willis respond to problematic learning environments by imagining other ways of relating to, in turn, sound, ‘country’ and academic knowledge systems. The consequence

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in each situation is the enactment of a new way of knowing. This requires the initiation of new languaging relationships, the development of new terminologies and an opening to new understanding. Williamson grapples most powerfully with this in his acknowledgement of the ‘limits of language’ a concept that brings to consciousness other limits, including the limits of imagination. Cameron and San Roque seek to construct a languaging bridge between traditional and contemporary knowledge systems through myth, symbol and story and in doing so suggest the relativity of social imaginings, while Willis facilitates an imaginative and critical inquiry into understanding through a greater focussing on experience. These, along with the description of the processes employed in intensive Social Ecology teaching programs suggest the power of a reflective and interpretive approach to the systems that facilitate learning. Through such an approach imagination constructs understanding that is not only tested against experience but used also to enable that testing experience to be better appreciated. Social Ecology has long worked with Tarnas’ (2007) homily: “change the world-view and change the world”. At a time when the highly individualistic neo-liberal perspective is being challenged most profoundly by emerging understandings of systemic relationships via ecology the role of the imagination as a determinant of future learning is of enormous significance. When imagination is appreciated as a primary contributor to the world we are ‘bringing forth’ the challenge to appreciate it for its systemic qualities is increased. The philosophical renderings of radical constructivism bring the responsibility that accompanies powerful acts of learning to the fore. The work of Lakoff and Gallese leavens this through biological consciousness. This is a futures-oriented responsibility that requires us to appreciate the relationship between our imagining and the relationships that sustain, extend and enrich consciousness and communication. This is the means whereby we focus and re-focus our knowledge, our intention and our practice.

References Abram, D. (1996). The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Pantheon Books. Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine Books. —. (1988). Mind and nature. New York: Bantam Books. Bawden, R. (1995). Systemic development: A learning approach to change. Centre for Systemic Development. Occasional paper #1. University of Western Sydney Hawkesbury.

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Shepherd, L. (1993). Lifting the veil: The feminine face of science. Boston: Shambhala. Bookchin, M. (1982). The ecology of freedom. Palo Alto, CA: Cheshire Books Boal, A. (1992). Games for actors and non-actors. London: Routledge. —. (1995). The rainbow of desire. London: Routledge. Bunnell, P. & Forsythe, K. (2001). The chain of hearts. In Hocking, B. Haskell, J. & Linds, W. (eds). Unfolding bodymind. Brandon VT: Foundation for Educational Renewal. Cameron, J & San Roque, C. (2002). Coming into country: The catalysing process of social ecology, In PAN (Philosophy, Activism, Nature). No. 2. Catling, B. (1991). The shamanism of intent. London: Goldmark Books. Capra, F. (1996). The web of life. London: Harper Collins. Dyer, R. (1992). The anatomy of utterance; the poetry and performance of Aaron Williamson. In Dwyer, S. (ed). Rapid eye 2 London: Annihilation Press. Emery, F.E. & Trist, E.L. (1972). Towards a social ecology New York: Plenum Press. Gallese, V. & Lakoff, G. (2005). The brain’s concepts: The role of the sensory-motor system in conceptual knowledge. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 21, 455–479. Harpur, P. (2002). The philosophers’ secret fire: a history of the imagination. London: Penguin. Heron, J. (1992). The politics of facilitation. In Mulligan, J. & Griffin, C. (eds). Empowerment through experiential learning. London: Kogan Page. Hillman, J. (1997). Archetypal psychology, Woodstock, Conn.: Spring Publications. Le Guin, U. (1989). Dancing at the edge of the world. New York: Harper and Row. Leonard, T. (2008). Imagination and mythopoesis in the science curriculum, In Leonard, T. & Willis, P. (eds). Pedagogies of the imagination. Dortrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Luhmann, N. (1995). Social systems. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Maturana, H.R. & Varela, F.J. (1980). Autopoiesis and cognition. Boston: Shambhala. Maturana, H.R. & Varela, F.J. (1987). The tree of knowledge. Boston: Shambhala.

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Maturana, H.R. & Poerksen, B. (2004). From being to doing. Heidelberg, Germany: Carl-Auer. Muecke, S. (2009). Storytelling as a Reproductive Mode of Existence. Writing & Society Research Seminar, UWS 17th April 2009. Naess, A. (1989). Ecology, community and lifestyle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Newfield (2008). Unmaking the public university, Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press. Russell, D. (1994). Social Ecology: Education and research. In Fell, L, Russell, D & Stewart A. (eds). Seized by agreement - swamped by understanding. Glenbrook: Drs Fell, Russell & Assoc. Schechner, R. (1977). Performance theory. London: Routledge. Shepherd, L. (1993). Lifting the veil: The feminine face of science. Boston: Shambhala. Stewart, B. (1999). Editorial: A Social Ecology journal. Tarnas, R. (2007). Cosmos and psyche. London: Plume / Penguin. Todres, L. (2007). Embodied enquiry. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Whittaker. R (2003). Encylopedia autopoietica: An annotated lexical compendium on autopoiesis and enaction. Available from: http://www.enolagaia.com/EA.html#R accessed 31/3/09. Williamson, A. (1993). A holythroat symposium. London: Creation Press. Willis, P. (2005). Re-enchantment education for democratic educators. In Heywood, P., McCann, T., Neville, B. & Willis, P. (eds). Towards reenchantment: Education, imagination and the getting of wisdom. Queensland: Post Pressed. Wright, D. (2001). Divining the Aleph. The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy. 17. 1. Available from: http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/content/v17.1/wright.html

CHAPTER EIGHT EVOKING VISUAL IMAGINATION IN TEACHING ESL WRITING IZABELLA KOVARZINA

Introduction You want to force humanity not to talk in images…. From the very earliest times, man has always talked in images. Every language is full of images and metaphors. You are attacking the expression of thought in images, you are conspirators against progress, you poor unhappy morons. —Dostoyevsky to the ‘destroyers of aesthetics’, Dostoyevsky, 1962.

As I was finishing my evening shift as an English tutor at the local community college tutorial center, a student came to me for help with his writing assignment. A rather common assignment for an argumentative essay required this student to agree or disagree with a quote from the British Parliamentarian and socialite Nancy Astor: “The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.” “Why should this be considered ‘trouble’?” I asked myself. As an immigrant to the United States, most of the accomplishments in my life evolved as a result of thinking based on hopes, wishes, and sometimes fears; in other words, imaginative thinking. This kind of thinking brought me closer to what we call the American dream. It seems that the author of this quote is a supporter of a long Western rationalist tradition of distinguishing mind and thinking in general from our emotions: hopes, fears, and wishes. Rationalists generally claim that knowledge about reality can be obtained by reason alone without one’s emotions or experience. Consequently, many educators have transferred this more limited idea of thinking to the field of education, emphasizing the importance of so-called pure reasoning and cool logic when students deal with most subjects.

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Writing is no exception. Many educators acknowledge that writing is thinking, and require their students to engage in a process which must be detached from the emotions. The Nancy Astor quote raises questions because the mind, and therefore thinking, is defined here as being distinct from the imagination and emotions. The problem is that thinking and writing cannot be viewed as such pure entities. While writing in most people’s minds is language recorded in symbols, many people ignore the intermediate stages of the process, such as visualization of the topic to be described. The notion that written language is only reasoning and structuring symbols on paper without grasping ideas visually and emotionally leads to broad instructional methods which do not allow students to feel the ideas that they write about. This narrow view of thinking and writing as a mechanical process of pure reasoning has resulted in generations of students who are afraid to dream on paper or to use the word I in their writing assignments. It is no surprise that students learning to use English as their second or even third language feel even more discouraged about expressing themselves on paper. While acquiring a foreign language, they must also learn new ways of speaking and writing about the world. These new modes often contradict their own cultural forms of expression simply because they do not allow any place for emotions and subjectivity.

The current situation It might be useful at this point to briefly review the current situation of ESL (English as a Second Language) instruction in the United States. As multicultural institutions, universities in the U.S. enroll many foreign students along with native-born students who speak English as a second language. These groups of students often experience many difficulties in comprehending class materials, and particularly in completing their writing assignments. Although they are learning in a second language, the expectations for these students are as high as for the rest of the student population. Enabling these students to meet the demands of a universitylevel education is a serious, ongoing challenge. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, approximately 12% of 2003-2004 United States undergraduates did not have English as their primary language. Of these, roughly 31% had not completed their programs and were no longer enrolled three years later (National Center for Education Statistics, 2006). Many studies show that students who are ESL learners have a high risk of academic failure compared to their monolingual English-speaking peers (Almanza de Schonewise, 1999; Standley, 2006; Vaughn, Bos, & Schumm,

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2003). The most significant contributing factors to academic failure for ESL students are a lack of proficiency in English and differences between students’ home and school cultures (Standley, 2006). Since most academic assignments require English writing skills, there is an acute need for teaching practices for ESL writing which prevent ESL students from becoming discouraged, possibly even to the point of dropping out.

Alternative approaches While many educators point out the importance of a variety of different teaching techniques in second-language writing instruction, these techniques are usually limited to issues of grammar and structure. Writing a five-paragraph essay, with an emphasis on introduction, body, and conclusion, is the most common activity in U.S. English composition classes. Most of the time in these classes is spent polishing the grammar, structure, and logic of students’ writing, without considering higher intellectual functions such as abstract thinking. Many foreign students struggle to master their spelling and reasoning, but still do not succeed in writing and often fail classes. For many of these students, “standard” English writing becomes a difficult and unnatural activity. These experiences restrict the purpose of writing, ideally communication of that which is important to the writer, to a more limited technical exercise with the major emphasis being on structure and grammar. Although grammar, spelling, and overall paper structure remain necessary components of good writing, research on writing has demonstrated alternative approaches to writing instruction for non-native English speakers. Most of these studies focus on process, as opposed to product-oriented approaches to teaching ESL writing (Hudelson, 1989; Mahn, 1997; Ray, 1993). The supporters of process-oriented classrooms argue that grammatical errors and imperfect structure in ESL students’ writing are a natural part of the process of learning how to write well. An overall emphasis on errors increases stress on the students, and eventually results in a fear of writing. Instead, ESL writing, like writing in general, should be an exploratory and creative activity which focuses on the communication of ideas to the reader. This process of communication should not be hindered or burdened by a fear of imperfect results. It is reasonable to expect that culturally diverse learners will gradually improve their knowledge of English grammar and will pick up the nuances of American English rhetoric over time. To help these students write better, ESL instructors should use writing as “meaningful communication and

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reduce the emphasis on error so as to reduce the stress often associated with writing” (Mahn, 1997, p. 4). To continue this trend, this chapter explores some process-oriented approaches to ESL writing instruction. Specifically, it focuses on the role of visual imagination as a significant factor in learning to write well.

Writing, thinking, and imagination The theoretical lens through which I have investigated my question is based on the theory of Imaginative Education and on Vygotsky’s analysis of imagination. Both frameworks provide important insights into the role of cognitive tools in literacy development. Imaginative Education is an approach to teaching and learning by engaging learners’ imaginations. The theory is based on Egan’s five zones of linguistic development: Somatic, Mythic, Romantic, Philosophic and Ironic (Egan, 1997). In his model, Egan explores the child’s journey to adulthood through different ways of learning to use language. Egan argues that as we grow, we progress through different understandings of the world. Egan (1997) points out that while each of these understandings has limitations, they all play an important role in literacy development and are often tied to specific cultures. He notes that often Western academia supports and stimulates Romantic, Philosophic, and Ironic understanding in students’ literacy development but ignores Mythic understanding, associating it with preliterate societies: “Mythic understanding becomes alien and unrecapturable after the ‘paradigm shift’ to literate rationality” (Egan, 1997, p. 97). Examples of Mythic understanding, however, can be found in all cultures and include fairy tales (depicting battles between good and evil), stories about life and death, stories about plants and animals, and metaphors (Egan, 1997). These stories are imaginative in nature and help us to understand and organize our world. Despite its importance, Mythic understanding is often suppressed and rationality becomes the expected paradigm in literacy instruction (Egan, 1997). Egan notes that this distinction is also rooted in story-like as opposed to theory-like thinking practiced by different cultures. If academic instruction of literacy courses favors theory-like thinking with an emphasis on Philosophic understanding, it inevitably results in the academic loss of students who have practiced Mythic understanding in their communities and are more accustomed to story-like thinking (Egan, 1997). According to Egan, Imaginative Education is a way to prevent this problem because it recognizes the different kinds of understandings involved in the student’s literacy development. It also recognizes the literacy development of

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students who come from different cultural backgrounds. However, from my perspective, the most important part of Imaginative Education is that it encourages not only the development of rational thinking, but also development of the visual imagination. Bringing Egan’s theory to the fore in rethinking literacy education raises a question about the role of images in writing instruction. Vygotsky (1987) ties visual imagination to conceptual thinking, as visual images often represent concepts of something seen. For example, one can have a concept of an ocean recreated from the experience of seeing an ocean in real life. This ability to think in concepts separated from immediate reality is absolutely necessary for the writer. Through the use of visual imagination, writers are able to evaluate, systematize and categorize reality (Vygotsky, 1987). Like art or science, the process of writing begins with a simple observation of reality (visual perception), progresses to visual thinking, and concludes with a generalization and description of facts seen. This makes writing similar to physics or logic, in which a person first observes reality, then creates simple propositions, and later creates a theory from generalizations (Arnheim, 1969). Similarly, writing presupposes conceptual thinking which derives from visual perception, re-creation (or visualization) of what was seen, and evaluation (or making judgments) about reality. Vygotsky’s analysis of the nature of writing provides a foundation for the relationship between conceptual thinking and writing. It elevates writing from a simple mechanical activity to an analytical exercise. Vygotsky (1991) emphasizes the fact that visual perception and visual imagination lie at the beginning of cognition and precede the process of writing. Before one makes judgments about the nature of things, one must perceive them and later reconstruct their characteristics. This cognitive search for properties of different things and generalizations about them through visual imagination places writing on the same level with science or logic.

Bringing vision into second-language writing So, what constitutes good writing for a second language learner? The answer can be found by taking a closer look at people who write in a ‘foreign’ language. There are numerous examples of people who have become successful writers in a second or even third language. This phenomenon is called ‘literary translingualism’. Literary translingualism refers to “authors who write in more than one language or at least in a language other than their primary one” (Kellman, 2000, p. ix, Preface).

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Kellman finds that translinguals are the most fascinating writers because of their unique life experiences and their position between languages (Kellman, 2000). Clearly, writing well in two languages is a challenge for anyone, since the writer becomes unwillingly preoccupied with the grammar and semantics of the language he composes in. It would seem that the differing mechanics of a second language should prevent the translingual from writing well in it, but this turns out not to be the case. If great literary works were great because of their perfect semantics and structure, then native speakers would always make the best writers. In reality, many significant and even great works of literature have been produced by writers who wrote in second or even third languages. The structural and grammatical differences in languages do not prevent these people from writing exceptionally well. To mention just a few, these writers excelled in at least two languages: Samuel Beckett (English and French), Vassilis Alexakis (Greek and French), Lin Yu-Tang (Chinese and English), Muhamad Iqbal (Persian and Urdu), Kateb Yacine (French and Arabic), and Giuseppe Ungaretti (Italian and French). Translingual writers view a specific language merely as an instrument through which they express the authenticity of their experiences and the force of their imaginations (Kellman, 2000). One of the best-known translingual writers of English was Vladimir Nabokov. Despite a genius for language, Nabokov, like many other nonnative writers, struggled with writing in a foreign tongue. He described it as “exceedingly painful — like learning anew to handle things after losing seven or eight fingers in an explosion” (Nabokov, 1973, p. 54). Although writing in a second language was not an easy task for him, Nabokov did not believe in linguistic determinism (the notion that a language determines one’s thinking) and argued that a language is mainly an instrument for expressing one’s thought. Once asked which language he thought in, he responded: “I don’t think in any language. I think in images. I don’t believe that people think in languages. And now and then a Russian phrase or an English phrase will form with the foam of the brainwave, but that’s about all” (Nabokov, 1973, p. 14). The semantic structure of a particular language, such as Russian or English, had no force to bind Nabokov’s aesthetic expression in writing and prevent him from communicating the structures of his imagination. If one looks closely at Nabokov’s written works, one notices that it is not simply a matter of what he writes, but rather a question of how. Nabokov’s prose is very descriptive, with rich verbal expressions and often complex cognitive constructs, like those of his native Russian. He

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uses many adjectives and run-on sentences, a structure which is very typical of Russian writing. It seems that he is not overly concerned with, and to some degree ignores or manipulates, the norms of English composition and semantics. What is more important for Nabokov is to express himself, and to do it in such imaginative ways that the reader can clearly visualize the characters and events in his writing. Imagination is woven even into the discussion about his characters: There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind, with your eyes open (…); and the other one when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark inner side of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors (and this is how I see Lolita). (Nabokov, as cited in Appel, 1991, p. 11)

A less well-known translingual writer, Gabriel Okara, born in 1921 in Nigeria, writes poetry and fiction in his native Ijaw and in English. He won the 1979 Commonwealth Poetry Prize for his English work The Fisherman’s Invocation. In his writings, Okara uses English to express the imagery and idiom of his mother tongue. He provides examples of various expressive Ijaw idioms which he transfers into English. For example, Okara notes that the equivalent to the English expression “he is timid” is the Ijaw expression “he has no chest” or “he has no shadow” (Okara as cited in Kellman, 2003). This expression is visually imaginative and vividly suggests that someone is nonexistent or as good as dead, since it is hard to imagine a person without a chest or without a shadow. He also notes that to indicate the difference in how people sleep, Ijaw people might say “You sleep like a rat while I sleep like a lizard” (Okara as cited in Kellman, 2003, p. 186). A person who hears this expression is almost compelled to see a restless rat which hardly ever sleeps, and a basking lizard, which can sleep almost anywhere and often with eyes open. These and many other expressions demonstrate the imagination of African speech, giving his ideas a visual impact which would have been absent had he used more familiar English idioms. To make his writing more imaginative in English, Okara uses Ijaw idioms “in a way that is understandable in English” (Kellman, 2003, p. 187). He notes that “if one wants to express the African imagination, one cannot put aside the African language in favor of any European language” (Okara, 1999, p. 3 as cited in Kellman). Instead of seeking his expression through a specific language, Okara expresses himself through images. Nabokov, Okara, and other translingual writers use visual imagination as a particular technique where a language is mainly an instrument of writing.

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The reliance on imagination, rather than on mechanical correctness of their writing, helps many translingual authors to write creatively and to enrich their works with new ideas. Yet is it fair or even reasonable to assume that the techniques used by a highly talented professional writer like Gabriel Okara, let alone a genius of Nabokov’s caliber, should be equally valuable to an average student struggling with English?

Vision and the ESL writer One fine example of ESL visual communication through writing comes from my current tutoring experience at CNM (Central New Mexico Community College). Henry Rono, who gave me permission to use his name in this chapter, is a former Olympic runner currently taking writing classes at CNM. I have known Henry for about two years. I would describe his English skills as high intermediate or advanced. He makes multiple mistakes in his papers and frequently calls upon the CNM tutoring services. During the last semester Henry came up with the idea of writing an autobiographical book. On many Saturdays I met with Henry and read new excerpts from his future book. The more I read, the more encouraging I became about his plan. Despite long sentences, occasional broken language, and problems with punctuation and spelling, his chapters were compelling; I could not wait for the next Saturday to read more. Henry came from Kenya and his life in the U.S. has not been easy. Every chapter in his book evokes his past experiences, his triumphs and gold medals, but also alcoholism and homelessness. He is driven to write by the need to communicate his experiences. He is not terribly concerned with spelling and grammar; he knows that these can be fixed. Henry’s book has since been published as Olympic Dream (2007). He became a hero to the English tutors at CNM: “it is going to be a bestseller, I’m telling you,” one commented. Henry is an artist who draws upon his visual imagination every time he describes a scene from his past. He relies on his imagination as much as on his English skills. He seems not to be worried about the misspellings and mistakes. As an artist, he has something to say and he says it bravely and confidently, making his writing unique. He uses English words solely to press images from his life upon the reader. In Chapter XXII, A Case of Mistaken Identity, Henry vividly describes how he was once jailed due to police error. After reading the passage, I felt I had experienced it myself. For days, I thought about the hopelessness and absurdity of being placed in jail without cause. When writing, Henry revisits and describes the visual images of his past. The way he perceives his environment shapes his images on paper. His writing

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is governed by these images more than by the rules of English composition. Henry is a fine example of a student who is driven by the inspiration to write, as opposed to being intimidated by writing. Nabokov, Okara, and Rono are examples of successful second language writers driven more by imagination than by mechanical correctness of their works. It is the passion to express images, rather than a preoccupation with the mechanics of writing, which is the necessary ingredient to make writing compelling for both the writer and the reader. And these are aspects of learning which can too often be ignored in ESL writing instruction. Writing instruction which does not recognize the importance of imagination and views writing as static, pure reasoning on paper might even cause many ESL students to drop out from their studies without obtaining their degrees. Part of the problem stems from the conception of writing and writing instruction as a skill with specific objectives — i.e. to teach students the logical, formalized development of arguments on paper. This situation can be remedied by broadening our understanding of what writing is, and implementing this understanding in ESL writing methods. Writing above all is communication. We must not separate the final product of writing from the full range of imaginative thinking, which indeed includes emotions. To bring out the Henry Rono or Gabriel Okara in each student, writing instruction should implement imagination as an essential tool for teaching and learning. Specifically, visual imagination can be emphasized in pre-writing exercises which encourage students to make judgments about the world or to explore different outcomes of various situations.

Turning academic writing into art Academic writing represents a different kind of writing because it must have a certain structure and style. Nevertheless, it is best not to become obsessed with one specific approach to teaching ESL academic writing, such as overemphasizing the reasoning, rhetoric, and structure of writing. The ideal approach finds a balance between these elements and creative style. Although much writing for academic purposes demands coherence and the absence of logical flaws, a degree of individual imagination is also vital to make writing compelling. For example, a mixture of pre-writing visualization with the standard expectations of academic writing can produce good final results in students’ papers. One technique that I use in my two writing classes with High Intermediate and Intermediate ESL students involves taking time to

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visualize the writing topic in all its complexity. I started to use this technique after multiple encounters with students whom I tutor one-on-one for English writing. On several occasions ESL students have come to me with no idea of what or how to write about a given topic. I have noticed that 20 to 30 minutes of deep discussion and imagination of a topic together with the student often raises many ideas in his mind and leaves him with more encouragement and desire to start writing. I started using these deep explorations of various topics and stimulation of visualization in my two ESL writing classes, alternating them (writing an essay with time given for visualization and without). When visual imagination is stimulated, it is important to provide students with enough time and preparation for this activity. They must have time to relax and discuss the topic in a natural, stress-free way. It helps to give students some time to first explore the topic by themselves, and then bring them together in small groups or as a class to list a variety of ideas.

Preparatory visualization A significant characteristic of writing is that it requires a student to abstract from reality and clearly imagine the situation that he or she is going to describe. I call this preparatory visualization. This activity — encouraging students to concentrate on a specific image, situation, or person — involves a qualitative transformation on the student’s part, since it involves emotional and psychological processes. It also relies on the writer’s previous experiences. Without those previous experiences, the process becomes a fantasy or daydream about something which is not present, which never happened to the writer or to people the writer is familiar with. During the exploration and visualization of a subject, the writer also thinks about it in new ways and stretches the possibilities to a new level. Thus, visualization of a situation not only helps the writer to describe the situation clearly, but also elevates the writer to higher thoughts and possibilities that he did not consider before. It liberates the writer from limitations and helps him discover new twists and possibilities within the topic. Imagining before writing involves high-level cognitive processes and encourages the writer to consider reality in new ways. I have noticed that in both intermediate and advanced writing classes, the students particularly enjoy exploring a writing topic through roleplaying exercises. One of these improvisations came alive in my ESL intermediate writing class. During the activity, I divided the students into small groups of two or three students and asked them to create an outline for the topic ‘Rush Hour in a Big City’ and then present major points of

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the outline on the boards. Something happened in this class. Tired students were all of a sudden engaged in this activity by imagining the rush hour in their home cities. Students from South Korea, Thailand, Mexico, and Japan were discussing many details of using public transportation during the rush hour. They drew pictures on the board which showed crowds of people in the subway, conductors checking tickets, pickpockets, passengers with children eating ice cream, passengers with dogs, homeless people, the smell of sweat, push-men trying to clear the doorways, and men trying to get close to young women. A student from Mexico observed that sometimes, when it gets too crowded in the Mexican transport, women hit men who get too close to them. She made a movement with her elbow demonstrating how they do it. A student from South Korea had to get up and demonstrate a subway ‘push-man’ to other students who were not familiar with this term. Everybody in the class became excited and was engaged in the discussion. I myself clearly imagined what it means to use the subway in South Korea or Mexico City without having visited these places. This activity helped the students to visualize and then to describe the situation in their essays. The ‘rush hour’ exercise created a scenario in which the students were able to imagine vividly and in great detail, and consequently they were very interested in putting their thoughts into words. I saw that the students were strongly motivated to write about their own experiences after their practice of preparatory visualization. It is important to note that imaginative exercises can get students overly excited. Sometimes several students want to speak at the same time, including some who are generally silent. However, a good instructor will recognize this as a sign of real engagement in a topic, an opportunity for enthusiastic learning. It also must be understood that different students use their imaginations differently. There will always be some students in the class who do not rely on their visual imagination, but rather sensory or kinesthetic imagination. In the case of the ‘rush hour’ exercise, some students talked about a bad smell or how packed it is on the subway. No matter which senses students rely on, it is important to provide some time for students to imagine the situation as concrete reality. Once this situation becomes a part of the student, we can expect him to reason about it, communicate it on paper, and preserve this information so others can imagine it too. It is undeniable that writing often fails to replicate an image in its full complexity. A visual image is an ephemeral picture that exists in a brain for a short time. The difficult part of writing is translating this image onto the page, where it can inspire corresponding imagery in the reader’s own imagination. A more specific and full description of an image or a situation

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brings the reader closer to its nature. This understanding should bring writing instruction to the second step — the description of an image or imaginative situation. Clearly, no quantity of words can replicate the full complexity of an image in one’s mind. For example, it is often almost impossible to describe a dream in all its complexity using words. Often, the most interesting and memorable dreams include scenes or types of architecture with such complex structures, that we can’t find the words to describe them on awakening. Nevertheless, we are still able to hold a replica of that visual image in our mind. Understanding this verbal limitation, I always teach my students to describe their visual images or the envisioned information as clearly as possible, so other readers can imagine it too. I have noticed that at the beginning of every semester, students quickly learn to think about the topics visually, but visual description is lacking in their essays. Perhaps they think that since a situation or topic is so clear to them, it should also be clear to others and there is no need to belabor the obvious. This lack of description can be resolved by student peer-editing exercises. I often ask students to read each other’s papers and provide the writer with feedback. During this activity, many students realize that some parts of their information are not very clear, lack description, or simply do not make sense to the other student. Again, this happens because students, and in particular culturally diverse students, envision writing topics and situations very differently. Thus, describing and communicating complex topics on paper will not necessarily make this communication clear to other readers from diverse backgrounds. This is precisely what makes ESL writing instruction more challenging than writing instruction for monolingual students. Many experienced writers often carry a notebook in which they record their mental pictures before these images disappear. Similarly, it is an invaluable practice for ESL writers to record and describe ideas as fully as possible while they are still fresh. Generally, the interplay of images and argumentation about certain situations can be better understood from the context in which they appear. Therefore, it is important to instruct students to describe this context first. For example, when exploring and then writing an essay about What is the most important element in a job — satisfaction or money? Why? all but one of eleven students stressed the importance of job satisfaction. The exception, a student from Senegal, wrote an essay in which he put this idea in the context of survival in Africa. His argument for the importance of money over job satisfaction was built on his detailed description of living conditions, hunger and unemployment, which made his essay strong and engaging. Often ESL

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instructors discourage students from describing certain situations, expecting ‘pure reasoning’ from them. It is this description, however, that helps ESL students to convey meaning regardless of their cultural backgrounds. Careful description of what the writer visualizes, along with what Gough in this volume calls ‘confidence in representation’, improves the overall quality of student writing because the writer is fully engaged in the process on multiple cognitive levels. Instead of expecting ESL students to provide us with quick results, writing should be viewed as an activity which sharpens students’ cognition. It should be the result of intense and detailed contemplation of a topic. Only then does the topic become meaningful to the students, and only then can we expect them to provide us with lengthy essays. This contemplation or meditation before writing becomes more important than the process of writing itself, which is merely an encoding of thoughts on paper. Pre-writing contemplation of writing topics should be stimulated in ESL writing classrooms because it elevates the consciousness of students beyond the immediately visible. As a reward, students will be able to achieve high-quality writing and to enjoy the process of writing, which is so often difficult and unpleasant for ESL students. I would argue that images which are carefully thought through are easier to describe and make accessible to others with the same precise clarity as to the creator of these images, the writer.

The rewards of visualization Many instructors might say, “I do not have time for such activities in my curriculum.” ESL instruction which is based on preparatory visualization, however, is so rewarding and engaging for the students and for the instructor that one needs to reconsider the old ways of writing instruction based on pure reasoning and structuring of arguments. A focus on the visual or pictorial exploration of writing topics is a less standardized but more engaging activity because it provides the student with more freedom to explore the topic in whatever way he or she feels is important. Thus, it stimulates a diversity of thought and new forms of academic writing, which are usually viewed as rigid, tailored reports to satisfy an instructor’s demands. Imaginative writing instruction can also be beneficial for future generations as it can take students’ minds in unexplored directions and toward solutions to problems not yet developed in the world. The ESL students in my classes have so far explored two such topics: Global Water Crisis and Futurism Essay. For the first topic, students were

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asked to think about possible problems associated with the global deficit of potable water, describe some of these problems and suggest ways to cope with them. For the second essay, students were asked to transfer their minds a hundred or even a thousand years from now and think about How will human culture be different from today? What new problems will people face, and what current problems will no longer exist? How will governments, friendships, work, or family relationships be different in the future? Will nation-states, religions, or political philosophies become more or less important than they are today? And Will human nature ever change, and if so, how? After extensive consideration of both topics individually, in small groups, and together as a class, students were sent home with an assignment to write an essay. It was interesting for me to see the range of ideas that students came up with and described in their essays after the time given to them to explore the topics visually. While their first drafts were imperfect grammatically, the freedom of visual exploration had produced striking results and unique ways of thinking about existing and future problems. To write about these topics, students had to transfer their minds not only over distance, but also over time. Here are some excerpts from the students’ ideas: “In a thousands of years the appearance of humans will change. Because of the global warming, there will be more heat and people will have almost no hair. There will be robots which appearance will be like humans’ and they will do all the work and maybe they will be able to have reason. People will depend on technology and this will be turns to make us less intelligent and unable to produce new things. Climate change will be extremely damaging to the world, spreading diseases and causing new wars between nations. Many lives will be lost.” “The water will take part of the world, so the humanity is going to loose part of his land because it will be under the water, but with the new technology is also going to be possible build under water.” “So, life will be convenient, but life circumstance will be the worst in the future. For example, soil pollution will influence grains. People can’t live without grains. So, soil pollution will be related to humans directly.” “Increasing population and thoughtless consumption of resources will lead to draining of resources. For instance U.S.A. invaded Iraque, because the first reason was oil. So, there will be resources wars between countries in the future.”

These examples show that despite grammatical and sometimes logical problems on the word and sentence level, ESL students possess a range of

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imaginative abilities to be explored in the future. One can draw a parallel here with Gough’s emphasis on the importance of “seeing fact and fiction as mutually constitutive”. This interconnection between the real and the fictional is a part of human development which requires the instructor’s attention. Gough demonstrates this relationship in his discussion about thought experiments which can be applied not only to science and literature in general, but also to ESL writing instruction. The writing topics above show that despite limited English writing proficiency, students can be engaged in exploring various situations and their possible outcomes. This experimentation with imagination has a direct application to writing acquisition because it engages students in the writing process on both cognitive and emotional levels, to a much greater extent than simply responding to instructor-provided illustrations. The spectrum of imagination is especially noticeable in ESL students who come from various cultural backgrounds. Matthews, this volume, states that “each of our cultural contents originated from the symbolic activity of an individual.” This kind of symbolic individual activity is too often ignored in a classroom full of culturally diverse individuals. If we think about academic writing, it is almost always based on some events or actions which happened to somebody, somewhere, sometime, or on events which might happen in the future. Surprisingly, students are seldom encouraged to explore these events using visual imagination. As educators, we must be conscious of the advantages of this imagination in ESL writing instruction. It combines the most diverse styles of writing, and it allows every student to express his or her ideas on the basis of his or her accustomed modes of thinking.

Conclusion To summarize, many second language students experience difficulties with their written assignments and often do not understand how to write in English. The reasons for these difficulties include rhetorical differences between cultures as well as uninspiring ESL writing instruction. In order to help these students to write in English, many instructors become too preoccupied with the finer details of grammar and structure and forget that these are not the primary goal of writing. When focusing mainly on the mechanics of writing, many students lose their interest in expressing their thoughts because of their worries about structural and grammatical issues. Thus, writing becomes an activity in which students are required to express themselves in specific ways and by fixed rules (i.e. traditional Western, rationalist reasoning). What they have to say seems less important.

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Alternative approaches to teaching ESL writing, including the use of preparatory visualization, are rarely used in official teaching of English writing classes. Almost nothing has been written about the use of imagination in literary translingualism and multiple intelligences in teaching ESL writing. Too often, educators forget that the mastery of language structure and grammar, while important, are not the purpose of writing, and that these technical skills will naturally improve gradually as the student continues to use English. The role of imagination in thinking and written expression is almost invariably omitted from discussion about successful ESL writing. The purpose of writing is to communicate the writer’s world to the reader; this world naturally includes the writer’s senses, perceptions, emotions, and imagination. In order to develop ESL writing in ways that engage students’ cultures while developing their literacy and writing skills, I have found the following approaches particularly useful: • Visualizing a topic. Tell students to think about the topic, encourage them to “see” it in their minds, and ask them to describe orally what they see. This requires a deliberate investment of classroom time; the investment pays off if the exercise helps students to engage visually or emotionally with the topic, and develop the urge to write about it. It also encourages students to think with their senses. • Experimenting with situations. Encourage students to come up with at least three different “what if…” outcomes for the same initial scenario. This experimentation moves the imagination from a static picture in the mind, to a level of reasoning and a realm of motion and change. This technique is particularly useful for argumentative and cause-and-effect essays, because it requires students to approach a problem from different angles. • The time-traveling exercise. Ask students to transfer their viewpoint to the future or the past. This opens a larger circle of possibilities for the imagination, because no-one really knows what will happen in the future, and no-one has personally experienced the distant past. By detaching the topic from students’ own personal experiences, we allow them create a new persona as a viewpoint on the problem. Moreover, moving a topic out of the immediate present can blend the distinction between creative imagination and rational thinking. This skill of thinking about a topic from a distant viewpoint may be critical for a new generation of students who will be required to solve global problems. • Using pictures and stories. For example, the instructor can distribute visually striking pictures (M. C. Escher woodcuts, medieval

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art, color portraits, technical diagrams) and ask students to describe their pictures or create stories about them. (As a secondary exercise, distribute one of the better descriptive essays, and have students attempt to draw the picture from the description; it can be fascinating to compare the resulting drawings with the original!) Read the beginning of a visually striking story aloud in class, and ask students to write a possible ending to the story. • Acting out situations. Divide students into small groups; give each group a topic, or a passage from a story or essay. Ask them to choose parts and act them out before the class as a whole. Role-playing allows students to connect emotionally with characters or people. Students can write summaries or critiques of their own or other groups’ plays for homework, or they can do additional research into their own topic. Inspired writing is timeless. It can be complimented by creativity and the visual imaginations of multicultural learners. The goal is to integrate what we know as ‘academic writing’ with students’ own ideas, imaginations, and passions, in order to create instruction that enhances the required compositional coherence with the freedom for students to think in their own ways.

References Almanza de Schonewise, E. (1999). Exploring reciprocal teaching with bilingual Latino students in Spanish within a thematic context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Colorado at Boulder. Appel, A. (1991). The annotated Lolita. New York, NY: Vintage Books. Arnheim, R. (1969). Visual thinking. Berkley: University of California Press. Boone, E.H., & Mignolo, W.D. (1994). Writing without words: Alternative literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes. London: Duke University Press. Egan, K. (1997). The educated mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Hudelson, S. (1989). Write on: Children writing in ESL. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents. Kellman, S.G. (2000). The translingual imagination. London: University of Nebraska Press. —. (2003) Switching languages: Translingual writers reflect on their craft. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

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Mahn, H. (1997). Dialogue journals: ESL students’ perspectives. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Nabokov, V. (1973). Strong opinions. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company. National Center for Education Statistics. (2006). Beginning postsecondary students longitudinal study (BPS). Retrieved January 13, 2009 from http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts Ray, R. (1993). The practice of theory: Teacher research in composition. Urbana, IL: NCTE. Rono, H. (2007). Olympic Dream. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse. Standley, L. (2006). Cross-age peer-tutoring effects on the English literacy development and academic motivation of English language learners identified with, and referred for, mild and moderate disabilities. Albuquerque, NM: The University of New Mexico. Vaughn, S., Bos, C., & Schumm, J. (2003). Teaching exceptional, diverse, and at-risk students in the general education classroom. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Vygotsky, L.S. (1987). The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky: Vol. 1. Problems of general psychology. New York: NY: Plenum. —. (1991). Imagination and creativity in the adolescent. Soviet Psychology, 29(1), 73-88.

CHAPTER NINE IMAGINATIVE EDUCATION EXPLORED THROUGH THE CONCEPT OF PLAYING IN THE IN-BETWEEN CYNTHIA À BECKETT

Introduction The capacity for imaginative thought is held in high regard in education and in life. While it is valued it is at the same time challenging to create educational settings that are imaginative learning environments. To identify key issues a distinction is drawn between the imagination and imaginative education. Using the term ‘the imagination’ suggests a discrete entity, an object or single concept that can be contained (Frein, 1997). Mark Frein (1997, p.12) explains how the idea of the imagination in education can become ‘an object of education’ rather than an indication of a creative process. The idea of the imagination as a discrete entity can be further explained through Hegelian analysis that relies on the logic of identity (Hegel, 1977; Game & Metcalfe, 1996; Benjamin, 1998). New ideas are required in order for education to move beyond the Hegelian analysis so that imaginative capacities can be nurtured in both teachers and students. This chapter argues that imaginative ways of being are part of relational circumstances, times of wonder that are profound while at the same time taken for granted. Such authentic effortless times are inherently social and seemingly predictable in their simplicity so they are often overlooked. New theoretical explanations are required in order to understand these relational times that are currently seen as exchanges between entities. Such explanations have been attributed to the work of Hegel (1977) and his account of independent subjectivity (Benjamin, 1998; Game & Metcalfe, 1996). While such explanations can account for many collaborative exchanges they cannot explain times of complete

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engagement. These relational times that involve our imagination are explained here through a phenomenological interpretative analysis supported by theories from Martin Buber (1958) and Donald Winnicott (2005) and the work of Andrew Metcalfe and Ann Game (2002, 2004, 2006) and Max van Manen (1991, 1997, 2002). The chapter has three main sections. The first examines the current educational focus on social exchange and the logic of identities, and how this approach can constrain opportunities for imaginative education. The second section proposes a new approach to social interactions entitled ‘Playing in the In-between’. This concept has three elements: being fully present; un-knowing; and mutuality through love (à Beckett, 2007). This section shows how relational times involve our imagination and imaginative capacities. The third section includes an example of ‘Playing in the In-between’. In this example a two year old child and parent are part of a creative, imaginative dramatic play event (à Beckett, 2007). The event is discussed with implications for daily practices in educational settings.

The current educational focus on social exchange Theorists such as Habermas alert us to the pervasive nature and dangers of late capitalism with its increasing focus on technical rational requirements (Symes & Preston, 1997; Frein, 1997). These requirements may relate to specific work skills required in set occupations or may apply to any level of education. Such a focus creates an over-emphasis on discernable outcomes, skills achieved, objects produced. A technical rational approach does not value the capacity for imaginative thought, as this cannot be equated with identifiable economic gains. Concerns with an increasingly outcomes oriented system of education have been raised by Maxine Greene (2001), philosopher, theorist and writer, internationally recognized for her work in education, the arts and theories about imagination. Greene (2001, p. 30) explains the current approach to education in this way: The enterprise of schooling too often emphasizes the need to accede to the world as "given" as officially and expertly described ... Young people, for all their restless searches for new sensations, are constantly being pulled back ... to what might be called "the plain sense of things".

Attending to the plain sense of things can be considered as acting in a required, expected manner. It is part of the increasing bureaucratization of daily life where all interactions must be measured and explained, ‘officially and expertly described’. Similarly, acting in a required manner,

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doing what is expected, is part of a system of social exchange. A key feature of a social exchange model is the focus on separate identities in which each acts and responds to the other. In order to clarify how imaginative capabilities are nurtured it is necessary to provide an explanation of the times of social exchange which can limit the possibilities of imaginative education. While social exchange is a necessary part of education, being a key feature of curriculum knowledges and skills, it cannot explain all interactions, particularly imaginative times of wonder within which relations form. Explanations of social exchange that focus on identity formation have been foundational for many disciplines and particularly so within psychology, psychoanalysis and sociology. These explanations present ‘self’ and ‘other’ as discrete entities. Such arguments draw on the work of Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel (1770-1831). Hegel (1977, p. 37) argues that ‘subjecthood’ arises from the desire that turns both things and people around us into objects, objects that are useful and can assist us during daily life. Much of daily life progresses through these processes of subjectobject relating in an expected manner, which allows interactions to be processed, then accommodated and acted on without careful thought. Such actions do not require thinking but rather an acting-out of what is needed and what is expected. Shopping in a supermarket is often an example of this situation when there is no real acknowledgement on the part of the shopper or the sales person of the other. Each performs a task for the other and each is an object for the other. Each needs the other to perform instrumental tasks and act in an expected manner but not as another being who requires special acknowledgement. Hegel (1977) extends this initial explanation of being in terms of subject-object relations to allow it to accommodate the involved personal interactions that can occur in such exchanges. These interactions take place when others are recognised as more than objects and this happens when the state of consciousness, as explained by Hegel (1977), becomes a state of self-consciousness. The other is no longer an object but is recognised as another subject. This process of recognition is at first explained in terms of reciprocal acknowledgment. Each subject regards and acknowledges the other as another subject, another independent self. One cannot be that other so each needs the other. Each acts in a reciprocal way on the other. Hegel (1977) identifies this move from consciousness to selfconsciousness as a crucial feature of becoming a social being. Selfconsciousness awakens our awareness of the other as a subject. When others are subjects rather than objects they can provide the recognition that

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is needed to feel complete. The focus is on self and other constructed through observed understandable times in which each contributes to the other. Feelings and emotions can be mapped and understood through the social narrative that is created during these exchanges. The move from a subject-object orientation to a mutual state of recognition appears a perfect situation, but this is not the case. Hegel (1977) argues that there are inequalities that inhibit a balanced acknowledgment of one for the other: the two selves strive for connection and unity but the very nature of the relationship is for each subject to be distinct from the other. There is the desire for union on the basis of shared subjectivity but there is also the ‘life and death struggle’ for recognition. The competition for one to be recognised by another creates the conflict imposed by each on the other. What transpires is a transition from the life and death struggle to a situation where the winner is the master (subject) and the loser is the slave (object). The move to ‘mastership and servitude’ reflects the loss of one as an equal subject (Hegel 1977, p. 111). The balance that allows each subject to be a true subject for the other is also lost. The problem is that the master cannot view the slave as another subject but rather the slave is now more of an object. This means that there is a loss of the opportunity for recognition by another equal subject. Game and Metcalfe (1996) explain Hegelian desire as a contradictory state in which each seems to be invested in the continuation of the battle. It is a paradoxical circumstance: “I need the other for recognition of self, there is no self without an other, yet self-certainty necessitates the negation of the other, otherness” (Game & Metcalfe, 1996, p. 147). There is the self that wants to be all-knowing and complete in this knowing. The self cannot however see and understand itself without the other to provide this recognition. So in this way the self needs the other to provide appreciation and recognition. If there is no other to recognise the self, then there is a lack. There can be no real success in achievements unless there is recognition from the other. The underlying difficulty with this recognition is that self cannot provide this other view. The very difference that is so needed can menace the security of the self (see also, Game & Metcalfe, 1996; Benjamin, 1988). The process of social exchange explained through the Hegelian analysis is evident in many educational settings and is a necessary part of learning skills and knowledge required in schools and early childhood settings today. The difficulty with this analysis is that it cannot explain all that transpires, such as the nature of interactions during relational times that will often involve imaginative capacities.

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Beyond social exchange: ‘Playing in the in-between’ Jean Piaget (1962, 1971) and Lev Vygotsky (1976) are two theorists who have made significant contributions to education through their analysis of teaching and learning based on a social exchange model. Piaget provides a cognitive developmentalist analysis and Vygotsky a social constructivist perspective. While Piaget and Vygotsky each provide different explanations, both focus on social exchange. This model explains how each is aware of the separate identity of the other and how this recognition continues throughout the exchange. Each needs and regards the other and if the balance between assertion and regard is maintained, then the ensuing play may be a collaborative co-construction in which each gains from the other. If the balance is not maintained then interactions devolve into a situation of domination and assertion. Drawing on Hegel, the social exchange model explains all these circumstances with its focus on independent entities. ‘Playing in the in-between’ draws on a different model of relations. The concept of the in-between explained through play is supported by the work of Winnicott (2005). This framework does not focus on each individual recognising the other and acting in required ways. Relational times of the in-between are different. Those involved are fully present through un-knowing so it is not necessary to act in set ways or to impose required actions on others. The in-between also focuses on mutuality through love. It is not about independent entities reacting to each other, nor do the entities merge. Both are present and in relation with an absence of social exchange. While details of the three elements of the in-between are provided in the next section of the chapter, an explanation of love is provided now as the term has many diverse connotations. The idea of love addressed in the term ‘mutuality through love’ is the form of love explained through Buber’s (1958) concept of I-Thou. This idea contrasts with the types of love that are more about social exchange. Metcalfe and Game (2006, 2004) explain that the love of I-Thou is more ‘fundamental’. It is part of so much of daily life and takes on so many different forms that it can be overlooked. Love that is part of playing in the in-between is present through holding, through being open and complete, through the tenderness of the face-to-face and through dwelling. Times of the in-between, when social exchange is absent, cannot remain a constant feature of social life. The in-between that may suddenly appear during play may just as suddenly disappear. Buber (1958) highlights this and describes this loss as the “exalted melancholy of our fate” (p. 31). When this happens and the in-between disappears, times of

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social exchange are evident once again. Interactions return to experiences, responses and collaborations that are part of the recovered state of social exchange. The arguments about playing in the in-between may appear to call for universal explanations of childhood and relationships but this is not the case. The theories were developed through an analysis of observations of everyday life collected in the home settings of first time, low income parents in inner urban Australia (à Beckett, 2007). The type of phenomenological research method employed is explained by van Manen (2002, p. 237) as one that invites an “interpretive availability ... that aims to be allusive”. There are no conclusive answers and no attempt to suggest that there is one explanation for the multiplicity of childhoods that exist currently. The discussions thus far may appear to present social exchange and the in-between as states that are in competition, with social exchange as the less appealing alternative. The analysis has tended to present these states as separate conditions and so it might be assumed that they are easy to identify. Such a view obscures what takes place in everyday relations. Indeed the in-between and social exchange are bound to one another. They need one another. One is not better than the other, just different. There is a constant movement between social exchange and circumstances of the in-between so it is difficult to know precisely when one state is taken over by the other. Social exchange is vital as it enables the in-between to come to life. Buber (1958) explains that social exchange or I-It is the “primary connection of man with the world and … the sustaining, relieving and equipping of human life” (p. 56). The sustaining and equipping of life comes from the development of knowledge, skills and attitudes, which is all part of social exchange. Times of social exchange may involve cooperative collaborations or in other situations may be about conflict. All are part of our primary connections explained through the process of social exchange. When interactions are mostly about social exchange, explained by Buber as I-It interactions, there is a steady focus on set tasks that may require intellectual activity or may be more rudimentary. Such exchanges are logical ways of working. While productive and necessary, they may be a barrier to real communication and meaningful interactions. Things are achieved and yet people can come away feeling unsatisfied, even disappointed. Van Manen (2002) pays great attention to these concerns and details the way many situations do not provide chances to wonder. He describes how important it is to be able to wonder and how this comes from a state of ‘passive receptivity’. He explains that:

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... passivity and receptivity are not highly valued epistemological categories. We are living in an aggressive era of hustling restlessness and bustling commotion ... activism is given to outward action that values speediness, quickness, energy, entrepreneurship, industriousness. The term activism is associated with performance, productivity ... and aggressive assertiveness ... The spirit of activism has overtaken the spirit of patient thinking, quiet wondering ... (p. 50)

Along with the spirit of activism is the desire to prove and compete, to demonstrate worthiness. Such exchanges involve a constant focus on identity so that time to wonder and nurture imaginative capacities, are lost.

A relational approach to imaginative education One of the reasons why there is currently a stronger emphasis on outcomes in education and less evidence of imagination is the lack of relevant theoretical approaches. Even the best-known analyses, such as Kieran Egan’s contributions to the theory and practice of imaginative education (this volume), are not common currency outside a circle of enthusiasts. The theories that are more influential in education in countries such as the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK, rely on defined entities and expectations are clear. By this I mean children are engaged in discernable, predictable situations. The teachers plan for learning by demonstrating that they understand these theories and then act accordingly. Educational programs planned in this way will often result in successful collaborative exchanges. While this is helpful for building the skills, knowledge and attitudes that must be imparted and are required by the state, these outcomes are still limited. Educational settings often lack times to wonder, to day-dream and imagine. Theories from Buber (1958) and Winnicott (2005), supported by the work of Metcalfe & Game (2002, 2004, 2006) and van Manen (1991, 1997, 2002), provide alternative approaches. Theories from Winnicott contribute to alternative approaches through his concepts of the third zone and unintegration. The intermediate or third zone is a place of playing and the potential space that involves non-purposive or unintegrated states. The third zone acknowledges the way adults and children draw on their inner world and also the daily physical circumstance. These open situations involve elements of spontaneity and enhance opportunities for imagination. The third zone involves an unintegrated state where adults and children let go but they are not in a state of chaos or disintegration. Winnicott's (2005) concept of unintegration contrasts with integration which is the bringing together of skills and abilities that allow things to

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progress. Within integration there is an identifiable apparently coherent subject, and there is clarity of action that allows set tasks to be achieved. Imaginative capacities develop in different situations. They develop when there is less set focus on a particular action or required tasks. This involves creative ways of being that encompass the whole self. This is a wholeness that cannot be integrated, because integration relies on exclusion. Certain aspects of self must be minimized and in this way excluded in order to focus on the set task or defined action to be achieved. Unintegration is different; there is a sense of faith and grace because good things can happen without anyone taking control and making it happen. Winnicott (2005) explains how unintegration is about playfulness and how through this: “the individual child or adult is free to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self” (pp. 72-73). The concepts of unintegration and the third zone are separate ideas but they are interrelated. Each helps to explain the other. Winnicott raises another issue that helps to show how these concepts are related. This is the notion of formlessness. The usual constraints created by expectations of each for the other are no longer evident when a quality of formlessness is present. It is about openness and a lack of set requirements imposed by either adult or child. It is not, however, just liberty, as this can result in individual identities each with their own requirements imposed on the other, but an openness created by a holding environment. A holding environment is about a safe and structured circumstance that is at the same time not an imposed structure. The holding environment is the secure, dependable setting that allows formlessness to be present. Game and Metcalfe (2001) describe this as a holding space and explain it in this way: it is not empty or fleshless, and the holder is not a container that holds others like a bowl of peas. Indeed, disrupting this Euclidean space of separate identities, holding consists of a simultaneous holding and being held … (p.72)

Formlessness is free of social exchange: such times are beyond voluntary recall and are more like poetry than narrative. There is an awareness of the magic that formlessness brings and although people come to recognize and trust this condition, they do not always understand what has transpired. Such a state cannot come about through a conscious manipulation of interactive processes. When we do try to create formlessness it can be counter-productive. As Buber (1958) explains “it

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comes even when not summoned and vanishes even when it is tightly held” (p. 49). The unexpected nature of formlessness creates relaxation. Winnicott (2005) links this to trust. Formlessness can find its way into tense, structured interactions and suddenly things change. When those involved feel they can trust in otherness and are less concerned with self, then the situation opens up through formlessness. There is a sense of comfort. To explain formlessness in this way can seem to suggest that formlessness is a defined entity or thing. This is not the case but rather, as Metcalfe and Game (2002, p. 49) explain, it is nothing. They state that “no-body or nothing hold and bring to life every thing”. Nothing or no-thing is the state of formlessness that provides the space and openness that relaxation and trust require. Moments of formlessness have no beginning or ending. We know when this state is present because situations become relaxed and open. We will not know just when this happened or when it has stopped. It is not possible to understand formlessness in this way, as it is not bound by the logic of chronological time. These circumstances are free of such constraints. All is possible through formlessness and the inconclusive nature of formlessness is its strength while at the same time this creates challenges in current educational settings. The place of playing, of unintegration, and formlessness is often associated with childhood and Winnicott demonstrates how important it is for children of all ages to have opportunities to play. He also argues that playing is vital for adults. It is during times of play that adults can relax and through this make sense of inner and outer realities. As Winnicott writes: It is assumed … that no human is free from the strain of relating inner and outer reality, and that relief from this strain is provided by an intermediate area of experience … This intermediate area is in direct continuity with the play area of the small child who is ‘lost’ in play (Winnicott, 2005, p. 18).

Imaginative capacities and creative opportunities transpire through formless, unintegrated times of being in the third zone. Winnicott emphasizes how important it is to be open to formlessness, so that the imaginative possibilities it brings can be enjoyed. He explains that: It is creative apperception more than anything else that makes the individual feel that life is worth living. Contrasted with this is a relationship to external reality, which is one of compliance, the world and its details being recognized but only as something to be fitted in with or demanding adaptation. Compliance carries with it a sense of futility for the

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In order to provide educational settings that are worthwhile for children and adults, teachers must ensure that daily practices engender trust and openness. These qualities will help to create a holding environment that is safe and structured while at the same time a creative, imaginative haven.

Playing in the in-between: a relational place of imagination Playing in the in-between is a concept that explains how relational times also involve a going beyond the I-It form of social exchange in a way that draws on our imagination. It is explained through three elements: being fully present, un-knowing, and mutuality through love (à Beckett, 2007). Times of the in-between are so much part of other interactions that it is difficult to provide clear guidelines that will define when something is the in-between and when it is not; however, an indication may be when those involved are so engrossed that nothing else matters. This type of social analysis cannot teach us how to be part of the in-between but it provides the possibility of dialogue. Times of the in-between are moments that bring together everything. Two key interrelated elements that help to clarify the everything: being fully present and an un-knowing. When there is un-knowing and complete participation in the present moment, there is a mutuality that is love. It is not about agency and social exchange. It is not a practical social activity related to the development of educational tasks. Attention to the present moment, un-knowing and mutuality combine so that both adults and children can be part of imaginative educational circumstances and this is the time when relations form.

Being fully present Being fully present is about a complete calling that allows for a wholeness that takes up all parts. During this wholeness nothing else matters, but at the same time nothing is excluded. The logic of chronological time and Euclidean space and boundaries are not required. It is also about being real, about being relaxed and free of pretence. Greene (2001, pp. 45-46) explains the way ‘presentness’ and ‘attentiveness’ allows

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us “to use imagination – to break with the routine and the useful and the conventional and enter into another, often magical space”. Complete calling of being fully present means that nothing is left out; those involved are called from their separate states and the physical aspects of the setting also calls. The call is a moment of change through presence. The complete calling is also explained through love. The analysis of the in-between identifies mutuality through love as a third key idea, so more detailed explanations of love are explored further on. Love is, however, also noted here as being part of presence. The complete calling that allows us to be present also means that love will come to pass. The connection between complete calling of presence and love is raised here through the whole situation. It represents a circumstance that is free of desire. All is given, so it does not need to be desired and longed for. All is inviting and therefore it is where you belong; it is a unique place and you matter here. Being fully present is about a complete calling and this is connected to the state in which nothing else matters. This focus is not a conscious exclusion of other things. Instead it is a meeting of all that comes to the situation. It is not that there is a lack of care of other things but that other things have not registered. It is about letting go of distractions that are not needed. Presence of focus is explained not as exclusion but through care for what is here. There is such care that nothing else matters. Winnicott's (2005) concept of unintegration and Game and Metcalfe's (2001) ideas of a holding space help clarify what being fully present entails. The concept of unintegration explains how unnecessary things are no longer a distraction. All involved can be themselves in relaxed authentic ways. There is a sense of trust in the setting that is secure and dependable and this supports opportunities for unintegration. The idea of the holding space explained by Game and Metcalfe (2001) details the way a setting needs to be structured and dependable in order for all to be open to new possibilities. Teachers play a crucial role in ensuring that things are relaxed but have direction. Children will respond to this approach and in this way contribute to the direction of things. Another key aspect of being fully present is the absence of the usual markers of chronological time, Euclidean space and boundaries. Normally, an awareness of time, space and boundaries means that the focus is on how tasks can be achieved and the roles that each must take. In Buber’s (1958) terms these are I-It situations. Things are compared, defined and understood. The lack of focus on chronological time, Euclidean space and boundaries contributes to the sense of relaxation and this encourages us to be imaginative through being fully present.

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Being fully present is also part of about being real. In Buber’s (1958) terms this is about a concrete moment of reality that is not reliant on fantasies of self, of future, of things outside the everyday. The task itself is connected to the real, physical, natural world but this will not ensure this quality will permeate all aspects of the event. This can only happen when all are fully present. In such situations teachers and children are part of authentic involvements. A teacher can show a child specific things such as a set of magnets but if the adult is not fully present then it is not real to both. Being fully present is about living in the moment in the way that David Steindl-Rast (1996) explains. He argues that when interactions are dominated by social exchange then this results in a saturated life, that is information-filled but lacking in meaning. A better understanding of these moments through the idea of presence can encourage all to be more relaxed, more open to times of the in-between, times when imagination will flourish. Being fully present has been considered in the discussion thus far with regard to: a complete calling, a state when nothing else matters; a lack of attention to time, space and boundaries; and lastly, an authentic way of being. The next aspect of the in-between is un-knowing. It is through unknowing that we can be fully present. Within states of un-knowing there are no set expectations and a lack of social exchange and opposition. There is also a lack of intellectual, emotional and social construction. It is thus beyond voluntary recall.

Un-Knowing Unknowing is a crucial aspect of the in-between because of the absence of things. There is a lack of set expectations, of social exchange and opposition. Un-knowing is not part of an intellectual, emotional and social construction and it has an innocence for both the adult and the child. Being beyond voluntary recall is also a key aspect of un-knowing. The un-knowing of the in-between is not a situation that is specifically designed to build intellectual, emotional and social skills. Those involved are changed and learn in more open ways through being in relation to one another and through the imaginative capacities that transpire. These times create a state of happiness that revitalizes through a better understanding of one another. So much is learnt by all, but not through adult-directed instructions. It is not about specific teaching, rather it arises from the wholeness of relation; from imaginative circumstances where teachers and children are both learning and both teaching.

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While un-knowing is not building specific, isolated intellectual skills, it is nonetheless a time of learning. Responsiveness and the capacity for imagination are evident as children and teachers become part of things and in this way information is not acquired as isolated fragments. Wholistic knowledge has depth and richness because it does not stop at the surfaces of the object; it knows intimately, with a sense of what is often called inner life.

Mutuality through love The final aspect of the in-between is mutuality explained through love. This involves holding, being open and whole. This love is also about the tenderness of the face-to-face and a dwelling that is free from the busyness of social life. All these aspects are not different forms or levels of love but the one love. These explanations of love come from the work of Buber (1958) and Metcalfe and Game (2006, 2004). Buber explains how love is not a form of behaviour that can be contained and controlled; rather it is a complete response, part of being in relation. Buber shows how love is explained through I-Thou. It is about love of I for Thou and it is implicit in the term. When Buber uses the term I-Thou, this is not like other times of I-It, when feelings and actions are related to what I desire. In times of I-It, the I stays apart from others and experiences different feelings and emotions in the quest of certain outcomes. This I is a separate identity that cannot give way to the love of the in-between. Metcalfe and Game (2006) use Buber’s concept of I-Thou to explain how teachers can be part of this love through their responsiveness to others. They make a distinction between love that is understood in ‘familial or erotic situations’. These types of love are the ones that are often assumed when the word is used. These types of love are more about social exchange than a mutuality that is open and complete.

‘Joey in the Pouch’: an example with educational implications Here I discuss an example of ‘Playing in the In-between’. In this example a two year old child and parent are part of a creative, imaginative dramatic play event. While the event is discussed with implications for daily practices in early childhood settings, the ideas also relate to the wider field of education (à Beckett, 2007).

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This fieldwork example was observed between Tamara, her mother Jill and her father Peter. The observations took place in the family living room on a Sunday afternoon. Peter was present as an observer until the end of the event. Jill was sitting in an armchair, her daughter approached. They instantly smiled at one another and Tamara reached out and patted the material in her mother’s long soft cotton skirt. Jill then stretched out her legs and the fabric pulled tightly. Tamara smiled as she felt the fabric and clambered up into her mother’s lap. As she did this the skirt wrapped around her and they both laughed softly. Jill said in an excited voice, “You’re like a Joey in a pouch”. They both laughed and Jill pulled the material around Tamara’s shoulders, to enhance the kangaroo pouch quality of the skirt. She cuddled Tamara as she did this and Tamara laughed and made small bouncing movements responding to the idea of being a Joey in a pouch. The playing became more exuberant and boisterous. Jill then said, “Are you ready to hop out now?” Tamara smiled and looked at her mother and said in an excited, breathless voice, “Yes, Joey hops”. Her mother helped her down out of her lap and they cuddled and laughed as they did this. Tamara jumped around on the floor her arms up like a kangaroo and bounced towards her father. He was standing, smiling. She bounced towards him; he bent down and lifted her high into the air. She called out and laughed excitedly. They smiled and laughed together as he then put her back on the floor. She bounced a little more then went out of the living room bouncing and laughing. The parents smiled as she left and then continued with their own activities. Initially Tamara and Jill were interacting in a collaborative responsive way. When Tamara touched her mother’s skirt and her mother welcomed her into her lap, things changed. They were not acting in expected ways expressed through social exchange. There was no plan or idea of what might happen next. It was a hot day and Jill was relaxing. As an observer I felt that Jill might ask Tamara to go and sit on the couch or go and play somewhere else. The opposite happened. ‘Joey in the Pouch’ provides an example of the formlessness and playing in the third zone that Winnicott observes. No one knew where the play came from or what would happen. The start and finish came from the spontaneous creative nature of the event, not from individuals imposing set ideas on one another. When Jill said, “Are you ready to hop out now?”, it was not a controlling statement that demanded a reply. When Tamara said “Yes, Joey hops”, it was a joyous call rather than a required answer that is part of social exchange. The flowing openness of the event carried

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it from mother to father. The formlessness is also about purposelessness without chaos. No one was worried about what would happen next and who was in control. All were attentive and responsive, enabling the event to flow and through this flowing to become complete. Tamara and Jill were not self-conscious about their actions and it was not about integrated behaviour. It was about playing in the third zone and unintegration. All were open, confident, comfortable with the physical space, with the whole circumstance. When Tamara clambered into Jill’s lap they both trusted the situation, unaware of others. This contact was not about each watching the other, as is the case during times of social exchange. It was about trusting the potential. They smiled and laughed with each new movement and could witness the unfolding drama. They were able to, as Phillips (1988, p. 80) explains, “entrust [them]selves to an environment in which one can safely and easily be in bits and pieces without falling apart”. It was a situation of excitement that they created and enjoyed together, made possible by their “simultaneous holding and being held, embracing and [being] embraced” (Game & Metcalfe, 2001, p. 72). All of this is an example of playing in the third zone and unintegration. Although the ‘Joey in the Pouch’ example was relaxed and spontaneous, it was not haphazard. It was exuberant but not out of control and yet no one was controlling it. There was a sense that this was achieved through the drama of play. This form of playing held them all. High levels of involvement without anyone imposing on the other provide opportunities for the creative living of the third zone and this creates pleasure. It is not an organised pleasure that can be repeated in exactly the same way. It may not remain as a clearly remembered event for those involved and yet it was of significance. Small snatches of the event will always remain and return during other pleasurable events. Winnicott explains that creative living is demonstrated in the different sensory and motor aspects of the play such as bouncing and jumping. The sensory aspects of the event were critical: the feel of the fabric of the skirt, the patting, cuddling and holding. These aspects show how the physical nature of play nourishes creative living. The ‘Joey in the Pouch’ example was about playing in an imaginative way through the in-between but it could have been different. If the parents and child had not been confident it would not have been possible for them to play as they did. Jill and Tamara were responsive in a way that did not depend on one person leading the action and taking control. They were sensitive and aware of one another and this allowed the game to flow. The confidence of all enabled the play to be boisterous, sensuous and pleasurefilled.

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‘Joey in the Pouch’ is an example of playing in the third zone, formlessness, unintegration and creative living. It is also an example of the in-between when relations form. These ideas are consolidated through the definitions of the in-between explained in terms of being fully present, unknowing and mutuality through love. There is an appreciation that life and the accidental/emergent character of interaction really matters; they are reminded of the uniqueness and wonderfulness of the present. This teaches adults how to be better carers and removes the alienating qualities of knowing which necessarily blunts discrimination and means we are deadened to wonder. By being in relation with children we are part of their wonderment. We are part of creating the moments of childhood that ensure that childhood lasts all our life in the way Bachelard (1971) explains. The in-between has great benefits, but not the ones that can be aimed for as an ends to which the in-between is the means. It is not about the purpose of the in-between but instead it is about purposelessness of the in-between, a state that is always already here. The ‘Joey in the Pouch’ example demonstrates how spontaneous moments can become creative significant times when adults and children are part of imaginative times of playing in the in-between.

Conclusion In conclusion, this chapter has explored the current educational focus on social exchange and how such trends are often restrictive of imaginative and creative processes. By focusing overly on outcomes and efficiency, much of what it means to be human (to others) and the mindfulness and invention that often accompany such relational spaces, are often lost. For this reason, this chapter has also proposed a new approach to social and educational interactions termed ‘Playing in the Inbetween’. By being fully present, deliberately playing with un-knowing, a mutuality through love can occur. Such relational times involve our imagination and creative capacities, as illustrated in the ‘Joey in the Pouch’ example. A key aim of this chapter has thus been to encourage teachers to discover more authentic ways of being, so they can find their own way forward to create imaginative learning environments. This may lead to exciting paradigm shifts, which will support imaginative education – education that moves beyond the formality of teaching and learning and instead supports all to live creative, imaginative lives.

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References à Beckett, C.J. (2007). Playing in the In-between: implications for early childhood education of new views of social relations. Ph.D. thesis, University of New South Wales. Kensington. NSW, Australia. Bachelard, G. (1971). The poetics of reverie, trans. D. Russell, Beacon Press, Boston, USA. Benjamin, J. (1998). Shadow of the other: Intersubjectivity and gender in psychoanalysis. Routledge, New York. USA. Buber, M. (1958). I and thou, trans. R.G. Smith, 2nd edition, T&T Clark, Edinburgh, Scotland. Frein, M. (1997). Pedagogy of the imagination. Ph. D. Thesis Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada. Greene, M. (2001). Variations on a blue guitar: The Lincoln Centre Institute lectures on aesthetic education. Teachers College Press, Teachers College, Columbia University, New Your and London. Game, A. & Metcalfe, A. (2003). The first year experience. The Federation Press, Sydney, Australia. Game A & Metcalfe, A. (2001). Care and creativity. Australian Psychologist, 36 (1), 70-74. Game A & Metcalfe, A. (1996). Passionate sociology, Sage Publications, London. England. Hegel, G. W. F. (1977). Phenomenology of spirit, Tran. A Miller and foreword J. Findlay, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Metcalfe, A. & Game, A. (2002). The mystery of everyday life. The Federation Press, Sydney, Australia. Metcalfe, A. & Game, A. (2004). Everyday presences, Cultural Studies, 18 (2/3), March/May, 350-362. Metcalfe, A. & Game, A. (2006). Teachers who change lives, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, Australia. Phillips, A. (1988). Winnicott, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Piaget, J. (1962). Play, dreams and imitation in childhood, trans. C. Gattego and F. M. Hodgson Routledge and Kagen Paul, London, UK. —. (1971). Science of education and the psychology of the child, trans. D. Coltman, Longman, London, UK. Steindl-Rast, D. (1996). Music of silence: A sacred journey through the hours of the day. Harper San Francisco, New York, NY, USA. Symes, C. & Preston, N. (1997). Schools and classrooms: A cultural studies analysis of education. (2nd Edition), Longman, South Melbourne, Australia.

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van Manen, M. (1991). The tact of teaching: The meaning of pedagogical thoughtfulness, Althouse Press, London, Canada. —. (1997). Researching the lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. Althouse Press, London, Canada. —. (2002). Writing in the dark: Phenomenological studies in interpretive inquiry, Althouse Press, London, Canada. Vygotsky, L. (1976). Play and its role in the mental development of the child. In J. Bruner, A. Jolly & K. Sylva (eds.) Play: Its role in development and evolution. Penguin Books, Middlesex, UK. Winnicott, D.W. (2005). Playing and reality, Routledge Classics, New York, NY, USA.

CHAPTER TEN FOR THE BEAUTY OF IDEAS PAMELA HAGEN

All artists try for beauty of one kind or another, mathematicians try for the beauty of ideas. —Donald Coxeter, 1999

Introduction The late Dr. H.S. MacDonald Coxeter could be said to be one of Canada’s greatest mathematicians, and it is Coxeter who has provided the inspiration for the title of this paper. This chapter will explore the interplay of Egan’s (1997, 2005) theory of Imaginative Education and a key area of mathematics, geometry. This theory will be considered together with the particular theories of geometrical development of Dutch educator, van Hiele (1986). Subsequently this chapter will detail some practical examples of the blending of these theories, in terms of educational practice using knowledge and resources about Coxeter and his work in geometry. A review of working with students and the theories will conclude this written discussion. It is hoped that some points raised in this paper will provide stimulus for more detailed research and discussion on the role of imagination in mathematics education, and on the greater development of mathematical understanding for both teacher and learner.

Egan and imaginative development Of all Egan’s books, The Educated Mind- How Cognitive Tools Shape our Understanding (1997) and An Imaginative Approach to Teaching (2005) detail most fully what both the theory and practice of Imaginative Education could look like as a general approach to formal schooling. The

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incompatibilities within existing educational theories, and the impossibility of a truly child-centred learning situation in current educational settings, is precisely why Egan proposes a reconstitution of the contemporary educational outlook. The starting point, or frame of reference, for this has to be “…to let go of the old ideas and consider what sense of education is generated by taking ‘kinds of understanding’ as the primary focus for thinking about education” (1997, p.24). The child is truly at the centre, and it is a centre within society and culture, both of which the child will need to come to understand. It is important then, in Egan’s view, that context and not content is what should direct educational practice in the ongoing cultural quest for knowledge. By looking at the context in which education takes place it is easy to see the greater relevancy of Egan’s ‘kinds of understanding’ than the specific components of curriculum content. The importance of context is further supported by Kilpatrick et al. (2001) with particular reference to mathematical proficiency. Context is seen by both Egan and Kilpatrick et al., as a wide range of cultural, environmental and situational elements that can influence the instruction that takes place within education. How the elements of students, teacher and knowledge interact within any given context influences the development of cognitive growth in both a positive and negative manner. Egan (1997) proposes a form of sequential structuring to the five ‘kinds of understanding’ he sees as contributing to the formation of an individual’s understanding. Table 1 has been designed to aid in coming to know the principal characteristics of the IE theory and appreciation of its increasing sophistication in the development of thought and understanding. The five progressive levels of understanding start with Somatic understanding, move on through Mythic understanding, roll rhythmically onwards through Romantic understanding, progress through Philosophic understanding and reflectively rest at Ironic understanding. It is the three central kinds of understanding, Mythic, Romantic and Philosophic, that Egan concentrates on for reconstituting a contemporary view of education. For each of these kinds of understanding Egan (2005) has developed a framework that includes the characteristics of each kind of understanding. Binary opposites and a particular emphasis on story structure are represented in Mythic understanding, transcendent qualities in Romantic understanding, and the introduction of alternative theoretical approaches in Philosophic understanding.

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While these kinds of understanding could be said to be in progressive stages, one kind of understanding having to come before moving on to another, Egan (1997, 2005) very clearly points out that there are a number of characteristics that are not exclusive to only one kind of understanding. For example, as can be seen in Table 1, the use of pattern for visual development does not cease at the end of Somatic understanding, the first level of understanding. Rather it continues to play a role in the development of subsequent kinds of understanding with a gradual lessening of influence as other characteristics are developing, peaking in Romantic understanding with the evocation of images and wonder within a topic. Egan (1997) argues there are specific cognitive tools used in the cultural quest for knowledge that are a central feature of the imaginative framework. The primary tool used, and that embodies our rich cultural heritage, is that of language. Language is seen as more than the mode by which an individual expresses and receives their understanding of the world currently seen around them. Language, according to Egan, is something for which “we are evolutionarily programmed…” (1997, p. 243), and is also to be regarded as a means by which the mind is enlarged and develops a greater understanding of the world and all that it encompasses in thought, word and deed. It is in the latter power of language that is of primary concern to Egan. In attempting to view education with a different pair of glasses, Egan is aided by the socio-cultural theories of Lev Vygotsky. Building on and adapting Vygotsky’s ideas of intellectual development, Egan stresses the use of cultural/cognitive tools to develop and grow the understanding of the individual and the individual as a member of the larger societal and cultural group. It is the growth of understanding in both these dimensions that will aid an individual’s development through the five stages that Egan proposes (1997, 2005; see also this volume).

van Hiele and cognitive development Having briefly stated the central features of Egan’s theory as they relate to epistemological practice, it is useful to explore in a similar manner the theories of van Hiele (1986). Both van Hiele and his wife Dina worked as secondary mathematics educators in Holland in the 1960s and used their experiences to develop what are now known as the van Hiele levels of geometric development (Fuys, Geddes & Tischler, 1988). van Hiele (1986) did not want his work restricted to geometry or mathematics alone, rather it was to focus on levels of thinking.

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When I developed my levels approach it was aimed at the teaching and learning of geometry. This is an unnecessary restriction, however, the teaching and learning of other topics can be improved equally well with the same levels approach. (p.vii)

Originally numbered through five levels from level zero to level four, Table 2 illustrates the framework of the van Hiele levels which were further seen as “cognitive levels” (p.8) that exist in a hierarchical structure. That is, starting with level zero, the learner begins acquiring mathematical knowledge that includes specific terminology such as characteristics of geometric figures, e.g. numbers of sides, size of angles, etc. Gradually a learner begins to move through the levels but needs, in van Hiele’s view, to pass through each of five phases that exist within each level before progressing to the next. This is begun in what is regarded as an Information phase where a student becomes aware of examples and non examples of given shapes. This is followed by a Guided Orientation phase in which a student undertakes activities designed to show the relation between the properties of shapes (e.g., looking for symmetry and folding). In the third phase of Explicitation, awareness develops of the properties of shapes, and a student tries to communicate this through technical language of the lesson content. Following this a fourth phase of Free Orientation is undertaken where more complex activities guide a student to discover a path through a network of relations between properties of one shape and their relevancy to other shapes. Finally in the Integration phase a student is able to summarise all that they have learned through a reflective process that reveals an overview of the relation between properties of various shapes. Important to the student’s movement from one level to another is the use of language. Through the use of language to speak about and describe structures, it is possible, in van Hiele’s view, to find the links between given structures. Once the links are found it is possible to attain a higher level of thinking. Fuys et al. (1988) also support the importance of appropriate language use to the development of geometric knowledge. They undertook a three-year study which showed that the role of a teacher was of prime importance for a student’s development through the levels: The interviewer/teacher plays an important role in helping students learn the subject and process and also in becoming aware of expectations and evaluating the quality of their own thinking. (p.74)

Van de Walle (2005) and Napitapulu (2001) have further supported the central role played by the teacher in the development of mathematical understanding.

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Table 2: van Hiele Levels of Geometric Development The use of language takes on an important additional role when discussed in the context of assessment. Mason (1997), Moran (1993) and Fuys et al. (1988) all point towards the written language of students providing extra understanding of how students are thinking, which they see as a requirement for meaningful assessment by teachers. Moran (1993) is particularly keen on the use of student writing for assessment: [W]ritten language… provides access to how pupils think… Journal writing provided an insight into their thoughts and learning…By putting thoughts on paper the thinking process takes on a new dimension. (p.20)

As van de Walle (2005) observes, van Hiele’s theory “does not specify content or curriculum but rather can be applied to most activities” (p. 311). It is therefore of interest to compare van Hiele’s insights into the cognitive development of geometric understanding with Egan’s broader conception of cognitive development and growth. Both the van Hiele levels of

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geometric understanding and Egan’s phases of understanding development have five levels of development which are in a somewhat hierarchical framework that lead to increasing sophistication in thought and understanding. Both aim to develop a learner’s understanding and rely heavily on gradually increasing sophisticated language. However, with Egan’s model characteristics of one phase of understanding do not necessarily have to be left behind when developing greater understanding as with the more closed elements within the van Hiele model, which in its original form has a set of language and symbols for each level of understanding. In Egan’s (1997) model, elements of one phase can be brought forward to further develop and augment a subsequent phase, as with the use of senses in the Somatic phase continuing to aid development of understanding in the Mythic phase and through into at least the Romantic phase if not further. More comparisons and contrasts can be found between these two models but it was the intent of these two models to foster the development of understanding that gave rise to an investigation into their relevancy and value in the practical world of the mathematics classroom.

From theory to practice Although for current purposes Egan’s framework is applied to elementary education, it can be applied at every level of education and learning. Its aim is to “…keep[ing] the educational energy alive…” (p.279). However, the optimum time to begin this is at the beginning of the development of what Egan (1997, 2005) calls Mythic Understanding, in the preschool years, and the process would continue throughout the entire process of formal schooling. Not only would growth in understanding be stimulated from its beginning, but a path to continued growth and learning would be laid. Prior work with Egan’s Mythic and Romantic levels of understanding in elementary education provided encouraging results in the growth of student’s specific geometric cognitive development, as well as general cognitive development. These results were the impetus for a recent qualitative case study (Hagen, 2009) of geometric development. Combined with the earlier examples, the preliminary results provide suggestions for further research and study, with particular reference to the role of affect in learning mathematics, and the dynamic interplay of imagination and affective responses. The learning activities used in the study embody many of the characteristics of both Egan’s and van Hiele’s levels of development. It is also important to remember that the context of use of

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both the Mythic and Romantic frameworks involves, according to Kilpatrick et al. (2001), the teacher as well as the student. While the learning focus is with the student, both student and teacher stand to gain in this type of joint approach. It is in this context of mutual learning that opportunities to ‘test’ the working of the Egan and van Hiele frameworks occurred. The setting was a G5 intermediate class (ages 10-11) of 28 mixed ability students of Hazelwood Elementary School, in the lower mainland of British Columbia, Canada. Egan’s theory suggests that students of this age are predominantly developing Romantic understanding. However, it is important to note that characteristics of each level of understanding are not exclusive to only one level, and that there can be a flow of characteristic qualities between levels, as with the visual development of pattern thinking mentioned earlier. At the start of the study, students were operating at level 0 of the van Hiele levels of thinking. Within the subject of mathematics, the strand and focus of the unit was geometry. Artifacts and resources from prior studies (Hagen, 2009) were used with the students, in addition to more traditional resources of texts and children’s literature. The transcendent qualities of life, energy and longevity were highlighted in the activities by the use of some personal artifacts. These artifacts were not necessary to working within the Egan frameworks but were selected because of the added opportunity to humanize the topic still further and illustrate in an authentic manner that mathematics was a topic that was created by individuals and not just confined to textbooks often created by nameless individuals. The first priceless artifact used was a personal handwritten letter from one of Canada’s greatest mathematicians, Dr. H.S. MacDonald (Donald) Coxeter. At the time of writing the letter, Dr. Coxeter was 96 years of age and unfortunately in declining health. I had had the opportunity to meet Dr. Coxeter two years earlier at a mathematics conference in Vancouver, and had written asking for his views of the use of imagination in the learning of mathematics. His gracious reply and that of his daughter, Susan Thomas, written at the same time as the personal letter, provided the ‘spark’ that began the study of geometry. Having the letter and readily available web based biographic details of Coxeter, I was able to begin building with the class a ‘heroic narrative structure’ in keeping with Egan’s (1997) Romantic Understanding framework. During the course of the unit, I had the students complete an activity of building and then explaining a geometric paper construction, which can be seen in the figure below.

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A sample of the design was shown to the students and oral instructions were given as to how the design could be built by folding and cutting paper. The level of engagement in the active phase of building the geometric design was extremely high, to the degree that few of the students wanted to take their regularly scheduled recess break! In addition, the enjoyment of the students was clearly noticeable in the comments made by them at the time of the activity. The next stage of the activity required particular engagement of the students’ imagination. They were asked to imagine that they were a teacher and write a lesson plan for what they had done so that other students could also make the designs. The first stage involved the students explaining what they had done in making their construction. Both words and diagrams were permitted in their writing. The concluding phase was to review the first written explanation and add as much mathematical detail as possible to the original effort, thus embodying the van Hiele levels. At the time of starting to make the geometric designs, they did not have a name other than the generic descriptor ‘paper stars’. Collectively, the students and I decided that we should now name the paper stars Coxeter Stars, in honour of the mathematician who had written to us a few months earlier. The class were so proud of their work on the newly named Coxeter Stars that they subsequently asked the principal if they could put them up around the school. This then blossomed into decorating the school gym for the upcoming parents’ evening of the Christmas season. Collectively it was decided that copies of photographs taken in the class should be sent to Dr. Coxeter and his daughter Susan with a Christmas note. This was done, and shortly afterwards a further piece of Christmas communication was received by the class, together with a copy of a Toronto magazine that had a full-length article and photographs about Dr. Coxeter. This then provided further content and resources for ongoing geometric studies. Other activities in our unit included examining the work of M.C. Escher, whose original work of Circle Limits III hung in the Coxeter/Thomas home and who had been a personal friend of Coxeter. The students also created manual tessellations during art lessons and used computer software during subsequent lessons in the school computer lab (Clements, 2004; Clements, Battista & Sarama, 2001). Sadly, a few months after the formal completion of the class studies, word was received that Dr. Coxeter had passed away at age 96.

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Figure 1 – Coxeter Stars – Double Layer

Clearly many characteristics of Egan’s Imaginative Education theory was both used and demonstrated in the activities that took place with this class at Hazelwood Elementary. There was an obvious fascination from the students with both the life and work of Dr. Coxeter, from the smallest detail about his own life as a schoolboy to his continued academic writing at the age of 96, thereby humanizing the mathematical content placing it clearly in the Romantic phase of understanding. In addition, there was an overall sense of wonder from the students as to how Coxeter could possibly explain mathematically the artistic work of his friend Escher, again echoing the Romantic phase of understanding. Constructing the Coxeter Stars was a van Hiele Level One activity that used the guided orientation, explicitation and free orientation phases. With regard to Egan’s Romantic Planning Framework many characteristics were part of the activities, transcendent qualities, a sense of wonder and many opportunities for further investigation and discussion were raised to name just a few. Perhaps one particular aspect of Egan’s Romantic framework, non-conformity, could be said to have been used when having the students write the instructions for future lessons that involved making Coxeter stars.

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The enjoyment of the students and the degree of their engagement in all aspects of the activities are clear examples of what can be achieved when using activities that utilize the theories of Egan and van Hiele (Crowley, 1987). While the particular activities detailed above used personal artifacts that added a unique dimension, they were not essential to being able to use either an Imaginative Education framework for cognitive development or the theories of Egan and van Hiele.

Towards greater imagination in math teaching At the present time most resources that are available in elementary classrooms and schools have been developed with a focus on curriculum content and not broader general human understanding. Therefore, it can initially seem a challenge for individuals wanting to engage students’ imaginations using Egan’s framework. The Math Makes Sense (Pearson Education) series of mathematics texts is such an example of curriculum development oriented towards a narrower view of cognitive development, rather than broader human understanding of mathematics. This is to be expected, however, since educational publishing companies for western Canada are required to prepare their materials to meet provincial curricula and the Western and Northern Canadian Protocol (WNCP) agreement, which are oriented towards student achievement and assessment rather than the development of understanding. With the combination of text, web and multi-media resources now available, the ‘lack of resources’ argument cannot continued be used. Resources are indeed available for those willing to shift their teaching focus and make opportunities available for the development of the student’s richer and broader understanding. In addition, meaningful research that focuses on curriculum development for understanding rather than student achievement and assessment is increasingly common. An example is the 2004-2008 LUCID Project of the Imaginative Education Research Group at Simon Fraser University (http://www.ierg.net/LUCID/ overview), which has examined the development of understanding across a range of ages and classrooms using, among others, Egan’s (1997, 2005) theory of Imaginative Education. It is also encouraging that the van Hiele levels of geometric development are now appearing in mainstream educational resources (van de Walle, 2005). In addition, educational discussions around the subject of geometry and specifically the van Hiele levels are taking place in both academic and professional/publishing circles, thereby allowing a more meaningful geometry curriculum to be considered.

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What is important, however, is to have the willingness on the part of teachers and educators to see learning framed from a broader understanding and cognitive development point of view, rather than the more usual student achievement and assessment view of education. This shift in viewing education differently is a major reorientation requiring systematic change as well as modification to the outlook of those, such as teachers, who have been trained in a more traditional manner. Change of this depth and nature do not happen quickly. Unfortunately, the manner in which Egan’s three principal imaginative frameworks (Mythic, Romantic and Philosophic) are currently presented does not make them readily accessible by the majority of practicing teachers. This is not entirely surprising when one considers that most teachers, and others involved in education, have been trained in the traditional content and knowledge view of education. It is in an effort to provide increased accessibility to the theory and implementation of Imaginative Education that Table 1 was prepared. It is presented here in a visual format that is hoped will invite critique, discussion and further development. If the concept of Imaginative Education can be made available in as many formats as possible to educators in all areas of education, then the opportunities to further disseminate the theory and strengthen its implementation and use are potentially limitless. By blending the theories of Egan (1997, 2005) and van Hiele (1986; Guys, Feddes & Tischler, 1988), that have cognitive understanding and learning as the prime foci, new opportunities can be created for the development of general cognition and mathematical understanding in the young learners. By engaging imaginative and affective elements for both students and teachers, not only is conceptual learning promoted, but a path is laid that has the potential to help meet “…complex demands of modern changing social conditions” (Egan, 1997, p. 279). The path can lead to a much brighter future for us all, one that includes mathematics and the beauty of ideas. “As for the role of imagination, I would say that all discovery requires imagination…” Donald Coxeter - (personal communication, September 7, 2002)

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References Clements, D., (2004). Geometric and spatial thinking in early childhood education in Engaging young children in mathematics – Standards for Early Childhood Mathematics education. Clements, D. Sarama, J. (Eds.) Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Clements, D. Battista, M.T. & Sarama, J., (2001). Logo and Geometry, Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, Monograph, 10, 1177 Coxeter, H.S.M. (2003). The daily planet. (Television Broadcast). Toronto: The Discovery Channel. April 2, 2003. Crowley, M. (1987). The van Hiele Model of the Development of Geometric Thought. In Learning and Teaching Geometry K – 12, 1987 Year book of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Egan, K. (1997). The educated mind: how cognitive tools shape our understanding. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. —. (2005). An imaginative approach to teaching. San Francisco, Josey Bass. Fuys, D., Geddes D. & Tichler, R., (1988). The van Hiele model of thinking in geometry among adolescents. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education. Monograph, 3, 1-196. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Kilpatrick, J., Swafford, J., & Findell, E. (Eds.). (2001) Adding it up: Helping children learn mathematics. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Hagen, P. (2003). For the beauty of ideas. Unpublished manuscript. —. (2003). The van Hiele levels in an elementary school context. Vector, Summer. Hoffer, A. (1981). Geometry more than proof. Mathematics Teachers, 74 (1), 11-18 Math Makes Sense (2005), Toronto, ONT: Pearson Education. Mason, M.M. (1997). The van Hiele levels of geometric of understanding and mathematically talented students. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 21 (1), 38-53. Math Makes Sense, Toronto; ONT: Pearson Education. Moran, G.J.W. (1993). Identifying the van Hiele levels of geometry thinking in seventh-grade students through the use of journal writing. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts, (1993). Dissertation Abstracts International, 54(02), 464A

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Napitupulu, B. (2001). An exploration of students’ understanding and van Hiele levels of thinking on geometric constructions. Masters Thesis, Simon Fraser University. Usiskin, Z. (1982). van Hiele levels and achievement in Secondary School Geometry. Final report of the Cognitive Development and Achievement in Secondary School Geometry Project.) Chicago: University of Chicago, Department of Education, E RIC Document reproduction Service No. ED 220 288. van Hiele, P.M. (1986). Structure and Insight: A theory of mathematics education. Orlando: Academic Press. van de Walle, J. (2005). Elementary and Middle School Mathematics – Teaching Developmentally. Toronto, ONT: Pearson Education.

CHAPTER ELEVEN A DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY ACCOUNT OF THE CREATIVE IMAGINATION: APPLYING THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CARL JUNG ROBERT MATTHEWS

It cannot be stressed enough that the key to a fundamental understanding, not only of man, but of the world as well, is to be sought in the relation between creativity and symbolic reality. —Erich Neumann, 1974 .

This chapter discusses pedagogic aspects of the creative imagination from the perspective of depth psychology, according to Carl Jung. The aim is to fashion a textured account of the creative imagination and its implications for the classroom. In order to understand the functioning of the creative processes of the psyche one must look not only at the internalisation of collective cultural contents, but also at how the unconscious ‘meets’ with such contents, or indeed in the truly creative act, how the unconscious assists us in going beyond the present knowledge of one’s culture to make a profoundly original contribution. For Jung all creative imaginative acts are the result of symbolization. The higher conscious contents emerge through symbolization either directly, arising spontaneously within the individual, or indirectly, through cultural participation. A symbol for Jung is a holistic psychic reality from which one may abstract out a particular conscious understanding. Each of our cultural contents originated from the symbolic activity of an individual. Let us begin by looking at the genesis of depth psychology around its central inquiry into the autonomous contents of dreams and fantasy material.

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Depth psychology Depth psychology is that area of psychological inquiry that investigates the role of unconscious phenomena in psychic life. It was Eugene Bleuler (director of the Burgholzli psychiatric clinic in Zurich) who first used the term, although Jung attributes Sigmund Freud and Pierre Janet to be “the real pioneers” of experimental research into the unconscious (Jung, 1977, p. 477). A key point of investigation was the autonomous psychic activity experienced in dreams or waking fantasy-formations. It was clear that the intending will of consciousness was not the driver in the formation of such imaginal phenomena, but then what was? Before giving Jung’s answer to this question, it is useful to discuss the Freudian response, as with respect to depth psychology’s influence on pedagogic views of the creative imagination, it is Freud, through the work of Jean Piaget, that has been most influential to date.

Freud’s view of the unconscious, symbols and the creative imagination Freud’s view understands these autonomous contents as a means to allow expression of what was denied one in conscious life. Particularly from our early childhood experiences, but through day to day life, contents of thwarted wishes and unsatisfied sexual aspirations too disturbing to be held in consciousness would accrue as a body of repressed unconscious contents. To relieve the build up of libidinal pressure associated with these contents, the unconscious would generate fantasies or dreams which fulfilled in the imagination what could not be fulfilled in reality. Particularly in dreams, but also in waking fantasies, consciousness is at a lower level of functioning which makes it easier for unconscious contents to cross the divide into consciousness. This is Freud’s answer to the origin question of the autonomous material. It is important to note that in this view, whilst the unconscious contributes the base instinctual drives that are present in the fantasy process, the content arises from the repository of previously conscious contents. This position reduces the direct contribution of the unconscious in the imaginal and creative life to one of base instincts only; the contents themselves are a regurgitation of fallen conscious material. It is argued this is a devaluing of the irrational’s contribution to creative imagination and is a view disseminated into pedagogic theory by the highly influential work of Piaget.



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To discriminate this further, let us discuss Freud’s view on the symbolic; for it is Jung’s contrasting view that restores a generative role of the unconscious in the process of the creative imagination. For Freud the repressed material of dreams and fantasy products would be blocked from entering consciousness if they were represented in their literal form. Thus the unconscious employed symbols to covertly disguise material that was inherently unpalatable to consciousness; i.e. by utilizing symbols the unconscious contents could ‘slip’ past one’s inner censor, and thus release libidinal build up by returning to consciousness what could not be encountered directly. However, without conscious processing of the symbolic material, the libidinal energy builds again and the process repeats. If the repressed contents become intensified through dissociation, a dangerous neurotic release becomes likely. It thus became the work of psychoanalysis to assist the client to decode these disguised symbolic contents and allow consciousness direct processing of the material and thus affect a more permanent release. Freud’s view on the creative imagination is perhaps best illustrated in his writings on the great genius Leonardo Da Vinci (Freud, 1957). Leonardo’s profuse creative output demonstrates for Freud an alternative form of libidinal release from the ordinary visitation of symbolized repressed contents. The mechanism behind creative release is understood to be a sublimation of the libidinal energy (Quinodoz & Alcorn, 2005, p. 94). In cases such as Leonardo, infantile sexuality is so heavily repressed, the libido breaks away from the contents and becomes ‘freed up’ for use by consciousness in a creative outlet. The early fatherless years of Da Vinci, argues Freud, resulted in a pathologically strong mother complex, fomenting a creative sublimation that drove Leonardo’s lifelong artistic and scientific work. The creative act for Freud is driven by a reallocation of libidinal psychic energy. The symbolizing of repressed contents becomes the creation of scientific and artistic works.

Freud and Piaget Piaget’s influence during the last sixty years in pedagogic theory has been monumental. There would be few teachers currently practicing in schools who have not encountered Piaget’s ideas on child development and cognition. Piaget, who in his twenties undertook a Freudian styled analysis for eight months with the psychoanalyst Sabina Spielrein, adopts the Freudian view on the origin of these spontaneous products in the psyche.



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Using Freud’s understanding of the symbolic, Piaget (1924) applies this to explain that child’s play is driven to use fantasy to satisfy the wishes that are thwarted by the real world, until a more reasoned approach emerges in later life. The role of fantasy and play is a temporary phase in the child, who has still to learn adapted ways to exist in the real world. Vygotsky (1932, 1987) challenges Piaget on this position. He argues, and we agree, that this assumption by Piaget instils an improper privileging and separation of the cognitive or pure thought against the rest of psychic life. Piaget shares with Freud not only the untenable conception of a pleasure principle preceding a reality principle but also the metaphysical approach which elevates the desire for pleasure from its true status of a biologically important ancillary factor to that of an independent vital force, the prime mover of psychic development. Once he has separated need and pleasure from adaptation to reality, logic forces Piaget to present realistic thought as standing apart from concrete needs, interests, and wishes, as “pure thought” whose function is the search for truth exclusively for its own sake. (Vygotsky, 1932)

For Vygotsky, rather than the fantasy life of the child dropping off as better reality-adapted faculties emerge, it goes within. It is not a case of one psychic function, the directed, replacing an outmoded function, the non-directed, but rather the two continue on an inner psychic plane to grow into a functional unit. Whitmont (1978, p. 25), a Jungian analyst, likewise has commented on Piaget’s devaluation of fantasy life that is implicitly carried through into Piaget’s notions of accommodation and assimilation. Such a devaluation is inherent in our school system and indeed is a reflection of our rationalistic culture. We argue here that a Jungian grounded notion of the unconscious provides a more inclusive basis to correct this devaluation. The implication for education is to restore a proper balance to the creative life of our students which has dwelt in the shadow of a cognition-only minded curriculum.



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Jung’s view of the unconscious, symbols and the creative imagination Jung’s own early explorations, through his word association studies and psychiatric work at the Burgholzli, led him to a more profound conception of the unconscious that “was not just a product of repression but was the creative matrix of consciousness” (Jung, 1986, p. 483). Jung encounters the autonomous product of the psyche with the regard of a naturalist. These outpourings of the psyche have indeed been shaped by conscious processes, but that alone cannot explain their content; there is something intrinsic to our psyche which is not of conscious origin that contributes to the form of our dreams and fantasies. Freudian repression alone cannot explain the emergence of fantasy products. Jung observes a constructive or synthetic aspect to dreams. Through the experience of working with his own dreams and with the dreams of his patients, Jung began to realize that if a dream symbol was taken not merely as a symptom of repressed content, but as an intended communication towards health, i.e. as the psyche’s attempt to regulate itself, then the dreams became a healing factor for the dreamer. It became apparent that the dream symbols embraced the future intention of the dreamer’s psyche as a response to the dreamer’s life situation. This Jung understood as a teleological or finalistic interpretation of the symbol. ...Freud concentrated on the physical and biological background of the unconscious and on a causal explanation of its manifestations, while Jung conceived the psyche in terms of polarity, in the sense that both the drive (the biological aspect) and its restraints (the so-called spiritual or cultural aspect) belong to the very nature of the unconscious, and that the causal explanation of its manifestations must be complemented and completed, so to speak, by the final or teleological explanation. (von Franz, 1998, p. 61)

Thus for Jung the unconscious produces symbolic material as a creative response to the conscious situation; they are the best answers to move life along in a self-regulatory fashion. Even without dream analysis, we often experience the effects of this regulation (Neumann, 1970, p. 373). When first waking we sometimes realize a shift in conscious attitude. We may feel better; a problem weighing on the mind has resolved itself ‘in the night’. Or we may feel as if a dark mood has descended upon us. In analysis it is often possible to isolate the dream symbol associated with a particular conscious re-attunement, thus directly observing the regulatory function of the unconscious.



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This creative function of the unconscious applies not only to the everyday situations of life, material security, family etc., but also to new ideas and solutions to the creative problems of scientists, mathematicians and artists. The discovery that the unconscious is no mere depository of the [personal] past, but is also full of germs of future psychic situations and ideas, led me to my own new approach to psychology. ...[I]t is a fact that, in addition to memories from a long-distant conscious past, completely new thoughts and creative ideas can also present themselves from the unconscious – thoughts and ideas that have never been conscious before. They grow up from the dark depths of the mind like a lotus and form a most important part of the subliminal psyche. (Jung et al, 1964, p. 38)

As we shall argue, the creative process of symbolization, first located in the regulatory function in dreams, is the same process for the great creative genius typified by Leonardo and is even at the heart of everyday creativity in the classroom. Jung links the symbolic generativity of the unconscious to a spiritual quality – not in a New Age sense, but rather closer to the Kantian or Hegelian sense of spirit as the maker of meaning. This ‘spiritual’ aspect of the unconscious possesses the power of spontaneous motion, and independently of outer sensory stimuli it produces images and sudden thoughts in the inner world of the imagination and even orders them in a meaningful way. (von Franz, 1998, p. 62)

The evidence for such an assertion rests in the meaningfulness of our nightly dreams. What might at first might appear a jumbled mess of the day’s events, through the analytical process of therapy “turns out to be a highly intelligent, meaningful statement about inner processes, often superior to those made by consciousness. Spirit, therefore, according to Jung, is in the first instance the composer of dreams: a principle of spontaneous psychic motion which produces and orders symbolic images freely and in accordance with its own laws” (von Franz, 1998, p. 63).1 The work of the latter half of Jung’s life was devoted to fathoming the action of this composer of autonomous events in the psyche.

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A closer look at symbolization according to Jung Jung defines a symbol as “the best possible formulation of a relatively unknown thing, which for that reason cannot be more clearly or characteristically represented” (Jung, 1977, p. 474). Individual symbols “never have an exclusively conscious or an exclusively unconscious source, but arise from the equal collaboration of both” (Jung, 1977, p. 477). A symbol is not a denotation of some external or internal reality, but rather it is the meeting place, or more accurately the joining place, of the unconscious and conscious, or equivalently the irrational and the rational. The images of our dreams draw from “the irrational data supplied by pure inner and outer perception” (Jung, 1977, p. 478) and with the reasoned life of the ego complex. Look at your own dreams and you will see your ego is always present, if not as participant then at least as observer. The etymology of the word symbol literally means “to throw together.” In Jung’s account it is the conscious and unconscious positions that are thrown together, with the spontaneous result being a new content which contains a more whole reality than consciousness can of itself generate or entertain. The new content points towards new possibilities, of what is on the verge of becoming known and is thus pregnant with future meaning. It may function in the psyche not only as the constructive healing factor, regulating the living tensions in the psyche, but also the creative germ of artistic and scientific process, resolving the fertile tensions of the creative mind. Up until now we have been speaking of symbols that arise spontaneously in the psyche, but Jung realized that cultural artefacts could also function as symbols. Such cultural symbols range from the religious, to mathematical expressions, to artistic works (for example the Mona Lisa’s smile). All cultural symbols have their origin in the spontaneous symbolization of the creative individual, for symbols cannot be generated in any other way. But when a creative product is shared it may ‘strike a chord’ and fascinate the collective. Jung realized that there is what he called a symbolic attitude; a certain attitude of consciousness to the object that relates to the creative product as a symbol (Jung, 1977, p. 475). This symbolic attitude is characterized by two qualities in the registering consciousness. Firstly a significant emotional or affect response ‘grips’ the observer; their attention is held by this affect – a sure indication of unconscious involvement. And secondly, it is sensed that the object is pregnant with meaning. Over and above its “gripping” aspect the symbol also has a meaningful aspect: it is more than a sign; it assigns meaning, it signifies something



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This has important implications for pedagogy, which we will explore in detail later, for teachers who rely too heavily on knowledge as signs (fully known) rather than symbolic (yet to be known) delivery of content are relating to their students on the conscious plane only. This minimises any emotional interest or wonder and dampens the creative imagination.

Symbol, sign and concept Jung realizes that as symbolic functioning requires the coming together of the rational with the irrational, the highly differentiated contents of consciousness are unable to create anything profoundly novel by themselves. No genius has ever sat down with a pen or a brush in his hand and said: “now I am going to invent a symbol.” No one can take a more or less rational thought, reached as a logical conclusion or by deliberate intent, and then give it “symbolic” form. (Jung et al, 1964, p. 55)

As will be demonstrated in examples below, it does not matter if one is painting, composing, or theorising a grand unified field theory in physics, to enter into the symbolic process requires a suspension of higher rationality. To do so is to open to the states where the body, unconsciousness and mind can ‘merge’ and thereby the opposites meet and new possibilities arise. Once a symbol arises the fascinated ego may begin the process of bringing or working the meaningfulness of the symbol into conscious usage. The conceptual level works in an abstracted or generalized form; we cannot hold the whole in our mind’s eye at the conceptual level, only at the symbolic. One abstracts, or pulls away, one’s awareness from the original psychic reaction which is emotionally charged, towards de-emotionalized concepts. The unit of basic operativeness is the emotionally-charged image. The relative de-emotionalizing is essential in giving stability and directedness to the ego and away from the unconscious. It is a partial



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return to the primordial for consciousness to engage in a symbolic manner. (von Franz, 1998)

The functioning of the ego requires this abstracting and deemotionalizing process before it can manipulate conscious contents along the paths of logic and reason. To obtain this directionality over the symbolic contents (to move them in our minds at will and to have reflective awareness of them), the symbolic content must be reduced in emotional charge. A highly emotionally charged content is always more under the impetus of the unconscious. This de-emotionalizing is achieved through an abstraction or differentiation process, where aspects of the symbolic whole are pulled out. Consciousness attains abstracted contents at the cost that these contents no longer have the capacity to spontaneously create anything novel. For this a return to the unconscious level is needed. With this understanding in mind, if one looks back over the long history of human civilization, it becomes apparent that all our higher ideas must have had their origin in the symbolic process. In the dawn period the rationalizable component of a symbol was of crucial importance, since it was at this point that man’s view of the world passed from the symbolic to the rational. The advance from prelogical to logical thinking likewise proceeds via the symbol, and it can be shown that philosophical and scientific thinking gradually developed out of symbolic thinking by progressively emancipating itself from the emotional-dynamic components of the unconscious. (Neumann, 1970, p. 366)

In his work The Origins and History of Consciousness, Neumann (1970), a colleague of Jung’s, provides a phlyogenetic map of the accrual of such contents across human history. Neumann (1970) and later von Franz (1980) account for the evolution of concepts from their archetypal origins where the archetype2 meets with the sensory material corresponding to some experience (be it outer or inner) and the initial primordial idea ruptures into consciousness through symbolic fascination. Over large periods of time such primordial ideas coalesce through further experiences, and a greater degree of differentiation sees the ideas stripped gradually from their primordial, that is, weakly differentiated nature, until an abstract concept is resolved. It is the accrual of such product that we enjoin our students to partake of each day. Examples are endless, but

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Archetypes are hypostasized contents of the collective unconscious. Like the symbolizing process, they are forever unconscious and unobservable; we realize their existence only through the footprints they leave in consciousness, the archetypal images.



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think of the cultural evolution of our notions of space and time for example, or our understanding of fire, stolen from the Gods by Prometheus, a primordial idea, one might compare to the highly abstracted equation for combustion. With this insight one may be tempted to view education as a recapitulation of this great cultural accrual of the symbolic to the conceptual, i.e., that our students must likewise re-enact this progression. However one must be cautious, for in general our usage of the symbolic in schools runs in the opposite direction to that of earlier ages. For us, symbols function as a means for consciousness to re-engage with the unconscious, so that by loading up the conscious mind with particular views, the unconscious can become activated and symbolic production arise. In earlier times it was the opposite: there the emphasis was on natural symbolic production which led, gradually, to greater consciousness (Neumann, 1970, p. 367). Some indication of the unknown dimension that belongs to all concepts may be experienced by exploring in detail what a person actually means by a particular concept. Try this yourself with a colleague and discuss a chosen concept of pedagogy or politics (for example the concept of justice), tease out or amplify each other’s meaning in turn for 10 minutes or so, and then compare the variation that has been elicited. All sorts of variations including an “emotional tone and its application” become apparent (Jung et al, 1964, p. 55). …even the most matter-of-fact contents of consciousness have a penumbra of uncertainty around them. Even the most carefully defined philosophical or mathematical concept, which we are sure does not contain more than we have put into it, is nevertheless more than we assume. It is a psychic event and as such partly unknowable. (Jung et al, 1964, p. 55)

Just how far into the unconscious such connections extend is difficult to fathom; however, the accompanying feeling tone that arises through any detailed explication is a clear indication that unconscious processes are involved. For a more detailed look at this problem, Jung’s work on complex theory is recommended (Jung, 1969).

The creative process of mathematicians and scientists Perhaps the clearest evidence outlining this targeted symbolization where consciousness intentionally sets out to re-engage the unconscious in order to manifest a creative product from the symbolizing function, is to be found in the activity of ‘genius’. In this section we illustrate such



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targeted symbolising through exemplars of the creative imagination of mathematicians and scientists (for exemplars in the creative life of artists see Neumann, 1974). First let us look at some examples where the creative symbol appears directly in a dream. The 19th century German chemist Kekule had been fruitlessly engrossed with the problem of the structure of the benzene molecule for many months when, one evening he dreamed of a snake with its tail in its mouth. Twenty-five years after describing the cyclical structure of benzene, Kekule attended a grand ceremony in Berlin, where he told how he had seen the solution to the enigma of benzene in a dream. Apparently it happened toward evening by a bonfire near Ghent. As the twisting tongues of flame grew more like snakes, Kekule fell asleep. Then a single snake separated itself from the forest of flaming serpents, seized its own tail as if trying to swallow it, and closed itself off in the form of a ring. The ring – that was the solution. (Szczeklik et al, 2005)

In a flash Kekule realized that this was the solution he had been seeking but was unable to find; this ancient uroboros image of the serpent locked in paradoxical self-devouring was a symbolization of benzene’s closed carbon ring structure. He then set to work and abstracted from this image the meaning that lay pregnant within, that is, that this snake represented a cyclic structure of carbon atoms that were held in a hexagonal binding arrangement. The second example comes from the PBS documentary on the life of the Nobel laureate mathematician John Nash. This quote is from Donald Newman, a colleague of Nash’s at MIT and is taken from the documentary A Brilliant Madness (MacLowry and Samels, 2002): I was thinking about a problem, trying to get somewhere with it, and I couldn't and I couldn't and I couldn't. And I went to sleep one night and I dreamt. I did not dream directly of the solution to that problem. Rather, I dreamt that I met Nash and I asked him the problem, and he told me the answer. When I did finally write the paper, I gave him credit. It was not my solution; I could not have done it myself.

Newman’s objective interpretation of the dream gives the solution over to the real Nash; however, a subjective interpretation of the dream would be that the symbol containing the solution was the spontaneous product of his own psyche and not of Nash’s. That it is revealed by the image of Nash suggests Newman projects the creative capacity of his own psyche onto him. This is not surprising as Nash’s mathematical aura at MIT was “head and shoulders above the others” (MacLowry and Samels, 2002) and



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so there would have been a social pressure encouraging such a projection. The true genius resides in the combination of one’s own conscious and unconscious mind. In any event Newman’s creative insight is clearly experienced as coming from a place outside of his own conscious life and the dream follows a lengthy period of pondering the problem. These are the common attributes of the creative process. Sylvia Nasar, who wrote Nash’s biography A Beautiful Mind (1998) records that: Someone who visited [John Nash] in the hospital asked him, how could you, a mathematician, someone who is committed to rationality, how could you believe that aliens from outer space were communicating with you? Nash's response was, these ideas came to me the same way my mathematical ideas did, so I believed them. (MacLowry and Samels, 2002)

A telling remark, indicating that the psychotic delusions encountered by Nash entered his psyche in the same manner as his mathematical ideas. Delusions are well accepted as a fantasy product of the unconscious, thus there is a clear implication that his mathematical insights have a similar origin. Next we look at another well known example, this time of a waking realization, from the great 19th century French mathematician Henri Poincaré and his ‘illumination’ of Fuchsian functions. After weeks of work on the problem, no solution had presented itself. Poincaré left his work and travelled out of the city to a conference in Coutances. For a fortnight I had been attempting to prove that there could not be any function analogous to what I have since called Fuchsian functions. I was at that time very ignorant. ... I left Caen, where I was then living, to take part in a geological conference arranged by the School of Mines. The incidents of the journey made me forget my mathematical work. When we arrive at Coutances, we got into a bus to go for a drive, and, just as I put my foot on the step, the idea came to me, though nothing in my former thoughts seemed to have prepared me for it, that the transformations I had used to define Fuchsian functions were identical with those of nonEuclidean geometry. (Poincaré, 1952, p. 53)

Two other examples Poincaré provides are that during a sleep deprived night “a host of ideas kept surging in my head; I could almost feel them jostling one another, until two of them coalesced, so to speak, to form a stable combination.” And “One day, as I was crossing the street, the solution of the difficulty which had brought me to a standstill came to me all at once.” Each time these occurrences are marked by two factors: the first is that they had occurred after breaking off from a time of intense



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conscious pondering; the second, that the realization was experienced as an illumination, with a deep feeling of conviction. Poincaré himself concludes that the unconscious is the generative factor that accounts for the sudden illumination: One is at once struck by these appearances of sudden illumination, obvious indications of a long course of previous unconscious work. The part played by this unconscious work in mathematical discovery seems to me indisputable, and we will find traces of it in other cases where it is less evident. (Poincaré, 1952 p. 55)

Poincaré is not alone in experiencing a numinous feeling at the moment of realization. Carl Friedrich Gauss, the famous 18th century mathematician, described a similar moment of insight ...after years of failing to solve a problem, Gauss stated that “finally, two days ago, I succeeded, not on account of my painful efforts, but by the grace of God. Like a sudden flash of lightning, the riddle happened to be solved. I myself cannot say what was the conducting thread which connects what I previously knew with what made my success possible.” (Hadamard, 1945, p. 15)

If you recall, the two qualities of symbolic attitude were an emotional attraction and a pregnancy of meaning. ‘Illumination’ satisfies both qualities. It suggests one is gripped by a feeling of certainty, akin to a higher truth. That it is meaningful is self-evident. A last quote is from Dr Tadeus Reichstein, a chemistry Nobel laureate, who describes his own understanding of the way his creative imagination works: The energy that you start to do chemistry, it comes from somewhere, which is not a rational thing, it’s an emotional thing. Your good ideas are not produced by your will. They come to you. You must make yourself ready. ... [W]hen you have a difficulty within yourself, you must have a certain interest. You must get the answer from somewhere, you can’t produce it yourself, you can’t calculate it. The most important part comes from somewhere, afterwards the rest you can work out. (Wagner and Whitney, 1983)

Here again is the experience that consciousness cannot explain the creative moment. For Reichstein, you “must make yourself ready” by maintaining a “certain interest,” then from somewhere the answer comes, but it cannot be calculated by consciousness. The essence of the answer then appears “from somewhere” and then consciousness can return to work and do the rest. This “from somewhere” is the symbolization process!



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Hadamard, a famous mathematician in his own right, was much taken by the creative descriptions of Poincaré; indeed, as he expresses it, “Poincaré’s observations throw a resplendent light on relations between the conscious and the unconscious, between the logical and the fortuitous which lie at the base of the problem” (Hadamard, 1945). After much research he came up with the following four stages to describe the general process, which we will use to give our depth account: 1. Initiation: first one becomes consciously engrossed in the problem, one ponders and cogitates its aspects, considering any known connections to the material. 2. Incubation: here is needed a fallow time, where the problem is put aside and one waits for the unconscious to ‘do its work’. 3. The moment of illumination, accompanied by positive feeling and a sense of certainty. 4. One now sets to work to consciously articulate the illuminated moment. The insights offered in this chapter give substantial explanatory power to provide a depth psychology explanation of this sequence. So here then is a depth psychology account using Hadamard’s four stages to expound the symbolization process at the heart of the creative imagination: During the initiation phase the conscious mind by bringing the problem into focus and actively searching for any conscious connections (through pre-existing ideas, reading relevant papers, and collegial dialogue) would be creating an intensification in consciousness around the problem. Relevant differentiated contents of consciousness, free to be directed at will, are brought to bear upon the problem at hand. Whilst this is done, there is an accompanying mirror process going on unseen in the unconscious. As we have argued all concepts have unconscious roots so through this intensification one would expect an activation in the unconscious to gradually build. Essentially one is artificially instigating a complex into existence around the problem (a feeling toned assemblage of ideas (Jung, 1969)). A tension between ‘the known’ and ‘the yet to be known’ is a key quality to the complex, for throughout its structure the initiating problem to be solved is continually being tested for resolution, but never achieving ‘the yet to be known’ goal. An irritation at the refusal of the problem to resolve builds against the initial excitement in the anticipated resolution. The complex is laden with opposing elements, both conscious and unconscious. After a variable length of time, a moment of resignation arises in consciousness. The opposing elements sit in irresolvable tension, no more conscious progress comes to the inquirer’s mind. Intuitively consciousness realizes it cannot solve the problem from its own one-sided effort. Consciousness gives up and turns its gaze away. The complex now begins its complete descent into the unconscious.



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In the second phase the complex drops beneath the conscious threshold into the unconscious. As we have said, the complex comprises both conscious and unconscious components; to leave the complex aside and allow the problem to lie fallow means the conscious component recedes into the unconscious as well. The complex has been loaded with inner tensions that will be free to express themselves autonomously. Their actual expression is unknowable as the process is forever secreted within the unconscious. After an unpredictable length of time the symbolizing function manifests. A new symbol passes the unconscious threshold and arises in consciousness. The emerging content entering as a flash of illumination means that the content carries quite a high charge of libido and it is this that allows it to irrupt into consciousness and ‘grip’ the ego in fascination. In the illumination stage, the symbolic product is realized by consciousness as being highly meaningful; the ego gripped in fascination is impelled to attend its processing. Poincaré, Gauss, and Hadamard all employ the word illumination, which historically was a word used for the religious moment of a spontaneous spiritual realization. In such a numinous state, one experiences a certainty beyond reason as to the truth or veracity of the revelation. The symbolic process, because it works from a psychic whole where the rational and irrational come together, has a more complete vantage than consciousness. Its product is something that consciousness cannot produce by itself. In the final stage the conscious work of expanding and verifying into consciousness the illuminated content commences. This is the abstraction process that brings the symbolic material into full conscious understanding and use (with an accompanied loss in affect). If it is an image such as Kekule’s uroboros, the structural component needs to be abstracted and the work of configuring the bonding arrangement carried through. In the case of Poincaré, it was a symbolic idea that led to an abstracted proof explicating the intuited identity that non-Euclidean transformations were harmonious with Fuschian functions.

Classroom implications Creativity in education has until recently been the purview of a gifted elite in whom a special aptitude was clearly evident, thus its omission from curriculum. In more recent times however, creativity has become valued as a desirable skill of all in the contemporary workplace, consequently it is increasingly included in education policy and curriculum documents and a wave of research has appeared (for a



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literature review see Craft, 2001). As an example of new policy, the UK National Curriculum document defines creative thinking skills as follows: Creative thinking skills ... enable pupils to generate and extend ideas, to suggest hypotheses, to apply imagination, and to look for alternative innovative outcomes.” (NACCCCE, 1999, p. 29, cited in Craft, 2003)

Much of this rhetoric and research is grounded in performative aspects. ‘High end’ creators demonstrate the following such and such list of skills. The belief is if we teach children these skills by devising strategies to practice them, they too will become creative (for example DeBono’s Six Thinking Hats). We need to move beyond this replication of skills view of creativity if we are to intervene with any precision in the learning process. The implication for education from the account of the creative imagination given in this chapter is that a certain openness and relationship to the symbolizing capacity of the psyche must be nurtured to ensure its flourishing in the classroom and beyond. The symbolization process requires a pedagogy that is respectful of the unknown, the irrational and the unconscious. In contrast a purely sign based, all is known, approach leads to a stultification of the creative imagination. The above skill based models are taught as ‘here is a known skill, practice it and you too can create.’ This will only work by accident, where the creative relationship is still functioning in the child’s psyche. What is really crucial is the teacher’s approach and whether or not they engage in a linear or symbolic interaction with their students (Liu, 2008). By examining the ‘High end’ creative process in the previous section, we have explicated not a list of skills, but a map of how informed conscious intention can invoke the symbolizing process. At the ‘High end’, such creative people are functioning at a great conscious level, i.e. the conscious content at their disposal to be drawn into the creative complex is both extensive and at a very high level of differentiation or generalization3. Does this ‘High end’ process translate into the classroom situation? We know from dream analysis that all people, including young children, are participating daily, all be it unknowingly, in their own internal symbolic process through the natural regulatory practice of the psyche. Accordingly it is argued that the symbolic function also lends



3 Due to the compensatory nature in the dialectical relationship between consciousness and unconsciousness (Neumann, 1970), the higher the conscious content brought into the creative complex, the deeper will be the potential unconscious activation. It is likely this is also connected to the time taken for the process to complete, often from days to months.



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itself to the creative aspects in their learning process - just as we saw in the ‘High end’ creators - but functioning at a lower level of production. Nonetheless in symbolic learning and teaching the same essential process is occurring, but with the following distinction: the teacher is required to mediate the conscious intention in the formation of the creative complex. This means they need to teach in a symbolic as opposed to a linear manner. The problem of linear or transmissive teaching runs deep in our culture and did not come about by accident; rather it reflects a psychological state. In a culture where consciousness and in particular the intellect becomes the centre of life, the autonomous aspects of the psyche become devalued. As the autonomous symbol is a meeting of both conscious and unconscious, to neglect the latter’s role is to identify the ego with the generative power - this is psychologically dangerous. In the extreme it means a disconnection from the creative function and a sclerosis of consciousness, to the point where one is only capable of processing linear, sign-based information. Where a person has lost too much connection with the natural symbolizing process of the unconscious, there is only deadness: dead knowledge, dead facts, meaningless data, disconnected, lifeless details, and dead relationships. (Neumann, 1970, p. 386)

Linear teaching is lifeless teaching. It concerns itself with fully known entities which are emotionally empty. Teaching in this way results in a lifeless relationship between teacher and pupil. To ignite the symbolizing process requires the emotional component. When the emotional component comes in, it arouses a libido-current of interest, and new constellations and new psychic contents start moving again. ... Every new conception and every creative idea comprise elements which up to that point were unconscious, and the inclusion of the emotional components associated with unconscious contents produces an excitation. The connection of the conscious system with the emotionally toned substrata of the unconscious alone makes creativity possible. (Neumann, 1970, p. 387)

Teachers who are passionate and enthusiastic about their subject are loved by their students. They arouse interest and curiosity; they engage. By invoking an emotional response they activate their learner’s unconscious states and invite the symbolic process. We say students pay better attention to enthusiastic teachers, but this is only half an explanation. What they also do is activate the symbolic potential of their students.



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A distinction needs to be made here between entertaining and teaching for symbolic learning. Entertaining teachers, who are humorous and personally engaging, do indeed activate students at the unconscious level. Such teachers are socially engaging and their good pupil rapport may be of great benefit, but this is not going to engender symbolic mediation of the learning content, as the unconscious activity is not relevant to the creative complex. We need to look closer at the teacher’s own state of mind when in the act of teaching to see how symbolic learning can be engendered in the pupil (Liu, 2008). Enthusiastic teachers are not loved because they are entertaining, they are loved because they inspire. And they do this because they charge the air with emotion around the topic because they themselves are in touch with the unconscious roots of their knowledge. This is crucial. The best teachers are themselves generating emotional states within as they teach. They have internalised a symbolic attitude to the knowledge they carry around the topic. They play with the material and they inspire the pupils to do likewise. They know it is rich in connection, but more, it is living and never fully known, it can be played with and it is exciting for them to teach. In Jungian psychotherapy we talk of the analyst mediating the symbolizing process for the client. Often the client is too stuck in a particular conscious attitude to evoke the symbolizing process in themselves. The therapist being in touch with their own unconscious system is able to play with this stuck position in a manner that the client cannot. They then feed these possibilities back to the client. This is similar to the initiating phase of the creative process of Hadamard, where the material needs to be played with, multiple connections found, unconscious roots activated. Then the fallow time – the client returns the next session and quite often has had a dream or realization that shows the path out of the stuck problem. Analogously the teacher mediates the symbolization process of their students as they learn. The teacher gets their pupils thinking and playing with the topic, they become emotionally engaged and full of possibilities for the unknown. In reality the teacher is mediating the formation of the creative complex from which the symbolizing activity will ensue. The teacher already has mastery over the topic being learnt. This means they have attained directedness and awareness over the relevant differentiated contents. Just as the ‘High end’ creator gathers the relevant conscious connections in the complex, the teacher must assist the learners to do likewise. Equally important, the teacher must animate these contents by being in touch with their unconscious roots – thereby charging the contents with their own emotional enthusiasm and curiosity. The



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emotions manifested by effective symbolic teachers are inherently contagious, and naturally mediated to the learners. In this way, the symbolic teacher assists their students to manifest a creative complex around the learning at hand. These complexes will not have the same height or depth evidenced in the symbolic process of the ‘High end’ creator and the four stage process may be very compressed, cycling rapidly numerous times a lesson. Students experiencing such symbolic learning throughout their education will be fully alive to the creative process.

Conclusion Ultimately, including the creative imagination in the classroom challenges us at the core of our culture. The positivism that we are now emerging from cloaked a one-sided scherlosis of consciousness that identified itself with the creative generativity of the symbolizing process. This is shown in our linear teaching and in the superficial attempts to restore the creative in the classroom. The surety felt some hundred years ago during the height of positivism, that the school system should disseminate absolute truth, has receded. The new sciences and post modernity have fractured what was once certain and exposed a relativity. This movement invites new connections. If the intellect can redeem itself through seeking out relationship with its irrational half and founding a pedagogy that respects both, then the symbolic will find new life in our culture, not this time as the creator of consciousness but its partner. This chapter is initial work that anticipates further inquiry. It has proceeded by providing the Jungian view of the symbolizing process in distinction to the more pedagogically influential (via Piaget) account of Freud’s. The Jungian account was legitimated through the evidence of dream symbolization in its regulatory psychic purpose. Symbolization was then demonstrated to be at the heart of the creative product of ‘High end’ mathematicians and scientists. Finally it was argued that as all our learners possess spontaneous symbolization, evident in their dreams, they too enjoy symbolization in the learning process as a compressed version of our ‘High end’ creators. More direct evidence needs to be gathered in the classroom context to this end, and the examination of the symbolization process needs extension across other creative fields of the arts, drama and music. The key implication for the classroom is to foster a symbolic pedagogy that promotes the differentiated contents (so much the central concern of modern education) in partnership with the creative process of



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symbolization. It is both in the height and depths of the psyche that the modern human now stands. Through the mediated symbolic process, teachers must inspire and lead our students to connect with both the reservoir of culture and with the unconscious strata of their own being – the source of psychic health and creativity. This requires curriculum and educators who allow their students ‘down time’ to foster creative moments, who mediate their students’ travel in both directions within the psyche, from the heights of abstraction to the emotional depths of the primordial. And so connect with the heights of our culture and the depths of our whole selves. Here we learn. Here we create.

References Craft, A. (2001). Analysis of research and literature on creativity in education. Prepared for QCA London: QCA —. (2003). The limits to creativity in education: Dilemmas for the educator. British Journal of Educational Studies, Vol. 51, No. 2, pp. 113-127. Freud, S. (1957). Leonardo da Vinci and a memory of his childhood. In: The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, translated by Alan Tyson, edited by James Strachey, Vol. XI. London: Imago Pub. Görlitz, D. & Wohlwill, F. (1987). Curiosity, imagination, and play: on the development of spontaneous cognitive and motivational processes. Hillsdale, England: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hadamard, J. (1954). An essay on the psychology of invention in the mathematical field. New York, NY: Dover Publications, Inc. Harris, P. L. (2000). The work of the imagination. Oxford: Blackwell. Jacobi, M. (2001). Childhood & adolescent Jungian therapy. London: Routledge. Jung, C. G., Franz, M., Henderson, J, Jacobi, J. & Jaffe, A. (1964). Man and his symbols. London: Aldus Books. Jung, C. G. (1969). The structure and dynamics of the psyche. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, (Vol. 8). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. —. (1977). Psychological types. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, (Vol. 6). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. —. (1986). The symbolic life. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, (Vol. 18). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Liu, C. H. (2008). A Vygotskyan educational psychosemiotic perspective of interpsychology in classroom teaching and teacher socialization:



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Theories, instrument, and interpretive analyses, PhD Thesis, University of Adelaide, Adelaide. MacLowry, R. (Producer), Samels, M. (Director) (2002). A Brilliant Madness. The story of the Nobel prize winning mathematician John Nash (motion picture). Washington, DC: PBS Home Programs, PBS Transcripts. Viewed 8th of June, 2009, at

National Advisory Committee On Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE) (1999). All our futures: Creativity, culture and education (London, Department for Education and Employment). Nasar, S. (1998). A beautiful mind: The life of mathematical genius and nobel laureate John Hash. New York, NY: Touchstone. Neumann, E. (1970). The origins and history of consciousness. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press. —. (1974). Art and the creative unconscious. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Piaget, J. (1923). La pensee symbolique et la pensee chezl’enfant. Archives de psychologie, 18, 273-304, Geneva. —. (1924). Judgment and reasoning in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Poincaré, H. (1952). Science and method. New York, NY: Dover Publications, Inc. Quinodoz, J. & Alcorn, D. (2005). Reading Freud: A chronological exploration of Freud's writings. London: Routledge. Szczeklik, A., Lloyd-Jones, A. & Milosz, C. (2005). Catharsis: on the art of medicine. University of Chicago Press. Von Franz, M. L. (1980). Projection and recollection in Jungian Psychology. Peru, Ill.: Open Court Pub. —. (1998). C. G. Jung: His myth in our time. Toronto: Inner city books. Vygotsky, L. S. (1932). Piaget’s theory of child language and thought. viewed 9 June 2009,

—. (1987). Problems of general psychology. The Collected Works of L. S. Vygotksy, Vol. 1:, Rieber, R. W. & Carton, A. S. (eds.), New York and London: Plenum Press. Wagner, G. (Producer), Whitney, M. (Director). (1983). Matter of heart (motion picture). Los Angeles: C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles. Whitmont, E. C. (1978). The symbolic quest. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.



CHAPTER TWELVE TRUTH, BEAUTY AND GOODNESS AS SIGNPOSTS LEADING TOWARDS IMAGINATIVE EDUCATION BRONWEN HARALAMBOUS

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), Jean Gebser (1905-1973) and Ken Wilber (b. 1949) detail their integral philosophies against the backdrop of the expansive canvas of the evolution of consciousness. There is much resonance between their visions; however, Ken Wilber’s integral education theory, inspired by Gebser’s writings on integral consciousness, “is as yet in its infancy” (Gidley, 2007), while Rudolf Steiner’s ‘anthroposophy’ or ‘philosophy of the wisdom of humanity’ provides comprehensive pedagogical guidance. Schools in the Steiner system have nearly a century of experience and experimentation with the cultivation of imagination in education that is worth reappraising. What Wilber cites as the ‘Big Three’ of the perennial philosophy: the Good, the True, and the Beautiful (2000b) are used in the Steiner education tradition as motifs for the three main phases of schooling. A re-exploration of these qualities in the contemporary context illuminates the relationship between imagination and issues as divergent as those associated with the current climate crisis, genetic research, and the values debate in aesthetic and moral education.

Untying the world-knot: moving beyond the paradigm wars Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. —T.S. Eliot, ‘Burnt Norton’, 1935 (in Eliot, 1965, p. 189)

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From Ken Wilber’s point of view the strength of modernity lies in the differentiation of the Big Three of science, art and morals (and the related values of truth, beauty and goodness) that facilitated the beginning of phenomenal scientific discoveries. Unfortunately differentiation was then followed by the disassociation of the Big Three, when the growing hegemony of scientific paradigms entailed a colonizing of other world views. He identifies the main area of deficit in our modern heritage to be the collapse of the ‘Great Nest’ into scientific materialism, into what he calls ‘flatland’ (Wilber, 2000a; 2000b). The resulting separation of science, aesthetics and moral values created the world-knot (Schopenhauer) or mindbody problem (Wilber, 2000b, p. 65) and ushered in paradigmatic controversies in the field of research (Guba & Lincoln, 2008). To untie the knot, Wilber suggests reconstituting the Great Nest, which was described by the perennial philosophers as “a great holarchy of being and knowing” (Wilber, 2000b, p. 19). Offering a four quadrant overview, Wilber recommends undertaking an ‘integral task’ that takes “the positive aspects of both premodernity and modernity, discards the negative influences and coordinates and integrates research findings in all of the levels in all of the quadrants” (pp. 65-67). The table below provides an adaptation of Wilber’s AQAL framework (2000b, p. 67): Upper Left-Hand Quadrant I Intentional (Subjective)

Upper Right-Hand Quadrant IT Behavioural (Objective)

Lower Left-Hand Quadrant WE Cultural (Intersubjective)

Lower Right-Hand Quadrant ITS Social (Interobjective)

Rudolf Steiner approached the world-knot in two different ways. The first task, carried out in his doctoral thesis ‘Truth and Science’ (later published as The Philosophy of Freedom (1964 [1894]), GA41), was to demonstrate that it is possible to solve the mind-body problem philosophically on a rational-cognitive level. The second approach was an attempt to bring the fields of the ‘Big Three’ (Baldwin, cited by Wilber, 1

Steiner’s publications are identified by their numbered place in the standard edition of his Collected Works (GA, for Gesamtausgabe).

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2000b, p.78) back into association with each other by using a Goethean styled ‘scientific’ phenomenology to explore the perceptible world as well as the spheres of aesthetics and morals. Whereas empirical science makes use of the disciplined and methodical observation of the senses and their technological extensions, Steiner advocated a similar disciplined and methodical use of the senses and their natural extensions – the capacities of Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition. Using Wilber’s four quadrant lens, we might interpret Steiner as endeavoring to carry the scientific method of the first quadrant (the upper right, objective physical world) into the other quadrants (the subjective, inter-subjective and inter-objective worlds), and to apply what Wilber describes as vision-logic, the use of both a cognitive logical thinking style as well as an imaginative, visionary thinking style in all of the quadrants. Wilber does not use his quadrant system in quite the same way; rather he recommends a post-operative solution, the integration of the products of knowledge, the research findings from the different spheres. He suggests that the Great Nest should be post-modernized by finding correlations in the aesthetic and moral spheres that resonate with more recent scientific discoveries (Wilber, 2000b, p.144). As Wilber recognizes that such a reconstruction involves re-aligning the Great Nest with the ‘Western God of Evolution’, he recommends “plugging it into” an evolutionary and developmental view (p.145). Steiner set himself a similar integral task. He greatly admired and closely followed the evolutionary theories of his time, borrowing many of their ideas for his ‘spiritual’ science. From his point of view the evolutionists did not go far enough; they did not use evolutionary theory to revolutionize religious dogma. Instead of extending their scientific enquiry into the religious realm of the spirit, the two fields were kept apart and in contention with each other. He was disparaging of the biological bias of the evolutionists and drew attention to the inconsistency inherent in seeing natural development coming to an end with the ape and at the same time granting to humanity a ‘supernatural’ origin. In The Philosophy of Freedom (GA 4) Steiner suggests instead that a consistent search for humanity’s ancestors from the perspective of evolutionary theory is bound ‘to seek spirit in nature’. A postmodern repair operation on the Great Nest from a Steiner perspective involves more than re-construction, it entails as well a continual process of constructive and integral inquiry that is dependent on the use of a lens that is scientific as well as spiritual (but dogma-free). Although Wilber draws extensively on Gebser’s integral philosophy (Gidley, 2007), Gebser (1985) is likely to have been critical of the

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summative element that is embedded in the AQAL framework. While he worked diligently to substantiate his work within the context of the evolution of the history of ideas, Gebser emphasized that integral consciousness is qualitatively different from rational consciousness. Following the same argument, Gebser would have discredited Steiner’s attempt to provide philosophical justification for the mind-body problem. His response to the epistemological and ontological wrangles is to identify their link to the mental-rational level of consciousness and to reflect that they are therefore outdated. He suggests that to move towards the new consciousness, ‘three-dimensional mentality needs to mutate into fourdimensional integrality of the whole’; the traditional ‘philosopheme’ needs to become an ‘eteologeme’ (pp. 309, 409): Eteology must replace philosophy just as philosophy once replaced the 2 myths. In the eteologemes the eteon or being-in-truth comes to veracity or statement of truth, and this “wares” or guards verity and conveys the “verition” which arises from the a-waring and imparting of truth. (p. 309)

Knowing truth The stage of consciousness beyond the mental-rational (flatland) level is described by Wilber as that of vision-logic. When we grow the cognitive capacity that is imaginative and visionary in nature alongside our abstract, theoretical and logical cognitive skills, our thinking is able to become more fluid, resilient and lively (or from a Steiner perspective, ‘life-filled’). This enhanced cognitive capacity enables us to approach truth in a more dynamic way; we are more able to think in a multi-perspectival manner because the characteristic fluidity and resilience of vision-logic facilitates a quick flow of images and ‘thought forms’. There are elements of similarity between Wilber’s depiction of the level of vision-logic and Steiner’s description of the stage of development of consciousness soul (Gidley, 2007). Steiner observes that consciousness soul carries within it, in embryonic form, the capacities of Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition as seed qualities for further stages of consciousness (GA 115). These capacities resonate in a remarkable way with the ‘great modes of experience’ (Baldwin, cited by Wilber, p.78) of the ‘Big Three of Science, Aesthetics, and Moral Values.’ In the same manner in which Wilber assigns Truth to the right hand quadrants (UR & 2

Gebser provides the following footnote: The Greek word eteos means “true, real”; as an adverb, eteon means “in accord with truth, truly, really” and comes from the root se:es, meaning “to be” (p.312).

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LR) of the physical world of ‘objective’ truth, Steiner places Truth in the physical realm (GA 220). However he draws attention to a further correspondence between Truth and Imagination – a surprising identification that warrants further exploration. As Egan (this volume) observes, historically romanticism has been set in opposition to rationality. In Steiner’s view Imagination needs to be reconnected with Rationality; he would therefore place it in the right hand quadrant alongside Truth and Science, and not in the Upper Left Quadrant where it would usually be assumed to belong by virtue of its relationship to our inner subjective world. Steiner uses the capital ‘I’ to emphasize the difference between the fantasy element of imagination, as it is commonly understood, and his use of Imagination to refer to an advanced form of perception, one that is able to provide reliable knowledge of the external world (and in so doing also to bridge the epistemological problem of the subject-object divide3). The images that arise when using Goethe’s phenomenology of exact sensorial imagination (1824, HA 13.42, cited by Naydler, 1996; Bortoft, 1996; Hoffman, 1998) are not unique to a particular individual’s experience, nor are they ‘just images’; they are claimed to be ‘truthful images’ or blueprints that provide qualitative information about the archetypal level of causality in the natural world (Childs, 1999). In Steiner’s view Imagination is more than the capacity to “think of things as other than they are” (Egan, 2009); it is the ability to understand the essential nature of things as they are: to be able to apprehend the underlying reality of the world. Steiner was adamant that the ‘underlying reality’ was not a parallel metaphysical world. He criticizes Hegel for making this error of ‘onesided idealism’; instead of penetrating through the world of ideas to the spiritual world, idealism identifies the spiritual world with the world of ideas itself. As a result, the idealist is compelled to remain fixed with a world-outlook in the circle of activity of the Ego, as if bewitched (Steiner, GA 4, p.17; Haralambous, 2006). Steiner’s search for ‘spirit in Nature’ was based on the assumption that the physical-material world is impregnated with spirit. A feeling for truth, seen from this perspective, is connected with our consciousness of our physical body and involves refreshing our understanding that our bodies were originally “built up in pre-earthly existence in a world of pure Spirit” (Steiner, GA 220). While contemporary empirical science researchers explore the physical material world in search of clues that trace our far-distant origins, many continue to 3 Steiner, like Gebser (see quotation below), assumes a stage of development beyond ego interference.

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use a reductive framework based on assumptions that deny the spiritual origin of the universe; they sometimes seem to delight in proving the material aspects of existence to support Newton’s conception of a ‘TickTock’ universe (Brooks, 2009), despite the challenges presented to these foundational scientific views by recent research findings in the area of quantum physics. Paradoxically, a parallel meta-technical universe (in contrast to a metaphysical one) is currently in the process of being created. Brooks, the professor of robotics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proudly claims that “I am a machine. So are you” (2009, p.38). He argues that if (acknowledging that it is a big if) “we learn the rules governing our brains, then in principle there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to replicate those rules in, say, silicon and steel” (ibid). To support his argument he observes that we are already merging with machines by having titanium and steel implants: “We are more likely to see a merger of ourselves and robots before we see a superhuman intelligence” (p.44). Gebser’s characterization of integral consciousness updates Steiner’s descriptions and is considerably more detailed than that provided by Wilber4. In The Ever-Present Origin (1985), Gebser emphasizes the ‘new’ aspects of the most recently evolving form (or ‘mutation’) of consciousness: the new reality is one that functions and is effectual integrally, “one where origin, by virtue of ‘presentiation,’ blossoms forth anew” (1985, p.7). Scharmer adopts a variation of Gebser’s term to describe seeing from the Source of creativity: “presencing, the blending of sensing and presence, means to connect with the Source of the highest future possibility and to bring it into the now” (Scharmer, 2009, p.163). Emphasizing the revolutionary nature of the newly arising temporics, Gebser adds a further aperspectival quality to Wilber’s multiperspectival attribute of vision-logic. In the same way that the introduction of the principles of perspective by Renaissance artists revolutionized our conception of space (and therefore of landscape – and of flatland), the aperspectival nature of integral consciousness is pregnant with transformative potential in relation to our awareness of time. We are fashioned not only by the formative influence exerted on us by the events of today and yesterday, but by those of tomorrow as well; in this sense the past and the present already contain the future (Gebser, 1985, pp. 6-7). Gebser would agree with the Queen in Alice’s Wonderland that “it is a 4

As Gidley (2007) observes, Wilber has borrowed extensively from Gebser’s writings, which is problematic in that his interpretation of Gebser is better known than the original work and mostly sourced from a minor article (p. 12, Integral Review 5).

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poor sort of memory that only works backwards” (cited by Buley, this volume). The future as it emerges influences us by drawing us towards the unfolding of our visions: “presencing is a movement where we approach our self from the emerging future” (Scharmer, 2009, p. 163). The new spiritual attitude rests on two guiding principles, latency and transparency. There is a need “to render transparent everything latent ‘behind’ and ‘before’ the world” including the origins and history of humanity, as well as the present that is pregnant with the future. The new integral reality requires a new “a-waring” and an “up-setting or displacing, a de-rigidifying and de-posing” of old thought forms and systems. Scharmer identifies three gestures that describe the process of becoming aware: suspension, redirection, and letting-go (2009, p.35). Similarly, Gebser stresses the significance of releasing the old thought forms which are then replaced by the creation of a new form of statement (p. 306) which must be one of integration (p. 309). As noted above, there is a need to discard phenomenological, ontological and existential philosophemes. The eteologeme is the form of statement of Truth most appropriate for integral consciousness: Every eteologeme is a “verition,” and as such is valid only when it allows origin to become transparent in the present. To do this it must be formulated in such a way as to be free of ego, and this means not just free of subject but also free of object; only then does it sustain the verity of the whole. This has nothing to do with representation; only in philosophical thought can the world be represented; for the integral perception of truth, the world is pure statement, and thus “verition” (p.309).

Knowing beauty In relation to Beauty, Steiner observes that there is a significant difference between merely gazing at beauty and experiencing it. The latter involves an inner quickening at the place of interface between body, soul and spirit – at the point of intersection where the physical body, the emotions, and the individualizing of the life principle interact or flow into each other. In the same way in which Truth is active in our physical body, Beauty is active in our ‘life body,’ which Steiner calls the ‘ether body.’ Laszlo (2004, 2007) has recently re-introduced the ancient concept of Akasha, a Sanskrit word (ãǜkãǜsha) meaning “ether” or all-pervasive space. Akasha is understood to be the womb or the original field from which the entire sense perceptible world has emerged and into which everything will ultimately dissolve. A significant characteristic of the etheric nature of the world is its capacity to hold the imprint of all that happens throughout the

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evolution of the universe; this esoteric or occult script is known as the Akashic Record or Akashic Chronicle (Laszlo, 2004; 2007). Wilber uses the Greek Pythagorean form of the word “Kosmos” to emphasize the differentiation between the cosmos of matter and the Kosmos that is more than the sum of its parts, more than the Whole of Life. Kosmos depicts the “living Totality of matter, body, mind, Soul, and Spirit” which includes the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual realms (2000a, p.xi). Steiner’s observation that when one thinks the truth, one is in harmony with the feeling of connection between one’s physical body and pre-earthly existence, becomes accessible in a new way when seen in the light of Wilber’s Kosmos and Gebser’s temporics: In pre-earthly existence a delicate spiritual woof is spun, and this is concentrated into an after-copy – the physical body …To glow in response to beauty means that in one’s soul one creates in a picture… a new link with pre-earthly existence (Steiner, GA 220).

Both Wilber and Steiner place Beauty in the second quadrant (UL) of subjective truth and the aesthetic stream, but Steiner makes a further differentiation, associating Beauty with Inspiration in particular. In a sense we both inspire (inhale) and are inspired by beauty; the Latin origin inspirare means ‘breathe or blow into’5. Synonyms include arouse, awaken, kindle; the meaning of the word is explained as ‘fill with the urge or ability to do or feel something’.6 Whereas Imagination can be understood to be a cognitive head activity, Inspiration is related to the sphere of the heart which is the place of ‘interface’ or inner awakening where our emotions are quickened by being filled with life (or etheric forces) when we experience beauty (Steiner, GA 220). In a similar way, Wilber identifies the soul as a space of ‘intersection’ that is infinite, “where the mysteries of eternity breathe life into mortal time… [a] secret quiet intersection of time and the very timeless” (2000b, p. 106). His description of soul experience resonates with Steiner’s use of the word Inspiration. He notes that the deeper we move inwardly, the wider the terrain we cover in our understanding of the external world: “the within takes you beyond” (2000b, p. 106). When one listens quietly one can hear in the infinite Silence the “feather-soft voice” of the soul whispering of infinite love, and of a life time forgot. Recent neuroscience research findings further assist our understanding of the new stage of consciousness in terms of heart intelligence. Chiltern 5 6

Shorter Oxford English Dictionary Readers Digest Word Power Dictionary

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Pearce draws on the six decades of research work undertaken by Paul MacLean and current research at the HeartMath Institute (2002, pp. 2339). He suggests that of the different neural structures or brains within us, the most recently developed brain resides not in our head but in our heart. Chiltern Pearce describes the way in which our heart maintains an ‘intricate dialogue’ with our brain, body and the world at large. The heart selects information relevant to a particular experience from the “hierarchy of em fields” and is then able to translate an individual response back into the fields in a way that resonates with the reality of our experience. The dynamic feedback system in turn influences and modifies the “very fields of energy from which we spring” (2002, p. 60). There is a high degree of consonance between the neuroscience research findings which describe the energy fields surrounding the heart torus and the ‘spiritual’ physiology and psychology that Steiner developed to support his philosophy of perception and cognition, including imaginative cognition (Steiner, GA 115; GA 128). Steiner’s response to the black box model of the brain (Cotterill, 1998, pp.21, 334) and the question of the ghost in the machine (Ryle, 1949; Koestler, 1967) is to observe that the brain does not think in isolation but that a reciprocal exchange takes place between the brain (supported by the nervous system) and the life-filled (etheric) currents in the blood, which allows for a mirroring of content to occur (Steiner, GA 129). He comments that the physical brain acting on its own would be useless at providing knowledge of the world as it would only be capable of reflecting bodily needs. Currents of a fine etheric substance stream from the heart through the brain and “continuously lave the pineal gland, which becomes luminous” (ibid, p.143). Here the flowing movements in the physical brain-organ are entrained and brought into harmony with the etheric currents emanating from the heart, which enables the “impress” of “something of the outside world, something that is not ourselves” to take place: “Thus by way of the pineal gland our etherized blood reacts upon the brain” (ibid). Recent findings in neural research differentiate between ‘brain-bound’ thinking that is involved with the processing of perceptions of the physical world around us and ‘sense-free’ thinking that is not (Klocek, 1998). To be able to think through the process of a geometrical theorem, the mind has to entrain the Idea; it must cause the neural fields around the brain to harmonize with the movement of the theorem (Klocek, 1998, pp. 86-87). Klocek’s observations, and the research findings which map the rhythmic movements of the em fields of the heart, call to mind the correspondence between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West (1926; cited by Noel Gough, this volume). As a consummate artiste of writing Virginia Woolf

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was accomplished in tracing the delicate dialogue, the rhythmic dance of the call and the response between her mind and her experience within the world: “a sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it” (cited by Gough, my use of italics). Here as well the research findings of the scientist and the artist reinforce each other; whether working from the perspective of fact or fiction (Gough, this volume), ultimately both are oriented towards tapping into the mysterious source – the ‘ever-present origin’ (Gebser, 1985) – of our creative experience.

Knowing goodness Carl Rogers (1961; 1995) highlighted empathy as the ability to sense a client’s thoughts and feelings in an experiential way. Steiner’s definition of goodness resonates with this view of empathy. A good person is able “to carry their soul over into the soul of another… (to) be moved to real sympathy at the sight of care on the face of another” and to feel “pain at the sight of suffering in others” (Steiner, 1923, GA 220). Goodness therefore relates to our emotional well-being and our sensitivity towards the thoughts and feelings of others. It belongs in the sphere of the psyche or soul. Steiner’s ethical philosophy presupposes a capacity for moral imagination or Intuition. For this reason aesthetic education necessarily underpins the development of moral values. A person with a rich inner life is able to individualize a universal concept and in this way make it their own; they are less likely to act out of unconscious ‘old ideas’. Steiner argues against a moral code that is based on authority where an individual is ‘merely an agent’ or a ‘higher kind of automaton’. In contrast, he suggests that when an individual is moved to act on a moral principle that lives intuitively within that individual, then the principle is ‘united with love’ for the accomplishment of the deed (Steiner, 1894; 1964, GA 4). In seeing the human organism as the foundation of ego consciousness and the source of will activity, Steiner stresses the developmental nature of moral growth. The adult individuation process follows a double movement: elements of ego consciousness which Steiner calls motives work their way downwards through feelings and related perceptions towards the less conscious physical-will elements, enabling us to become more enlightened in relation to our actions and more conscious of our impulses which otherwise would stay blind and asleep in us. In a similar way, the surging of these living but unconscious will streams, which Steiner refers to as driving forces permeate our organism in an upward

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direction, activating and enlivening our heart capacities and thinking processes. The final stage of both the motives and the driving forces is ‘individualized’ intuition, achieved through the gradual integration of thinking, feeling and willing (intentional actions). The heart is the harmonizing centre, the midpoint or fulcrum that balances and integrates the ascending forces of the will with the descending streams of consciousness; in this way the soul mediates and facilitates the expression of the human spirit of freedom (Steiner, GA 4; Haralambous, 2006). Wilber (2000b) observes that “awareness in and of itself is curative” and that the therapeutic schools all “allow consciousness to encounter (or reencounter) facets of experience that were previously alienated, malformed, distorted, or ignored”. He explains that the process is curative because the fuller experience of these aspects of consciousness allows the individual to “see them as an object, and thus differentiate from them, deembed from them, transcend them – and then integrate them into a more encompassing, compassionate embrace” (Wilber, 2000b, p.99). By facilitating an increased level of caring for one’s many inner aspects or ‘selves’, the individuation process brings the whole self into greater harmony with other ‘external’ selves and with the world. It is a journey that takes the self away from the general, the ‘blind urges’ that are equally valid in all people, to what is individual – the way in which the universal world of ideas lights up within the Self (Steiner, GA 4). To find one’s Self is to become engaged in a process of bringing oneself into alignment with the ‘universality of the idea-world’ so that one can express oneself through the soul of the world. Wilber (2000) observes that as the self moves from the egocentricmagic to the sociocentric-mythic stage, “the heart of the all-encompassing Self is increasingly intuited” until finally the post-conventional, worldcentric Self emerges (p. 105). This is the stage of the mature ego where consciousness breaks free of its parochial ties and explores the shared experience of humanity on a global level; the guiding values are compassion, justice, impartiality and fairness for everyone (Wilber, 2000). The future capacity of expanded awareness towards which we are moving in relation to goodness can be understood to be that of Intuition: the ability to be conscious enough and sufficiently able and skilled, to freely choose to do a ‘good deed’, out of love for the action, the other person, global humanity, and Goodness itself.

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Educational implications We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. — T.S. Eliot, ‘Little Gidding’, 1942 (in Eliot, 1963, p. 214)

Apart from Steiner’s pedagogy, which stands as a tested method of imagination in education (Nielsen, 2004; Gidley, 2007), the educational implications and relevant indications of the new consciousness are underdeveloped. In Steiner’s view we move towards consciousness soul by growing through a recapitulation of the previous stages (Childs, 1999; Mazzone, 1999). His developmental overview of the phases of childhood demonstrates the way in which children relive the stages of consciousness of the great epochs as they grow from early childhood, through the middle schooling years and into adolescence (Childs, 1999, pp.105-120). From this point of view we realize that we have a more recent memory of our earliest ancestors in our own growth pathway; we can access their experience more easily because we have passed through a similar stage of consciousness in early childhood. Wilber, using Gebser’s terms (Gidley, 2007), also recognizes that children pass through archaic, magical and mythical phases (Wilber, 2000b, p. 141); however, he sees these stages mainly through the ‘cognitive’ lens of Piaget and tends to undervalue the earlier phases. By contrast, Steiner highly values the picture consciousness of children, for the fluidity of their thinking style and the way in which they are able to see and think in moving images. The Steiner curriculum is designed therefore to nurture not only the cognitive development of children but their imaginative capacities as well. This style of education supports the development of vision-logic in adults, as it is less challenging, in Steiner’s view, to further grow the mature aspects of the imaginative capacity if they have been nurtured at the appropriate stage of childhood (Childs, 1999; Mazzone, 1999). Steiner applies the three qualities of truth, beauty and goodness as leading motifs in the unfolding stages of childhood and adolescence. The motif for early childhood is goodness. Small children are very active, and in their play they often enjoy imitating the activities of adults. However children also imitate the inner qualities of the adults who care for them, and they unconsciously assimilate the moral values of their teachers and parents; they are nourished by ‘authentic’ environments where ‘goodness’ is consciously cultivated. Joseph Chiltern Pearce emphasizes the importance

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of not shaming children: “A human nurtured instead of shamed, and loved instead of driven by fear develops a different brain and therefore a different mind – he will not act against the well-being of another, nor against his larger body, the living earth” (2002, p.261). Beauty is the motif for middle childhood; during this stage children live in the realm of inspiration. Here Steiner’s indications match those of other imaginative educators (including some in this volume). However, a ‘soul-spiritual’ perspective informs Steiner’s educational psychology and physiology, which in turn shapes the curriculum. The third motif of truth is applicable in the high school. Students are now ready to engage in rigorous intellectual thinking. The imaginative approach is sustained but now comes into its own as a valid and ‘truthful’ pathway for the exploration of the cognitive realm alongside the thorough development of analytical and logical thinking. Signs of the new stage of consciousness at work are increasingly evident in the area of adult education, where recognition of development stages beyond that of Piaget’s formal operations has greatly influenced the field. Knowles’s foundational theory of andragogy (1998) continues to have a formative influence on the development of concepts of lifelong learning and the learning organization (Sutherland & Crowther, 2006). An appreciation of the relationship between individual skills training, the transfer of knowledge, inner attitudinal and motivational factors, and institutional culture has facilitated the creation of an organizational change industry (Scharmer, 2009; Senge, 1990, 2004). There is an expanding realization of the relationship between the nurturing of our inner soul landscape and our role as caretakers of the earth’s environment (Slaughter, 2004). Other authors in this volume make reference to the link between imagination and social ecology (Wright; Judson). Clearly a new style of education is needed to school the emergent capacities of integral consciousness. While Wilber highlights the significance of the individuation journey of psycho-spiritual growth that requires nurturing and guidance in adulthood, Steiner emphasizes the need for adults to educate the capacities of Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition through aesthetic training in the arts, music and dance. The pathway towards imaginative education necessarily requires teacher education courses to include aesthetic education units. The aspiration to educate with the growth of heart intelligence in mind leads to a deepened understanding of the significance of the relationship between the arts and moral values and of the close kinship and role of the three virtues of Beauty, Truth and Goodness.

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Further implications in the field of research There is a significant difference between a theory of cultural recapitulation (Egan, this volume) and one of evolution of consciousness (Steiner, GA 13; Wilber, 2000a, b; Gebser, 1985). Whereas recapitulation implies repetition and reiteration of what has gone before, which is part of the evolutionary process (as noted above), evolution signifies further development and metamorphosis, an advancement on earlier stages. Each mutation of consciousness (Gebser, 1985) or evolutionary epoch (Steiner, GA 176) sets humanity new challenges and tasks (Childs, 1999, p. 107). MacLean (cited by Chiltern Pearce, 2002) in his longitudinal study of neurological development documents the remarkable resonance between the three major periods identified by evolutionary theorists (the reptilian, old mammalian and new mammalian) and the three basic neural systems in the structure of the human brain: “each of our neural systems carries within it the blueprint of potential intelligences, abilities, and capacities developed during each of these evolutionary periods” (cited by Chiltern Pearce, 2002, p. 23). The research findings suggest that each new neural system is an enlarged and more efficient version of the previous one that offers expanded possibilities (ibid). It seems Nature is able to advance in leaps – the new stage metamorphoses out of the old into a form that is different from and more advanced than the original. As the sun’s light attracts the upward growth of the plant, so the new stage calls the earlier one into the next stage of transformation. In the same way that the theory of hierophany suggests that a ‘forward’ memory is at work (Buley, this volume), Scharmer’s Theory U describes the formative influence that the future as it emerges exerts on our lives (Gebser, 1985; Scharmer, 2009). Chiltern Pearce (2002) emphasizes the transcendent potential of the biological evolution of the different parts of the brain: “When the higher incorporates the lower into its service, the nature of the lower is transformed into that of the higher” (Meister Eckhart; cited by Chiltern Pearce, p.21). However the possibility remains for the older version to bypass the more progressive system. Chiltern Pearce explains that when the three systems are integrated, they offer us an open-ended opportunity to reach beyond our limitations; however, when the “integration fails, our mind is a house divided against itself, our behaviour a paradoxical civil war – and we become our own worst enemy” (p.23). In an integral Kosmos, choice at the individual level cannot be separated out from decision making in the global sphere. Gebser (1985) observes that “ultimately whatever happens on the earth and in our

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universe is a question of shared responsibility” (p.541). While the three integral philosophers all outline the transcendent potential of the new stage of consciousness, they also warn of the dire and destructive consequences awaiting the fate of humanity if the call of the ‘ever-present origin,’ ‘consciousness soul’ or ‘vision logic’ goes unheeded. In mapping the levels of reality aligned with the Big Three, Wilber (2000b, p.73) collapses the four AQAL quadrants into the three respective spheres of the True (Objective Truth), the Beautiful (Subjective Truth), and the Good (Intersubjective Truth). Unfortunately his system significantly omits the field of ‘Interobjective Truth’ which corresponds with the social realm (in the AQAL diagram). This conflation leaves the field of the Good, that comes to expression in the cultural sphere, disconnected from the social realm – a breakdown that is mirrored in a metaphorical black hole, a vacuous values vacuum that plagues areas of scientific research. The sphere of the sciences should encompass not only the field of Objective Truth but that of Interobjective Truth as well, and employ in its methodology capacities that draw on both logic and vision. In particular the human and life sciences need to be re-sanctified through scientific research that includes the use of a soul-spiritual lens. Wilber’s omission highlights the kind of problem typified by the current lack of reliable ethical guidelines in the field of genetic engineering. This example is particularly pertinent as the occult7 nature of the research is transgressing the subjective-objective divide: the sacred aspect of our inner ‘subjective’ human experience is currently under threat of being ‘objectified’ to an extreme and potentially dangerous degree through technological manipulation which falls outside the limits of ‘the Good’ or agreed moral principles of practice. Gebser warns of the perils of kowtowing to the destructive and deficient authority of a defunct stage of consciousness; he describes our continued indulgence in assigning meaning and validity exclusively to rationality, as a “mis-measurement” and a “hubris” (1985, p. 536). Towards the end of his life, having survived the horrors of the two World Wars, Gebser wrote of the dangers of selfdestruction in the field of biological research: The exclusion of the spiritual dimension from the inquiry into life processes will lead biology to the atomization of humanity – the robot-like propagation of artificial insemination as a mechanical exaggeration of vitalism is a good example of this.… If the efforts of “molecular biology” 7

Occult is defined as “imperceptible by the senses” and “secret; communicated only to the initiated” (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1973). Genetic engineering is “occult” in both these uses of the word.

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are successful, and applicable to “controlled” genetic processes… humanity will be endangered in such a way that the inconceivable and catastrophic consequences of unleashed nuclear power – and it is horrible just to mention this – would appear almost harmless by comparison (1985, p. 536).

This warning sounds a strong and salutary reminder that we have little time left to wake up; we have wandered long enough in the desert wastes of flatland. There is an ever increasing danger that if we loiter any longer, we will not only be condemned to be hollow men (Eliot, 1963, p. 87), but to become robotic by virtue of our genetically manipulated nature and our highly technologized culture. The values of the perennial philosophy of Truth, Beauty and Goodness stand as enduring signposts, signifying a direction towards imaginative education if we choose to follow the light of their guidance.

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Wagner, J. (1993). Ignorance in educational research: or, how can you not know that? Educational Researcher, 22, 5, 15 -23. Wilber, K. (2000a). A theory of everything. London: Shambala. —. (2000b). Integral psychology: Consciousness, spirit, psychology, therapy. Boston and London: Shambala. —. (2007). The integral vision: a very short introduction to the revolutionary integral approach to life, God, the universe and everything. Boston & London: Shambala.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN IMAGINATIVE ECOLOGICAL EDUCATION GILLIAN JUDSON

Introduction It is rare to experience or encounter something—an object or a process for example—without having some emotional reaction to it. Consider the baby who falls into fits of giggles when he hears a popping sound. Consider your reaction upon seeing or hearing the baby giggling. It is through our emotions that imagination is engaged and the stimuli we perceive through our senses become meaningful and vice versa. While few would dispute the educational value of emotional and imaginative engagement in learning, these topics have historically sat and continue to sit on the margins of educational theory and practice (Egan and Nadaner, 1988). This chapter considers what a neglect of emotion and imagination may mean in the context of Ecological Education and what possibilities may emerge if they move from the margins to the center of educational theory and practice. Greene (1988) suggests that all learning requires the ability to imagine possibilities: “To learn, after all, is to become different, to see more, to gain a new perspective. It is to choose against things as they are” (p. 49). Egan and Nadaner (1988) assert that imagination is “the hard pragmatic center of all effective human thinking” (p. ix). Despite a difference in emphasis, the underlying message remains the same: learning is an imaginative act. Rather than an educational frill or ‘hook’, imagination lies at the heart of learning; it is an educational necessity. Of course, my assertion that imagination is valuable for learning is a truism; few would dispute the positive role imagination can play in education. We do not often discuss in any detail, however, imagination’s role in learning. Egan (1992; this volume) does. He describes how imagination aids in memorization, deepens understanding, contributes to the development of social virtues, stimulates senses of personal and

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intellectual freedom, and facilitates comprehension of objective knowledge and the development of narrative thinking. It can engage students’ emotions, stimulate their interests and propel them into new intellectual terrain. In addition to the many ways in which imagination supports learning in general, its potential for supporting a sense of human connectedness with nature make it particularly significant for Ecological Education. Evernden (1992) argues that considering alternatives to the assumptions and beliefs provided by modern Western culture is an imaginative task. As the capacity to consider the possible, not just the actual, imagination may broaden the scope of what we perceive and how (Hill, Wilson and Watson, 2004; O’Sullivan and Taylor, 2004; Sewall, 1995). Although taking on different names in the literature such as empathy (Egan, 1992; Greene, 1988), inclusion (Buber, 1958) or identification (Fox, 1990; Naess, 1989, 2002), imagination seems to play a crucial role in enabling us to take on alternative perspectives. Imagination opens up a theoretical space in which to broaden notions of self to include interrelationship with the natural world: “The world is not objects out there; in so far as we can know the world it is within us by means of the curiously reciprocal arrangement whereby we also extend ourselves, imaginatively, into it” (Egan, 1992, p. 60). Imagination has at its core, then, a connective or relational quality (see Beckett, this volume, for further discussion of imagination as relational). It is this innately relational, or what Kentel and Karrow (2010) describe as an inherently ‘ecological’ quality, that leads me to investigate how imagination may support a connected sense of the world. General discussions of imagination and, for that matter, ‘relationality’ are not enough. Like thinking in general, imagination is culturally bound; how we think and how we imagine are largely shaped by the cultural contexts in which we live. In support of developing ecological understanding, that awareness of human embeddedness in the natural world, we need to consider how to cultivate what some theorists are calling the ecological imagination (Daloz, 2004; Jardine, 1998; Kentel and Karrow, 2010; Orr, 1994, 2002; O’Sullivan and Taylor, 2004; Worster, 1993). I conceive of imagining ecologically as a way of paying attention to and making sense of the world that is attuned to relationships, connections and context. It involves a flexibility of mind oriented to interdependence and pattern, to the diversity and complexity that characterize natural- and human-world relationships. This type of imaginative process, emerging from place and informed by specific features of the local natural world, can support our understanding of society, culture, reality, and the self in terms of relationship.

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Unfortunately, very little is said explicitly about imagination in Ecological Education literature. Similarly, like most educational contexts, imagination plays a marginal role in the pedagogical practice of Ecological Education. This chapter begins to address this gap as well as the very real possibility that neglect of imagination in Ecological Education may be limiting its effectiveness for developing ecological understanding. I now consider three principles, or requirements, of pedagogy aimed at developing ecological understanding and cultivating ecological imagination: Activeness; Feeling; and Place/Sense of Place.

Imaginative ecological education: A framework Engaging the body: Activeness Activeness, the first principle of Imaginative Ecological Education, addresses what may be described as a neglect of the body in learning. One may, at first, object to this claim given the more frequent hands-on types of activities one typically sees in Ecological Education. However, simply being outside or doing things outside will not necessarily contribute to learning or to students’ sense of connection to nature (Blenkinsop, 2008; Takahashi, 2004). Naess (2002) differentiates between being active and activeness. These are two different kinds of relationship in which one engages with nature. Being active is characterized by movement of the body in activities such as play or sport. It is an externally manifest relationship that has limited impact on our understanding of nature. Activeness, on the other hand, is an internal form of relationship and has the most potential impact on our understanding of nature. “To do a great many things is not enough; what is important is what we do and how it happens. It is those of our actions which affect our whole nature that I call activeness” (Naess, 2002, p. 76). Rather than a form of physical activity, activeness may be better characterized as ‘lingering in silence’ or as ‘pause’ (Naess, 2002, p. 2-3). Our somatic engagement in the world, the attunement of our senses with our surroundings, contributes to activeness. Teachers can include the Activeness principle in their planning by considering the following questions: How does the body participate in this topic? How can we support the child’s sense of embeddedness in the world as part of their learning? Teachers will consider how students can learn by engaging the body’s senses of smell, taste, touch, sight and sound as well as the body’s sense of rhythm and pattern, the musical, and the incongruous. Teachers will encourage students to stop and pause more

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often in learning. By pausing in our encounters with the world and by being deliberate about engaging the body we allow possibilities for ‘moments of surprise discovery’ when the familiar suddenly becomes strange, and when, even for an instant, we feel a different connection with the world (Blenkinsop, 2006, p. 160). We may spark ecological imagination; beginning, perhaps, to understand the limits of what we know about the world, and what we can imagine in terms of possibilities.

Engaging emotion and imagination: Feeling Feeling constitutes the second principle of Imaginative Ecological Education. As Rachel Carson (1965) suggests in her famous essay The Sense of Wonder, what children come to feel about nature may be as important for understanding ecologically as what they know about it. Evoking the sense of wonder in learning, the sense of what is emotionally and imaginatively significant, is a central premise of Imaginative Education, as conceived by Kieran Egan (1997, 2005, this volume)—a theory offering insights into how to engage students’ emotions and imaginations in learning and the culturally-based ‘tools’ for doing so. In order to understand our intellectual development, Egan (1997) argues, we must understand the role played by the ‘cognitive tools’ provided by culture. Cognitive tools are “aids to thinking developed in human cultural history and learned by people today to enlarge [their] powers to think and understand” (Egan, 2005. p. 219). In line with the work of Lev Vygotsky (1962, 1978), Egan suggests that the internalization of different features of one’s cultural environment (especially different aspects of symbolic systems such as language) mediate our understanding of the world. Take, for example, the use of metaphor. This cognitive tool has already helped both you and me to make sense of the notion of the cognitive tool. The notion of ‘tool’ leads us to think, perhaps, of a gardening tool or some other kind of implement that helps us to do something. A gardening tool helps us to garden; a building tool helps us to build. A ‘cognitive tool’, by metaphoric extension, helps us to think. Metaphor is a cognitive tool that, by representing something (a feature of language) as something else (a tool), offers insights and meanings that can deepen understanding. Other cognitive tools include story, mental images, rhyme, rhythm and pattern, extremes of experience and limits of reality, association with the heroic, and narrative structuring (Egan, 2005). Egan (1997, 2005) argues that the kinds of cognitive tools we most readily use depend largely upon the form of language we employ. Born

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with tools associated with the body, and then picking up from our cultural contexts tools associated with oral language, followed by written language and perhaps increasingly theoretical and flexible use of written language, we come to understand, and imagine, the world in different ways. Put another way, the kind of language we employ offers us different sensemaking ‘toolkits’ (Figure 1). Figure 1: The Cognitive Toolkits Romantic understanding extremes & limits of reality association with heroes

Philosophic understanding drive for generality Processes

Ironic understanding limits of theory

abstract binary opposites forming images

sense of wonder humanizing of meaning

coalescence

referencing

sense of mystery

narrative understanding

lure of certainty general schemes & anomalies flexibility of theory

intentionality

joking & humor

Somatic understanding bodily senses

Mythic understanding story

emotional responses & attachments rhythm & musicality gesture & communication

metaphor

reflexivity & identity

particularity radical epistemic doubt

search for authority & truth

Egan (1997) describes five somewhat distinct kinds of understanding, each with its strengths and limitations, that human beings tend to develop as they acquire different forms and associated features of language. All human beings begin without language, developing a Somatic understanding of the world based on the body’s tools. These tools include, for example, the senses, emotions, and the sense of rhythm and pattern. As we acquire an oral language, Mythic understanding develops shaped by, among others, the use of cognitive tools such as the story form, a sense of wonder, metaphor, mental imagery, rhythm and pattern, and abstract binary oppositions. Acquisition of the skills of literacy shapes a Romantic understanding of the world in which one often beings to feel a sense of independence and separateness from a world that appears increasingly complex. To deal with this new sense of reality one often sees imaginative interest in the extremes of experience and limits of reality, association with heroes and a desire to make sense of the world in

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human terms. Romantic understanding may, within an appropriate cultural context, change into Philosophic understanding with increasingly theoretic use of literacy and, possibly, into Ironic understanding, a sophisticated reflexive use of language and literacy. Although one loses, with the development of each new kind of understanding, some of the vividness and richness of previous kinds of understanding, one can minimize these losses. This is the goal of Imaginative Education. Teachers interested in engaging their students’ emotions and imaginations in learning will want to be alert to the nature of each kind of understanding and the cognitive tools that shape it (Egan, 1997, p. 176). The teaching templates accessible through the Imaginative Education Research Group website (www.ierg.net) or in Egan (2005) describe how the cognitive tools shaping different understanding (see Figure 1) can be employed in teaching. My aim is to indicate how Egan’s theory offers a way to bring emotional and imaginative engagement to the fore in Ecological Education. Through Imaginative Education, teachers can nurture the emotional and imaginative core of ecological understanding.

Engaging with context: Place and sense of place The third principle of Imaginative Ecological Education concerns the dual notions of place and sense of place. While these terms are being employed in a diversity of fields, from sociology through to leisure studies, this work considers their ecological importance and defines them in ecological terms. I use place to refer to the local, natural context and sense of place to refer to the interconnected affective and cognitive dimensions that constitute a close personal relationship to place; both feeling close to nature and knowing about the soil underfoot, the flora, fauna, sources of water, and rock structures (Orr, 1992, 2005). These meanings help us to situate ourselves in the world and to feel a sense of belonging. Place is where we encounter the natural world and where personal relationships with nature take hold in students’ hearts and minds. The following section focuses on the imaginative dimensions of sense of place, describing place-making (cognitive) tools that teachers in all contexts may employ to engage their students’ emotions and imaginations in the development of sense of place.

The cognitive tools of place-making Fettes (2007, 2010) associates Egan’s cognitive tools with different imaginative capacities. That is to say, he proposes that different aspects of

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the imagination help us to make sense of or ‘grasp’ different aspects of the world. This discussion of place-making is centrally concerned with how the imagination is involved in ‘grasping’ or making sense of place. I propose three ‘place-making’ tools; three activities that help us to attribute meaning to where we are, and that engage us in our contexts (Judson, in press; Fettes and Judson, in press). Place-making may be said to begin with the baby’s initial sensory explorations of the world (the sense of relation tool), followed by the young child’s emotional connection to ‘binky’ or to some other features of its context (the formation of emotional connections tool), and then the child’s interest in creating forts and hideouts (the creation of special places tool).

The sense of relation: Somatic understanding The body’s first and arguably most important place-making tool may be described as the sense of relation: the innate human desire to form relationships and, in this way, to engage with its surroundings. Buber (1958, 1965) reminds us that human beings are relational animals. Hutchison (1998), Nabhan and Trimble (1994), Orr (1994), and Shepard (1982), among others, draw attention to the inherently ecological dimension of human relationality; human beings have an affinity for nature. This innate sense of ‘biophilia’ as E. O. Wilson (1984) first called it, is demonstrated in children’s fascination with the natural world. Children seem to have an urge to relate to nature and an innate sympathy for natural things. Before children acquire the specific knowledge of nature that underlies ecological understanding of the world as I describe it, it may be biophilia that informs their sense of participation in the world and their desire to encounter nature. They are drawn to, and feel, place with their bodies. When we are first born, then, the contexts we seek to understand— indeed, those we can only comprehend as existing at all—are those within reach of the body’s senses. For a baby making sense of the world somatically, sense of place includes, centrally, an emotional connection to the mother or to other caregivers. As the baby becomes increasing mobile, and begins to employ the tools of oral language, a broader sense of the world develops. Foraying into the world on hands and knees, or on wobbly legs, the young child forms emotional connections to features of its environment—people, processes and objects—that may contribute in symbolic ways to his or her sense of place.

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Formation of emotional connections: Mythic understanding Young children often struggle with a desire to explore the world around them, and a contrary sense of fear or insecurity of actually moving away—both physically and symbolically—from the mother or father figure. The ability to walk and climb makes any part of the physical environment accessible. Paired with increased mobility, employing the tools associated with an oral language greatly expands children’s worlds. Oral language opens up to the child a past and future, and incorporates features outside the child’s immediate context. Of interest for this discussion is the tendency of young children experiencing this wider world to develop strong emotional connections with features of the local context. Children everywhere develop emotional connections with features of the world they encounter on a daily basis. For example, young children often develop powerful bonds with objects such as blankets, teddy bears, articles of clothing, toys, or books. The emotional stability of the young child is often closely tied to this item. (I know many parents—myself included—who would rather lose their wallets than misplace the beloved ‘binky’ or ‘bear bear’!) It is possible that this process of forming emotional connections grows out of, among other things, the body’s sense of relation. The sense of relation may indeed drive us to form emotional attachments to the world around us as we come to understand the world, in part, through these relationships. Children’s emotional attachments may also be understood in terms of grasping situation or place-making. It may be that the objects children form emotional relationships with contribute to their sense of place. For young children the favourite object represents a familiar, constant aspect of a ‘new’ environment. The emotional connection to the object can provide a needed sense of security and belonging. Because the object with which children form emotional attachments is often of their own choosing, it may also offer them a sense of control, an initial experience of a sense of autonomy in the world. In this sense, then, the teddy bear or other object is a central feature of a child’s understanding of place. Winnicott (1971) and Sobel (1996, 1999), two theorists working out of very different traditions and with very different interests, suggest in quite similar terms why this may be true. Winnicott (1971) describes the significance of young children’s emotional attachments to various objects in terms of ‘transitional’ phenomena. The ‘transitional object’ is something that represents, for the child, the space between the body and the external world. The child understands the teddy bear as not fully separate from his own body or, in other words, not completely part of an external reality (Winnicott, 1971).

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It is through emotional attachment to these transitional objects that the child ‘tests’ reality. While ‘object’ language and the underlying assumptions or cultural implications of an ‘object’ theory of reality juxtapose an ecological perspective, Winnicott’s (1971) work offers insights that may support a more ecological understanding of the world. As Barrows (1995) notes, Winnicott’s project describes a relational space between the child and the object. Barrows (1995) suggests that the ‘between’ space linking the child and the world may prove to be the focus of a much more ecological understanding of child development. She considers, for example, how Arne Naess’s (1989, 2002) work on identification focuses on the relational space between the child and the world, and how, by supporting students in identifying with aspects of the natural world (seeing, that is, what is shared in common) emotional connections with these objects may form that influence the child’s developing sense of self. As part of a rationale for Place-Based pedagogy, Sobel (1996, 1999) argues that young children demonstrate a “development tendency toward empathy with the natural world” (p. 12). Sobel draws attention to the child’s tendency to form relationships with features of the lifeworld, and suggests that children feel a sense of empathy because they have not yet developed a sense of the world as ‘other’: Early childhood is characterized by a lack of differentiation between the self and the other. Children feel implicitly drawn to baby animals; a child feels pain when someone else scrapes her knee…we want to cultivate that sense of connectedness so that it can become the emotional foundation for the more abstract ecological concept that everything is connected to everything else. (p. 13)

Sobel (1996, 1999) suggests that a curriculum for young children that affords opportunities for them to encounter the local natural world and develop emotional bonds with nature is necessary for their development of a strong sense of place. If children make sense of place, in part, by coming to feel strongly about certain features of their lifeworld, we would be wise to assist children in forming emotional associations with aspects of the natural world in particular as part of Imaginative Ecological Education. How can teachers engage this place-making tool? In Imaginative Ecological Education teachers can employ this place-making tool by responding to the following questions as part of their planning process: How can students learn about the topic in a way that engages them emotionally and imaginatively with some aspect of the natural world

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around them? How does the topic connect to the local environment? What does it mean here? Teachers can provide students with opportunities to ‘apprentice’ to place—to have time to get to know at a personal level some aspect of the local natural context. By apprenticing to place, students may learn about their relation to the world first hand through ‘uncensored’ sensory experience (Orr, 1994, p. 96). Over weeks, months, or perhaps years at school, students may have the opportunity to learn about, and learn from, some particular aspect of the local community, be it a grove of trees in a local park, a family of squirrels in the backyard or a local waterway. Another idea would be for students to symbolically ‘adopt’ different aspects of the natural world. Students would then be encouraged to not only learn from, and about, this feature of nature, but also to try to care for it. Through opportunities to engage with their senses, to study and observe a local stream, students may strengthen their sense of emotional connection tool in a way that brings the natural world into focus. As children grow, and, in particular, develop a sense of reality and a much broader understanding of world through literacy, their place-making extends in scope.

Creation of special places: Romantic understanding Whether it be tree houses perched precariously amongst the branches of neighbourhood trees, inviting hollows in dense shrubbery, lean-to structures of scrap material in vacant lots, or a sheltered space under the jungle gym at a nearby park, children everywhere love forts. Sobel’s (1993) research suggests just that: building or laying claim to special places—what he refers to in his research as forts, dens and bush houses— is a universal feature of middle childhood. The creation of special places by children of this age may be considered a place-making tool. Creating special places—indeed, symbolically claiming a space for oneself—can support children in situating themselves in the social and natural contexts in which they live. Driven, in part, by the sense of relation we discussed earlier, and an extension perhaps of the young child’s emotional connections to particular features of his or her local environment, creating special places supports children with Romantic understanding in making sense of a broader sense of reality, and their wider physical explorations of it. As Egan (1997) describes, in Romantic understanding children make sense of the world by employing the cognitive tools that accompany written language. The ‘boundaries’ of a broad sense of reality are sought through, for example, identification of the extremes and limits of reality, and association with

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heroic features of reality. Creating or laying claim to special places is another way a child can situate him or herself in the world. A special place such as a fort can provide a child with a sense of security that supports wider explorations of the world (Sobel, 1993). Sobel’s research suggests that special places symbolically protect the child’s developing sense of self, and may assist the child in the transition to adolescence: “Through making their own places, children start to carve out a place for themselves in the world” (Sobel, 1993, p. 47). In addition to helping them situate themselves in the social world, creating special places also assists children in making sense of their natural context. Cobb (1977), Hutchison (1998), and Sobel (1993) are a few theorists who argue that children’s experiences with nature during middle childhood have formative significance for lifelong ecological understanding. Sobel (1993) goes so far as to situate a concern for nature as adults with children’s exploration of nature and creation of special places: “the sense of place is born in children’s special places” (p. 161). Given opportunities to learn about and explore nature, and to create special places in natural contexts, children may not only gain knowledge of the natural context, but develop emotional connections with it that may, in the long run, support more sustainable human action. How might this place-making tool be incorporated into teaching? As part of the planning process Imaginative Ecological Education teachers will consider the following questions: What aspect of the topic might be learned in a way that affords students the opportunity to explore the natural world around them? How might learning about the topic support a sense of belonging in the natural environment? In contexts in which teachers have access to wooded areas, local streams or parks, “exploring clubs” can be incorporated into teaching (Sobel, 1993). Students could be given the task of either building or finding some kind of fort in the areas they explore. They could be given opportunities to use the forts they either make or claim as a group as ‘outposts’ for learning, as a sort of ‘home base’. In urban areas with limited park access, the natural world can still be engaged through, for example, focusing on weather patterns (investigating the sensations of water, wind, sunlight, temperature changes etc.), bringing plants into the classroom, or creating urban gardens. Teachers could create sound, texture, smell and even taste walks in the classroom where students, blindfolded perhaps, engage their senses encountering natural objects from the local context. Students may be encouraged to create special places indoors into which natural features may be included such as plants, rocks, or pieces of wood (Sobel, 1993). Whether in vacant lots or in forests, children create special places as they

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situate themselves in the world. Imaginative ecological educators will aim to bring nature into focus for students so that they may incorporate it into the sense they are making of place. And so, Imaginative Ecological Education rests on a triad: Activeness, Feeling, and Place/Sense of Place. Activeness alerts the teacher to the need to provide students with opportunities to employ the body’s sensemaking tools. It supports Somatic understanding of all topics being learned. Feeling is a reminder that in order for learning to be meaningful, and for our imaginations to be engaged, emotion must be evoked in learning. Cognitive tools alert us to the distinct features of our students’ emotional and imaginative lives and represent practical ways to engage them emotionally and imaginatively in learning. Activeness and Feeling come together in Place/Sense of Place, the principle emphasizing the significance of students’ understanding of and emotional and imaginative connection to the natural context. Fulfilling these principles leads to learning opportunities where the ecological imagination may flourish, where students may begin thinking and feeling possibilities for the world as part of it and where this sense of embeddedness may influence, one hopes, their interactions with the natural world.

Implementation: Planning frameworks for Imaginative Ecological Education This section describes how the principles described above translate into practice. Primary and elementary school teachers may benefit from the Mythic understanding framework in Figure 2 (adapted from Egan, 2005) as it employs the cognitive tools associated with oral language. While the cognitive tools of Mythic understanding continue to shape how students understand the world and should not, thus, be ignored by teachers at the middle and secondary school level, the Romantic understanding framework shown in Figure 3 (likewise adapted from Egan, 2005) will be of most interest to this group of teachers as it employs the cognitive tools associated with written language. Given the scope of this chapter, the examples provided are brief. For fully developed cross-curricular examples of imaginative and ecological units based on these templates see Judson (in press).

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Figure 2: Imaginative Ecological Education – Mythic Understanding 1. Locating importance What is emotionally engaging about this topic? How can it evoke wonder? Why should it matter to us? 2. Thinking about the content in story form How can we shape the content so that it will have some emotional meaning? How can we best bring out that emotional meaning in a way that will engage the imagination? 2.1. Finding binary opposites: What binary concepts best capture the wonder and emotion of the topic? If this were a story, what would the opposing forces be? 2.2. Finding images and drama: What parts of the topic most dramatically embody the binary concepts? What image best captures that content and its dramatic contrast? 2.3. Structuring the body of the lesson or unit: How do we teach the content in a story form? 3. Engaging the body: Activeness How does the body participate in this story? What activities can engage the learner somatically in learning the content of the story? In other words, how can students’ sense of relation be engaged? What other cognitive tools support the child’s sense of embeddedness in the world? 4. Engaging with context: Sense of place How can students learn about the topic in a way that engages them emotionally and imaginatively with some aspect of the natural world around them? How does the topic connect to the local environment? What does it mean here? 5. Conclusion How does the story end? How do we resolve the conflict set up between the binary opposites? How much do we explain to the students about the binary oppositions? How do we give them some sense of the mystery attached to this topic? 6. Evaluation How can one know whether the topic has been understood, its importance grasped, and the content learned?

How might the cognitive tools associated with oral language and shaping, thus, Mythic understanding, be incorporated into a unit on movement? Rather than beginning with and being guided by objectives, an imaginative teacher might begin by identifying the emotional importance of the topic. Next, the topic is shaped in story form around abstract binary oppositions that will initially engage students’ access to the topic; these

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are played out using powerful mental imagery. Wonder, story form, abstract binary oppositions, and mental imagery are all cognitive tools of Mythic understanding that tap into students’ emotional and imaginative lives and that the teacher will aim to employ in teaching. By employing this cognitive tools approach, the Feeling principle can be fulfilled. We could shape our teaching about movement around the notion of predator and prey and, ultimately, survival. As much as children (and adults) often like to move around just for the fun of it, movement is also directly linked to an animal’s survival. This unit could teach in an emotionally powerful way about the survival strategies of animals—how they move to get food, how they hide and, so, avoid being food—and the astonishing range of animal movements. One could have students imagine, during different classes, different regions of the world. So, during one class one might choose to focus on the tropical rainforest, and the kinds of animals found there. The next time one might invite students to come out onto the savannah or the desert. The aim would be to set the stage so that students imagine they are in different habitats and take on the movements of different animals that one might find in these places. Imaginative Ecological Education can also include principles I have called Activeness (Step 3) and Place/Sense of Place (Step 4) that may support the development of ecological understanding and stimulation of the ecological imagination. These steps, added to the templates by Egan (2005), bring into focus the somatic (Activeness) and contextual (Place/Sense of Place) dimensions of learning. So to fulfill the Activeness principle (Step 3) we need to consider how the body’s tools for learning (such as the senses, the sense of rhythm or the sense of humour) may be employed in a way that supports a bodily knowing of the topic. How might we engage the body in learning about movement? Have students move! We need to be thoughtful, however, about the deeper sense of bodily awareness that ‘activeness’ entails, as opposed to simply having students move about. So, we will not only have students move in certain ways, but also support them in trying to think and feel like the animal whose movements they are repeating. For example, to draw awareness to the body students will need to consider, as they leap like a frog, what the other parts of their bodies are doing and how they might be feeling. Are their faces tilted up? Are they looking for flies? Are their tongues darting in and out of their mouths? How does leaping feel in the legs? Students might be asked to make sense of the rhythm of the ‘animove’ they are performing. What is the rhythm of a leap, versus a slither, versus a slide? For whatever animal is being studied, then, the

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teacher can guide students in considering what being that animal might mean at the level of the body. Step 4 involves considering how to employ place-making tools to engage students emotionally and imaginatively with the local natural context. Teaching for Mythic understanding will employ the emotional connections place-making tool. Although in this example we may invite students to imaginatively accompany us in the remote Australian outback or into a tropical rainforest, the study of movement should also be directly connected to students’ local contexts. Teachers should also focus therefore on what creeps, crawls, and slithers in the local community. Students can practice the ‘animoves’ of the creatures that they find in the schoolyard, or in a small patch of garden soil. Students could be asked to select an animal, wild or domesticated, that lives in their local community. All around us there are spiders, snakes, flies, fleas, bees, butterflies, squirrels, raccoons, and rabbits, with which we share the contexts in which we live. Each has its own movements and actions that students may imitate. What local animal do students most identify with? What ‘animove’ are they most comfortable doing and why? Figure 3: Imaginative Ecological Education – Romantic Understanding 1. Identifying “heroic” qualities What heroic human qualities are central to the topic? What emotional images do they evoke? What within the topic can best evoke wonder? 2. Organizing the topic into a narrative structure 2.1. Initial access: What aspect of the topic best embodies the heroic qualities identified as central to the topic? Does this expose some extreme of experience or limit of reality? What image can help capture this aspect? 2.2. Composing the body of the lesson or unit: How do we organize the material into a narrative structure to best illustrate the heroic qualities? 2.3. Humanizing the content: What aspects of the narrative best illustrate the human emotions in it and evoke a sense of wonder? What ideals and/or challenges to tradition or convention are evident in the content? 2.4. Pursuing details: What parts of the topic can students best explore in exhaustive detail? 3. Engaging the body: Activeness How does the body participate in this story? What activities can engage the learner somatically in learning the content of the story? In other words, how can students’ sense of relation be engaged? What cognitive tools support the child’s sense of embeddedness in the world?

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4. Engaging with context: Sense of place What aspect of the topic might be learned in a way that affords students the opportunity to explore the natural world around them? How might learning about the topic support a sense of belonging in the natural environment? 5. Conclusion How can one best bring the topic to satisfactory closure? How can the student feel this satisfaction? How can we evoke a sense of wonder about the topic? 6. Evaluation How can one know that the content has been learned and understood and has engaged and stimulated students' imaginations?

Figure 3 demonstrates how to shape a lesson for middle or secondary school students into narrative form that incorporates a sense of wonder, the heroic qualities of a topic, extremes of experience and limits of reality and detailed investigation. How might these cognitive tools evoke students’ emotions and imaginations in learning about exploration? It is easy enough to sit with our students in centrally heated classrooms, surrounded by the luxuries of modern life, and talk about explorers setting off from Europe to discover North America, in vessels of questionable quality and equipped with meagre rations of food and fresh water. We want our students to marvel at the danger involved in these expeditions. Explorers sailed into uncharted seas and ventured into unknown lands with only rudimentary instruments. The odds were stacked against them. Explorers had only imprecise evidence at best that the places they sought really did exist! What would that be like? To evoke students’ sense of wonder we might provide them with detailed emotional images from specific exploration stories. Imagine, for example, the Endurance, Ernest Shackleton’s ship, sheathed in glittering ice, locked in solid, 80 miles from its intended base. Just how cold was it for these men on windswept Elephant Island? Our teaching will evoke vivid images and bring into focus the heroic qualities of, for example, determination, endurance, and courage that are central to exploration, whether it be present day exploration of the deep seas or the adventures of the 17th century. How can we fulfill the Activeness principle in learning about exploration? We might enlist students as explorers in their own right. We might begin by taking students outside, each sitting at a different place on some grass or dirt. They should close their eyes and try to imagine that they are no longer John, Raj, or Iha, but instead are explorers from a remote galaxy beyond the Milky Way, who have just arrived on what

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looked, from space, to be a big green, blue, and brown ball. They do not know exactly where they are. They do not know what awaits them. They have a few tools with which to make discoveries. They can use their noses to smell, their ears to listen, their tongues to taste. These are the means through which they will explore where they are. Students might roll up their sleeves and pant-legs as they sit or lie in the grass with their eyes closed. They could be listening, smelling, feeling for where they are. They will encounter, perhaps, some sensory surprises in the process that might help them feel, even a little, as a kind of explorer. We might try to create an unusual type of experience for students by altering their senses in certain ways. So, we might tell them that, unfortunately, they do not have a good sense of sight. Indeed, the ‘Noseeum’ species to which they belong must look through a special lens. Students could each be given a magnifying glass and be told that they must keep one eye closed and can only look through the other eye and through the magnifying glass. To make the experience more unusual for the students one could change the way they write so, for example, they may be required to use their right hand to write if they are left-handed or vice versa. We might even tape their index and middle fingers together, as well as their pinky and ring fingers, thereby changing how they experience writing and how their hands actually feel. For older students we will employ the creation of special places tool. How might this tool be engaged in learning about exploration? In addition to the kind of knowledge of place that may emerge from the sensory activities we already discussed in relation to the Activeness principle, we can support students’ place-making by researching the history of the local community. What people were involved in its founding? What are the stories behind the street names? Place names often reflect some historical event, an earlier settler, or a geographical feature of an area. Students can be encouraged to research the history of their places to determine the significance of the names. There could be a ‘Discovery Board’ created in the classroom where students can keep track of the most amazing features they discover about their own contexts. What is the biggest plant they discover in the new land they have arrived in? What is the weirdest shaped bug they discover? What is the loudest natural sound they encounter? What these brief examples have aimed to show is how the templates provided situate students’ emotional and imaginative needs at the core of the planning process. The addition of steps focusing on the body and on emotional engagement with place offers a means for all teachers to make student learning both imaginative and ecological. By beginning with

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consideration of what is wonderful about a topic, through means to engage students’ emotions and imaginations and the body in place, Imaginative Ecological Education offers new possibilities for nurturing relationships with nature and for understanding and imagining the world from an ecological perspective.

Conclusion This chapter invites you to re-imagine Ecological Education. I describe an imaginative approach to Ecological Education that is more suitable for the development of ecological understanding, ecological imagination and sense of place. Imaginative Ecological Education reminds us that in addition to thinking about teaching in terms of what students can learn to support the cognitive dimensions of ecological understanding (for example, photosynthesis or the water cycle, or the greenhouse effect), we need to consider how to fulfill students’ emotional and imaginative needs in learning. This involves thinking about learning in terms of the inherent wonder in the topic, and teaching in ways that support students’ use of the body’s tools for understanding in the unique natural contexts in which they live.

References Barrows, A. (1995). The ecopsychology of child development. In T. Roszak, M. E. Gomes & A. D. Kanner (Eds.), Ecopsychology: Restoring the earth healing the mind (pp. 101-110). San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. Blenkinsop, S. (2006). Seeds of green: My own arctic Copper/Mine. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 11, 157-165. —. (2008). Imaginative ecological education: Six necessary components. In G. Judson (Ed.), Imagination 360˚: Effective learning through the imagination (pp. 139-148). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Buber, M. (1958). I and thou [Ich und du.] (2nd ed.). New York: Scribner. —. (1965). The knowledge of man: Selected essays. New York: Harper Row. Carson, R. (1965). The sense of wonder. New York: Harper & Row. Cobb, E. (1977). The ecology of imagination in childhood. Putnam, CT: Spring Publications.

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Daloz, L. A. (2004). Transformative learning for bioregional citizenship. In E. O'Sullivan, & M. M. Taylor (Eds.), Learning towards an ecological consciousness: Selected transformative practices (pp. 2946). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Egan, K. (1992). Imagination in teaching and learning: The middle school years. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —. (1997). Educated mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —. (2005). An imaginative approach to teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Egan, K., & Nadaner, D. (1988). Imagination and education. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University. Evernden, N. (1992). The social creation of nature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Fettes, M. & Judson, G. (in press). Imagination and the cognitive tools of place-making. Journal of Environmental Education. Fettes, M. (2007). A brief guide to LUCID (Learning for understanding through culturally inclusive imaginative development). Burnaby, B.C.: The Imaginative Education Research Group. Fettes, M. (2010). The TIEs that bind: How imagination grasps the world. In K. Egan, K. Madej (Eds.), Engaging Imaginations and Developing Creativity, pp. . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press. Fox, W. (1990). Toward a transpersonal ecology: Developing new foundations for environmentalism. Boston: Shambhala. Greene, M. (1988). What happened to imagination? In K. Egan, & D. Nadaner (Eds.), Imagination and education (pp. 45-56). New York: Teachers College Press. Hill, S. B., Wilson, S., & Watson, K. (2004). Learning ecology: A new approach to learning and transforming ecological consciousness. In E. O’Sullivan, & M. M. Taylor (Eds.), Learning toward an ecological consciousness: Selected transformative practices (pp. 47-64). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hutchison, D. (1998). Growing up green: Education for ecological renewal. New York: Teachers College Press. Jardine, D. (1998). To dwell with a boundless heart: Essays in curriculum theory, hermeneutics, and the ecological imagination. New York: Peter Lang. Judson, G. (in press). A New Approach to Ecological Education: Engaging students’ imaginations in their world. New York: Peter Lang.

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Kentel, J.A. and Karrow, D.D. (2010). Living (ek)statically: Educatingwithin-place and the ecological imagination. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies 7(2), 6-29. Nabhan, G. P., & Trimble, S. (1994). The geography of childhood: Why children need wild places. Boston: Beacon Press. Naess, A. (2002). Life's philosophy: Reason and feeling in a deeper world. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Naess, A., & Rothenberg, D. (1989). Ecology, community and lifestyle: Outline of an ecosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Orr, D. W. (1992). Ecological literacy: Education and the transition to a postmodern world. Albany: State University of New York Press. —. (1994). Earth in mind: On education, environment, and the human prospect. Washington, DC: Island Press. —. (2002). The nature of design: Ecology, culture, and human intention. New York: Oxford University Press. —. (2005). Place and pedagogy. In M. K. Stone, & Z. Barlow (Eds.), Ecological literacy: Educating our children for a sustainable world (pp. 85-95). San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. O'Sullivan, E., & Taylor, M. M. (2004). Learning toward an ecological consciousness: Selected transformative practices. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Sewall, L. (1995). The skill of ecological perception. In Roszak, T., Gomes, M. E., and Kanner, A. D. (Ed.), Ecopsychology: Restoring the earth, healing the mind (pp. 201-215). San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. Shepard, P. (1982). Nature and madness. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. Sobel, D. (1993). Children's special places: Exploring the role of forts, dens, and bush houses in middle childhood. Tucson, Arizona: Zephyr Press. —. (1996). Beyond ecophobia: Reclaiming the heart in nature education. Great Barrington, MA: The Orion Society and The Myrin Institute. —. (1999). Beyond ecophobia: Reclaiming the heart in nature education. Nature Study, 49(3-4). Retrieved October 27, 2006, from http://arts.envirolink.org/arts_and_education/DavidSobel1.html Takahashi, Y. (2004). Personal and social transformation: A complementary process toward ecological consciousness. In E. O'Sullivan, & M. M. Taylor (Eds.), Learning toward an ecological consciousness: Selected transformative practices (pp. 169-182). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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The Imaginative Education Research Group. (2008). Planning frameworks. Retrieved April 2, 2008, from http://ierg.net/teaching/plan-frameworks/index.html Vygotsky, L. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge: MIT Press. —. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wilson, E. O. (1984). Biophilia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and reality. London: Tavistock Publications. Worster, D. (1993). The wealth of nature: Environmental history and the ecological imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN MOUSE WOMAN AND THE MISCHIEF MAKERS: MEDIA EDUCATION IN A SPIRIT OF IMAGINATION KYM STEWART1

Introduction A powerful storm rolled over the island where my family and I had taken up residence. The cedar trees towering above our cabin thrashed in the wind and I questioned whether one wouldn’t come through the roof at any second. Interestingly, the storm brewing outside mimicked my own internal turmoil and uncertainty. In the morning I would enter a grade 3/4 classroom on the island of Haida Gwaii where I had volunteered to teach an imaginative media education unit focusing on the Aboriginal culture of the land. Although I was quite familiar with imaginative education, I did not feel qualified to develop culturally inclusive material for Haida students, and over the years I had become increasingly wary regarding the validity of accepted media education practices. Before turning in, my daughter, husband and myself gathered in the dimly lit loft for our new night-time ritual of reading from Christie Harris’ (2005)2 collection of beautifully-written stories based on Haida and

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A special thanks to Vonnie Hutchingson, the Haida Education Council, the LUCID teachers, Dr. Mark Fettes, Ms. Laura Holmes-Saltzman and Mr. Steve Bentley for all their support and help along my journey. I would also like to thank the wonderfully curious and energetic grade 3-4 students who made my time in Haida Gwaii so transformative. You will always remain near and dear in my heart, and without you I never would have experienced imaginative education in this way and I never would have heard Mouse Woman’s voice as clearly. 2 In the early 20th century this young woman from British Columbia’s Fraser Valley moved to the territory of the Tsimshian and Nisga’a peoples, across the

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Ts’msyen oral traditions. The sage advice of my favourite animal spirit, Mouse Woman, calmed us all and we retired to the sounds of howling wind and scurrying critters vying for shelter beneath the floorboards. The next morning I awoke to find a tiny note by the door. I quickly scanned it for a signature. “Mouse Woman!” I cried out, my shoulders sagging with relief—for it was known that Mouse Woman was a friend to young people (and struggling graduate students) in distress. Mouse Woman’s big, busy mouse eyes must have spotted my apprehension the night before and being the spirit who seeks balance, she kindly left a clue to guide me through this tumultuous time. Her note included a poem called Jimmy Jet and His TV Set by Shel Silverstein (1974): I’ll tell you the story of Jimmy Jet— And you know what I tell you is true. He loved to watch his TV set Almost as much as you…. (p. 28)

It became instantly clear that this poem and Harris’ stories would become the basis of my four-week media education unit and they would inspire an investigation into the extremes of an unbalanced media world; a world where chaos instigated by mighty tricksters often ensued. However, I had learned from the numerous Mouse Woman stories that this chaos could be curbed with the strength and ingenuity of a little mouse. “Mouse Woman,” I said once again, in an awed whisper, because Mouse Woman was a spirit and I knew I must show my respect, “thank you for the gift.” In return I made sure to leave a wool bracelet, for it was well known that in exchange for such advice wool must be given to this littlest of grandmothers. Her clues had sent me on a new journey, and although I was tentative, I now knew that I had the support and guidance of the wisest Super-Natural-Being on the island. This chapter represents a glimpse into my journey; my adventure to find a new way of bringing media education to the lives and thoughts of young children and their families—an educational adventure which focuses on the role of the imagination in teaching and learning.

 Hecate Strait from Haida Gwaii, and developed a deep interest in the great cultures that had once flourished along the West Coast. Gaining the confidence of Florence Davidson, daughter of the great Haida artist Charles Edenshaw (Tahayghen), Christie was soon entrusted with the historical and mythical stories of Haida Gwaii and, like me, became fascinated with that tiniest of grandmothers, Mouse Woman. In a series of books written in the 1960s and 70s, she shared this rich heritage of wonder and spirit with the world.

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In a time before Mouse Woman Long before Mouse Woman had revealed herself to me, I had become fascinated by the role of media in society. Early in my university studies I read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) and clearly remember experiencing a worldview shift upon coming across this passage: Twenty years ago, the question, Does television shape culture or merely reflect it? held considerable interest for many scholars and social critics. The question has largely disappeared as television has gradually become our culture. (p. 79)

This prophetic statement spurred an awareness of media’s impacts on our lives and soon I found myself drawn to the rich and complex field of media studies. I quickly learned that researchers, educators and theorists have discussed, bantered and argued the ramifications of mass media in our lives for more than 50 years (Himmelweit, 1958; Bandura, 1963; Murray, Rubinstein & Comstock, 1972; Large, 1980; Winn, 1985); and it soon became apparent that I must join the fray. I was given a chance to further engage in this dialogue in 1998 when I became a research assistant at the Media Analysis Laboratory at Simon Fraser University, and was given the task of examining the roles of media in contemporary Canadian families’ lives. In particular I examined the impacts of television and advertising on children’s imaginative play, sedentary lifestyles, and levels of aggression, and the possible role of media education in mitigating these impacts (Kline & Stewart, 2000; Kline, Stewart, & Murphy, 2006). My research with parents revealed that media use in the home was a contentious subject. Parents often experienced a series of emotions when discussing media: guilt for using the TV or videos as a babysitter; concern that they were contributing to their child’s unhealthy lifestyle; and fear that their children could be exposed to inappropriate content. Added to this spectrum of emotions was the stress from a perceived need to provide children with access to the fruits of the burgeoning computer industries so that they might succeed in a technologically-driven world. Researching the struggles and challenges of raising children in a media-saturated world became increasingly meaningful for me because during the last mother-son interview in our toy study, I was two weeks away from giving birth to my daughter: my life was not only changing professionally as I was learning to become a media researcher and

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educator, but also personally as I was about to face the same challenges as the mothers I had been interviewing. As my own child grew and I too became targeted by the media industry as a mother, I sympathized more and more with parents and their struggles and was humbled by the fact that, for the most part, we were left to our own devices to navigate the rapidly-changing and ubiquitous media environment. It seemed reasonable to me that if a media-use support community were to develop, it could likely occur within the school setting. After all, school has long been seen as a socializing institute, as is evident by the increasing number of social programs within it such as health education, sex education and drug education programming (Rohrbach, Grahan, Hansen, 1993; Hoelscher, Mitchell, Dwyer, et al., 2003; Smith, Steckler, McCormick, McLeory, 1995). Media education, long seen as a component of healthy lifestyle choices for children in a media-saturated world, has seemingly been thriving in Canada, particularly in my home province of British Columbia where media education has existed across the curriculum for K to 12 students since the mid-1990s. Sadly however, the deeper I delved into the real state of affairs of media education practices, the more disheartened I became. Although media education has been emphasized in Canadian school curricula since the 1990s, insufficient teacher training plagues its inclusion in classrooms, due to lack of both funding and expertise. Media education professional development, therefore, is often relegated to summer institutes or short-term courses and workshops. This facilitates the development of curricula consisting principally of ‘sound bites’ designed to be easily digested and transmitted, but lacking connection to children’s understanding of the world. As a consequence, media education strategies and lessons may be dismissed as irrelevant by the students, or classroom discussions and activities, which are often driven by extrinsic motivations of grading, may have little impact on personal growth and autonomy in the media-embedded world of the child. My hope of the school providing support for children and parents was fading and I sought a new way to bring media education to families. I am not alone in wanting to see a change in the current trends of teaching media education. Meg Lundstrom (2007) summarized responses from media educators around the US in a paper written for Scholastic Instructor. She cited Cyndy Scheibe, executive director for Project Look Sharp (a media literacy training program at the Center for Teacher Education at Ithaca College in New York State) as saying that we need to begin to see media literacy as a ‘process’ rather than a ‘content area’; “an approach to teaching, a different way of teaching, rather than more ‘stuff’

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to teach” (p. 18). We need to move away from pre-packaged mediaeducation programs, and toward a theory of dynamic practice. This was the task that brought me to Haida Gwaii. I wanted to work towards an integrated, holistic way of thinking and teaching about media’s influence in our lives; though I was quite surprised that it was a little mouse that helped influence this change in my understandings and thoughts of media education. Like many Mouse Woman stories, the story of my journey begins with the words, “Once there was…” ONCE there was a professor at a mid-size university perched upon a mountain top. He was increasingly unhappy about the power of media and marketing in children’s lives and the failure of this ubiquitous socializing institution to “inspire children with high ideals or positive images of the personality, provide stories which help them adjust to life's tribulations or promote play activities that are most help to their maturation” (Kline, 1993, p. 350). This displeasure with the marketing trends and media activities led to numerous voyages into the wonderful and mysterious media use space of children. One such adventure began in September 2002 when Dr. Stephen Kline and I coordinate a Community-Based Media Risk Reduction pilot project (MRRP) in four elementary schools. Both Steve and I had long believed that the schools could play a major role in helping children take a more indepth look at their media habits. We also both knew that media education had an official foothold in the provincial curriculum, although there was little support or education for teachers. From a vast field of media research we were able to distill three risks associated with heavy media use: increased bullying and anti-social behaviours, increased obesity and sedentary lifestyles, and decreased academic achievement. The district of North Vancouver had begun to shift their attention towards programs aimed at curbing incidences of bullying; it was therefore under the anti-bullying banner that we began a working relationship with 8 teachers at 4 elementary schools and developed a fiveweek media education unit to be delivered to children in grades 2-6. We implemented weekly lessons looking at personal media use, students’ notions of heroes/heroines and villains and the impact of media on their play scripts and games. After four weeks we challenged the students to live without media for one week. The one week Tune Out the Screen (TV, computers, computers) Challenge allowed for the disruption of students’ habitual media use patterns and provided time and support for them to explore alternatives. Results from time diaries, class discussions and interviews indicated that the students were not only eager to examine

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and voluntarily reduce their media use, but took great pleasure in rediscovering active leisure, reading and spending time with peers and family (Kline, Stewart & Murphy, 2006). As the project ended, however, I became less confident that we had come up with any sort of solution to a problem of excessive media consumption. Had the ‘typical’ approaches we used (worksheets, time diaries, etc), impacted the students beyond the immediate semester? Had they become more discriminating viewers and consumers? I began to wonder if I had inadvertently reinforced a pattern of what Bruner (1964) calls ‘bench-bound learners’: “learners whose motivation for learning is likely to be extrinsic to the task—pleasing the teacher, getting into college, artificially maintaining self-esteem” (p.123). I worried that their inclination to please the teacher got in the way of what many media educators (and parents) hope for: critical, autonomous thinking. The children, parents, teachers and school administrators were happy, but I was still deeply ambivalent about the experience. Little did I know it was only the very beginning of my journey and I would have to carry this uncertainty with me for almost 4 years before I could begin to understand media education in a different way.

Meeting Mouse Woman The next important step in my journey came when I was reintroduced to the ideas of Kieran Egan (1997; this volume), who argues for developing the flexibility of children’s thinking through several different ‘kinds of understanding’. I had read some of Egan’s work before, but previously I had simply tried to fit it into traditional classroom practice. I would spice up dry content with a joke here or there, bring in stories and drama, and employ other ‘imaginative education’ (IE) strategies which I knew would hold the students’ attention. However, as I saw in the media risk reduction pilot project, something was still missing in the way I was teaching. These entertaining elements felt out of place in a traditional approach to education, and I didn’t know how to sustain the sense of wonder or engagement that Egan sees as so important. It was, once again, content rather than process. Then, shortly after completing the media risk study, I encountered IE again in the context of the LUCID (Learning for Understanding through Culturally inclusive Imaginative Development) research project, directed by Egan’s colleague Dr. Mark Fettes in SFU’s Faculty of Education. The aim of LUCID was to discover whether Egan’s ideas could help improve engagement and academic success in classrooms with large numbers of

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Aboriginal students (one of the most at-risk populations in Canadian schools). Over time, and with the support of teachers, project leaders, researchers and students in the classrooms, I began to see IE in a new way. It was not just a strategy or a specific set of thinking skills to blindly follow, nor a mechanical way of creating fun, new activities for students. Rather, it was a completely new way of viewing children, learning and education, with wonder and the awakening of our imaginative capacity at its heart. As Egan comments in a recent article: [E]ducation is the process that enables us, empowers us, not to be dominated by conventional appearances, ideas, beliefs and practices. It provides the frame of mind in which we can perceive their utility and accept them as conditions of social life going forward, but in which we also see their limits and arbitrariness and can imagine changing them should we deem it right to do so. (Egan, 2007, p. 11)

As an educator I began to see that my role was to facilitate the growth of sense-making capacities that children had already acquired through their historical, social and cultural environments. In order to do this, I needed to begin to understand and re-engage my senses to older ways of knowing; ways such as the oral-language understanding of the world that had been obscured by a new and literate sense of the world. I needed to connect once again with somatic, mythic, and romantic kinds of understandings before I could understand how these could be holistically and seamlessly brought into my teaching. Although I did not have my own classroom, I had a daughter who was four years old when I began to seriously look at IE. With each new understanding and change in the way she used language to engage with the world, I was there following in her footsteps trying to re-awaken these ways of understanding in myself. I had to imagine life in an oral rather than literate way. I had to begin to see the wonder in the images, patterns, rhythms and rhymes of language that would be new to me if I was a young child making sense of the world. All this did not fully take shape for me until I was introduced to Mouse Woman. Maybe it was my experience in the quaint, quiet, technologicallyfree cabin in the woods, or the time I spend with a small grade 3-4 class, or maybe it was simply reading stories of Mouse Woman and examining her ability to change shapes from a grandmother to a small white mouse. Or maybe it was a combination of all these elements, and more, that were needed at this point in my life for me to learn to let go of old ideas, to trust in children’s sense-making capacities and believe that these capacities, along with my deep understanding of the content area I wanted to teach,

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could create wonderfully engaging and imaginative lessons. This turn meant a movement away from quick and easy solutions, a move away from typical media education programming. Regardless of the combination of events I experienced, what was for certain was a distinctive shift in my thinking and teaching at this time. Something of the shift I am talking about is conveyed by a Mouse Woman story which pits her against Raven; the pre-eminent trickster and mischiefmaker of Haida tradition. In The Princess and the Magic Plume, the spirit people in the Place of Supernatural Beings wish to quell the rowdiness of the young people of a nearby village, who are being noisy and disrespectful. Raven had a plan to end the ruckus. He would use a huge, beautiful, sparkling, magical feather. A feather that would attract the young people’s attention and when they tried to catch it, as it floated down from the sky, they would be instantly stuck to it. One by one the young people would try to pull their friend down, and one by one they would be stuck. It would even carry off the elders because they allowed the young people to be so noisy. Soon the whole village would form a line of people up into the sky and the feather would carry them off. (Harris, 2005)

Simple, effective, and with no regard for human life, Raven’s plan worked. But as Mouse Woman, the considerate, holistic thinker observed, “(t)here was something too simple about this…” Concerned for the children’s well-being, she helps the Raven Princess, Sagabin, to bring all the people back, although Raven’s trickery causes them to return all mixed-up: “A man had a woman’s head. A boy had a short arm and a long one. An old man had a baby’s head; a baby had an old man’s” (p. 252). However, because Raven has shown his complete disregard for human life, Mouse Woman wins the right to handle troublesome young people for ever after, because she not only knows how to deal with young people in distress, but does so in respectful and conscientious way: “There was a certain perverse satisfaction in having people come out right by having them come out all wrong. Somehow, it made things equal” (Harris, 2005, p. 254). These contrasting solutions to a growing problem of children’s leisure choices are reminiscent of discussions I have had with educators and parents. Unfortunately, it seems that many people opt for a quick and easy media education program – the Raven’s solution. At a time when “(c)ontemporary American tweens and teens have emerged as the most brand-orientated, consumer-involved, and materialistic generations in history” (Schor, 2004, p. 13), it is easy to see why quick fixes are often sought. But can a short discussion of media culture once a week impact a

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culturally and socially ingrained way of living? Was this one of the issues that had left me so uncomfortable at the end of the pilot project? Had our project been too simple? Had we followed Raven’s urge to develop and implement a swift and permanent solution? And what were the hidden costs of this choice? The more I began to understand Mouse Woman, the more I could see that her holistic way was informed by her ability to deeply engage with both worlds — the human and the spirit world. This knowledge and understanding was guided by a great sense of flexibility and integrity that allowed her to acknowledge the validity of various kinds of understandings in the human world, even if it did not make sense in the spirit world, and thus she was able to live happily and wholly in both worlds. I believe her flexibility and integrity is similar to what Maxine Greene (1995) suggests in one of my favourite quotes: educators must “move from the habitual and the ordinary” (p. 24) towards a consciously undertaken search — to poke and prod and become a stranger in the world; a stranger who is confident and willing to find hope rather than be paralyzed by fear in the face of the unknown. This directly links to my own reading of Postman — whose words shone a new light on the takenfor-grantedness of media and suddenly the role of media in my life became un-naturalized to me, taking on a strange, wonderful and intriguing sense. This is what media education could be for children — a way for them to become strangers in our media saturated world; to poke, prod and see it in a new way. This sense of understanding various ways of knowing is evident in Egan’s (1997) work and his discussion of kinds of understanding, but it was this smallest of grandmothers who constantly reestablished balance in the chaotic spirit world, that became the most reliable guide for me as an imaginative media educator because she embodied the flexibility and frame of mind to look beyond conventions, beliefs and practices. Soon the quick-fix ideas so easily integrated into traditional classrooms were not just troublesome, but antithetical to my understanding of media education.

Teaching with Mouse Woman Mouse Woman had connected with me so deeply that there was no doubt that I would have to incorporate her into my media education lessons for the grade 3/4 students on Haida Gwaii. The first story I read was the story of a Mischief-Maker, the Snee-nee-iq: the wild woman of the forest who had a knack for tempting young children away from their families.

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I wanted to combine the chaotic life of Jimmy Jet, from Silverstein’s poem, with the chaotic world of the Mischief-Makers as seen in the Mouse Woman books. The idea of chaos, as seen by these two examples, seemed to correlate with my interpretation of our media saturated world. The Snee-nee-iq tale, a story of temptation, misunderstandings, and bravery was used as a template for the students to create their own stories of a world where ordinary, playful, energetic children turned into lonely, anti-social media-hybrid characters, like Jimmy Jet. However, they needed to know they were not alone in their efforts to regain balance once more — Mouse Woman’s wisdom, kindness, magic spells and mysterious powers could help them with this enormous task. Mouse Woman liked everyone and everything to be proper. To her, anyone who was disturbing the proper order of the world was a mischiefmaker. And being the busiest little busybody in the Place-of-SupernaturalBeings, she always did something about the mischief-makers. (Harris, 2005, p. 17-18)

Obviously a Mischief-Maker had a part in turning their friends into media-people, so Mouse Woman seemed perfectly suited for the job of helping them regain balance. The lesson continued with various activities organized around the creation of a narrative associated with the binary opposite of controlled and chaotic. My unit was informed by the theory of Imaginative Education, as conceived by Kieran Egan, and therefore it was imperative that I create a sense of mystery and wonder regarding the unit. With this in mind, I began the unit by bringing in a mysterious letter, which had been left on my door step the night before. A letter, which not only talked about the upcoming mysteries to be solved, but had attached to it a strangely wonderful poem; as well as 8 pieces of purple wool with knots tied in them. (Mouse Woman and her affinity for wool sparked the idea of tying a series of knots in a piece of wool using Morse-code and providing the students with a decoding sheet). Day 1 The students scamper to their desks, quizzically looking from me to the foot long piece of wool and knots, and then back at me. Tammy- “What is it?” Kerri- “A code?” Tammy- “really? ….ohh.. look at the sheet, see oh! That’s an E!”

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The ohhs and ahs quickly switch to secretive conversations, and soon the mystery word reveals itself. Each group sends a runner to me who whispers ‘hello’ into my ear. I reward them with blank pieces of paper for their group, and the plot thickens. As each group settles into their desks, and the blank papers start flapping, I begin to walk slowly up and down the aisles reciting the story of Jimmy Jet. “…. And his brains turned into TV tubes And his face to a TV screen And two knobs saying ‘vert’ and ‘horiz’ Grew where his ears had been…..” (Silverstein, 1974, p. 29)

The students ask to draw and I nod and continue reciting the poem. The room grows silent. They are glued to their pages. Some lost in their mind’s eye imagining the next stroke of the pencil; some scribbling frantically to get the details down. I read the poem over and over; each time the students hear new details. Soon Jimmy Jet had transformed before their eyes. Then we begin to ask: How can this happen? Who had a hand in this? A trickster? And if so, could he/she still be lurking around? Could this happen to our friends who seem to be inseparable from their iPods, video game consoles, and computers? Are they in danger of becoming media-hybrids like Jimmy? Will we have the courage and patience to help them? Many questions are left dangling for the day-- not ignored, just left to linger with the children for the night. Little do they know tomorrow I will be asking them to create their own media-hybrid friends and ponder the question: “What would the world look like if the Mischief-Makers had the power to create such chaos that our friends turned into media-hybrids? What would our everyday environment look like?” Day 3 Zach sits in the small group of desks to my right with three other boys. As usual he sits quietly and I was left wondering what is going on inside. Around him there is a flurry of frantic arms eager to give suggestion about their interpretation of a chaotic world and excited shouts of “pick me!!” from the other students. From the back of the room I hear:

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“Dogs, yeah lots of cute fuzzy dogs… my Auntie has this dog that is so cute; I think the world would have lots of them.”

I smile and draw a fuzzy dog on the board—I decided early on in the class to move away from writing to drawing. We all get a laugh at my quirky drawings, but there is little time for details because the ideas seem to be pouring out of the students and I frantically move from the ‘controlled’ side of the board to the ‘chaotic’ side and back again. “Flowers in bloom…. Bunnies biting people…. A big scary red sunshine in the sky…. Trees on fire!”

As expected, the children gravitate toward the bizarre and extreme images connected to the chaotic world, causing that side of the board to fill up much more quickly than the controlled side. They understand that ‘strange’ is welcomed in my class, and I am not seeking the ‘correct’ answer to any of my opinion-eliciting discussions, and most importantly, that I, like Mouse Woman, accept their imaginative spirit. With this new found understanding of our relationship they gleefully seek to outdo their peers’ previous suggestions and the ideas flourish. I glance at the clock and realize the recess bell is going to ring, so I slowly wind down the activity. I put the finishing touches on the last of the drawings, and although I know we could go on for another half an hour, we take the time to admire our collaborative work and chat about the results just before the bell rings. As the students start to head outside, Zach, who had remained quiet throughout the lesson, approaches the front of the classroom. Gazing intently at the chalkboard, without even looking at me, he begins to speak: “Kym, if in the chaotic world the trees were on fire, then in the controlled world the trees would be strong and healthy. If in the chaotic world the bunnies run around biting people, in the controlled world they would go around and be friendly to people….”

It was a spellbinding moment—one of the moments teachers live for. Unaided and unprompted, Zach had seen through the surface of the lessons to the ideas that inspired it. In beginning to understand our everyday world as poised between controlled and chaotic, he had taken a step toward shaping his own understanding of connections that are often neglected or ignored. Or so I hoped. What had caused Zach’s previous quietness in the classroom? What had made him take the leap that day? Did his silence in the classroom reflect bewilderment, indifference, lack of understanding? Why had he

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waited until after class to tell me about the connections he made? Was he afraid his ideas were wrong because no one else had suggested them first? Typical media education programs are filled with worksheets asking children to expose their habits to adults who they often feel oppose or condemn them. Would a child like Zach, who for the most part did not actively engage in classroom activities, feel compelled to come forward and chat with me if I asked him to complete a media time diary at home? Without a focus on oral language, without a look at extremes and binary opposites, would a look at our media world be as meaningful for him, or encourage him to make those philosophical connections? This is what I attribute to Imaginative Education (and Mouse Woman) —not only because IE has provided me with new strategies for teaching, but because it has also helped me to be more open and attuned to the various nuances of students’ understandings. As the unit progressed and the development of the media-hybrid characters expanded, I asked the students to conduct background checks on their media-hybrid characters. We learned that Cell-phone Syl’s ancestors used to be as big as a shoe, but now they are as small as your thumb. And iPod Sally’s cousins, although they all have a similar shape, they have very different skills. Not only were the students discovering factual information about where these devices were born (where they were invented), how many siblings they had (number sold in the world), and so on, but they also had to explore their media-hybrid friend’s communication and social skills including the way they would talk, eat, play, sleep, et cetera. In this way we quickly discovered how technology has become a part of our everyday language: “Children, the volume in the class is too high, please turn it down!” “Oh, I am so tired; I think I need to recharge my battery.”

Many lessons focused on oral language development to help the students develop their story of the media-hybrid and Mischief-Makers. Oral tellings took the form of a one-on-one conference with me, the Production Director in charge of funding their future theatre productions, followed by small group tellings where they had to convince their fellow actors that the elements of their story should be incorporated into the group drama script. It was through the multiple storytelling experiences that I could see their ideas develop and grow. They began to play with language, humour and satire with more confidence, and eventually a script for their group drama production was created. We presented our drama productions to other classes and parents, and although the presentations were rough and a bit chaotic themselves, it was

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apparent how the use of drama helped move some students beyond their established identity at school or in the community to something, sometimes, quite opposite: the shy child would be the loud trickster, the so-called ‘bully’ could be Mouse Woman, who helps to regain control through her own carefully chosen words. What was more, the students had seen how hard work, patience, diligence and cooperation could create a work of art, not just a pile of worksheets in a binder like some typical media education programs. Their work of art represented their ability to conquer, with the help of Mouse Woman, the Mischief-Makers that had turned their friends into media-hybrid people. They had learned that even in the face of complete despair and chaos they can play a role in reestablishing balance.

Mouse Woman and media education My journey to become a media educator has been a long one, with many twists and turns along the way. I began as a media-studies researcher, focused on collecting data, and have become a holistic educator, open to new and alternative ways of viewing the world. My research agenda once drove my curriculum development; now I base my units on a deep understanding of the way cognitive tools can enhance our understanding and the importance of imagination in our everyday teaching. I have moved away from the simple quick-fix approaches towards a more complex pedagogy designed to guide and enhance intrinsic motivation. And I am continually helped along the way by Mouse Woman. Throughout my journey I have had to continually explain what media education means. As a field it is often seen as disparate and complex, with varying explanations of how media can be used, deconstructed or explored. In some respects my interpretation of media education is similar to other media educators, yet it has become vastly different in development and implementation. I do not want to teach ‘how to use’ or ‘how to create’ media; rather, I want to facilitate discussions regarding how media impacts our everyday lives—socially, culturally and politically. We are swimming in a media-saturated world, yet rarely have the time or opportunity to focus our attention on the absurdity, uniqueness or oddity of it. Therefore, I seek to create units which allow elementary students, teachers and parents to see the impact of media on their own lives by looking at the impact it has had on others; particularly extreme versions such as a media-hybrid people or aliens (Stewart, 2007). I have come to realize that asking children or adults to contemplate their own media use, through media diaries and other intrusive methods

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such as personal disclosures of habits and access rates, only fosters feelings of condemnation and distrust between the students and media educator. Using theories of IE, however, I have been able to nurture a sense of trust and exploration of students’ skepticism and agency in the classroom, as seen in the active engagement of students who may often be silent or unengaged in lessons. Mythic and Romantic frameworks (Egan, 1997) have opened up new spaces of understanding in the elementary class so that voices which have been marginalized and excluded can now be heard. I am attuned to new ways of understanding—my eyes and ears now perk up like those of a mouse, and I am more open to the nuances of children’s experiences in the classroom. The students recognize this. For an imaginative media education unit to be implemented, within a classroom, teachers must recognize that children are not passive and uncritical; rather, they are experts within their own media field, and often need opportunities to explore this field in new and engaging ways. As media educators we must keep in mind the role that imagination plays in enabling us to see beyond conventionality and empower us to make choices that may go beyond the norm—which is what I want in media education classrooms. This task of emphasizing imagination in education, however, is not without resistance. Creating media education units couched in an educational paradigm of imaginative education will often look vastly different from traditional media education programs which fit within the current school agenda. Even when the theory is more imaginative in nature, like the ‘inquiry model’ discussed by Davis (1993)—a model which seeks to decrease teacher-friendly responses by validating children’s interpretation of media text—the implementation may be marred by inappropriate teaching methods. Incorporating these goals of media education within a holistic pedagogy like Imaginative Education, however, allows openness, awareness and growth to be realized in the classroom in a non-confrontational and non-judgmental manner. My hope is that teachers incorporating imaginative media education units into their own teaching will be able to see a significant shift in children’s engagement and understanding and will then be encouraged to begin teaching all units in an imaginative way. I see imaginative media education as a catalyst for more general and far-reaching changes in teachers’ classroom practice. Mouse Woman has become my image of what such an imaginative teacher could be. Able to exist wholly in various worlds, she has the patience and understanding to see diversity, bias and various points of view. It is this ability that allows her to gain respect and trust from the

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children, two essential elements in learning, development and growth. Most importantly, however, it is this ability that allows Mouse Woman to see children’s potentials—even if they have been tucked away or hidden. She never sees young children as victims incapable of helping themselves. Rather she can see how they have been tricked or their attention diverted; and it is up to her to reawaken the children to their own skills and provide tools for courageous and powerful decisions and choices they will be faced with. “Well….” Mouse Woman squeaked, properly touching the Stick3, though she was too small to pound it. “You all know that I’m very good at handling young people. I don’t tell them what to do. I simply point out the dangers and let them have some choice in the matter. So perhaps I could talk to them and….” (Harris, 2005, p. 321)

Like Mouse Woman, I too see children as full of potential, and now recognize both the media and school as Mischief-Makers. The media represents the cunning, tempting spirits like the Snee-Nee-iq, who often promise to give children what they want. The schools represent the humans in the myths, who often neglect or cannot see potential because it is not the same as theirs. It is through my immersion in the world of West Coast myths and living on Haida Gwaii that I was able to take a leap and see beyond my academically-trained world of objectivity and facts. I began to experience Haida Gwaii through the eyes of my daughter and Mouse Woman, and thus reconnect with kinds of understanding that had been hidden. I no longer see IE in terms of a mechanistic implementation of the cognitive tools (Egan 1997), but as a re-organization of the way we view teaching, education, students and schools.

Conclusion My time in Haida Gwaii sadly had to come to an end. As I prepared to leave the classroom I had come to love, and the little cabin my family had called home, I was a bit sad and worried. Could Mouse Woman’s wee voice be heard above the roar of the hurry-up world I was returning to? Could my new-found appreciation for holistic teaching and researching be incorporated into my academic life? I hoped so.

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“Usually carved with specific symbols such as the eagle and/or thunderbirds, the talking stick acts as the ‘law’ of the circle. The person who has the talking stick is the only person who can talk in the circle.” (http://aboriginalhealth.vch.ca/terms.htm)

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As I closed our cabin door and drove down the small road past the vast beaches and moss-filled forests, I said thank you to Mouse Woman. Thank you Mouse Woman, not only for giving me stories to share with the children, but for helping me expand my understanding and my heart to a broader view of education. For opening my eyes to the various ways mischief-makers find their way into our lives and for giving me the confidence and strength to make risky changes in a culture of conformity.

Upon returning home I passed by Bill Reid’s magnificent Jade Canoe sculpture in the Vancouver International Airport and happily reacquainted myself with Mother Bear, Eagle, Frog, Beaver, and of course, Raven. But I had to look a bit harder to find Mouse Woman. She had “lost her place among the other characters of her own myth.... barely squeezed in at the opposite end of the boat, under the tail of the Raven” (Reid, nd). I stoked her small round cheek and was dismayed that the triumphant little grandmother had been so overshadowed. If she could be lost under the tail of Raven so easily, what else could be lost, marginalized or misunderstood? What happens when administrators and teachers do not see imaginative education as valuable or as a necessary transformation in schools? What if it is misinterpreted and falls into the simplest forms of acceptance and transmission? What could we be losing if the role of imagination is left unattended—what would be missing in the world of West Coast myths if Mouse Woman was forgotten? Although I raise these questions, I know in my heart that for the most part this is what has happened to imagination: it has seemingly lost its place as an essential component of the educational story we know today. Yet it is paramount to our understanding of the world, and without it education ceases to be the transformational experience we as educators and parents often hope for. In a time when children are dropping out of school, student engagement is low and teacher burnout high, we must peek under Raven’s long back tail feathers and become reacquainted with this smallest of grandmothers who, I believe, is there to remind us of our role as educators. It is time again for Mouse Woman to emerge from the shadows, to once again give nurture and help to a generation of young people facing new kinds of trouble, needing guidance through new threats of the cosmic scale of Mouse Woman’s supernatural realm: the earth warming, oceans rising, ghost armies of terrorist threatening, families dissolving. Respect for the earth’s balances is out of whack. Mouse Woman’s feisty insistence on restoring the world’s social and natural order is still needed—will always be needed. (Harris, 2005, p. 15)

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Although I continue to worry about these issues, I am also rejuvenated with the thought that no matter the obstacles I will face, I will always be reminded of Mouse Woman’s courage, tenacity and flexibility which helps her be imaginative in both the human and the spirit world. Despite her small stature, she holds her own against the mischief makers, in many cases fighting against large spirits such as the Monster Killer Whale or the Wild Woman of the woods and in each case “(t)he small… vanquished the big. And the big had turned into a very small” (Harris, 2005, p. 80). To me, Mouse Woman represents an opening into a deeper understanding of education; she continues to personify my own consciousness and intuition on a daily basis, when I think of teaching and I find myself asking “What would Mouse Woman do?” She has given me the insight to move beyond a dogmatic or stereotypical view of education, and the courage and strength to face openness even when it is scary and unknown.

References Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S.A. (1963). Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal & Social Psychologist, 66(1), 3-11. Bruner, J. (1964). On knowing: Essays for the left hand. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Davis, J.F. (1993). Media literacy: From activism to exploration. Media literacy: A report of the national leadership conference on media literacy (Appendix A). Retrieved September 5, 2007 from http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_ 01/0000019b/80/15/26/93.pdf Egan, K. (2007). Imagination, past and present, In K. Egan, M. Stout, & K. Takaya (eds), Teaching and Learning Outside the Box, New York: The Althouse Press. —. (1997). The educated mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press. Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San Franciso: Jossey-Bass Publications. Harris, C. (2005). The mouse woman trilogy: 30th anniversary edition. Vancouver: Raincoat Books. Himmelweit, H., Oppenheim, A.N., & Vince, P. (1958). Television and the child: An empirical of the effect of television on the youth. London: Oxford University Press.

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Hoelscher, D.M., Mitchell, P., Dwyer, J., Elder, J., Clesi, A., & Snyder, P. (2003). How the catch eat smart program helps implement the USDA regulations in school cafeterias. Health Education Behaviour, 30(4), 434-446. Murray, J.P., Rubinstein, E.A., & Comstock, G.A., (1972). Television and social behavior: Reports and papers, Volume II: Television and sociallLearning: A technical report to the surgeon general's scientific advisory committee on television and social behavior. Rockville: National Institute of Mental Health, Volume 2 (5). Kline, S. (1993). Out of the garden: Toys and children’s culture in the age of TV marketing. Toronto: Garamond Press. Kline, S. & K. Stewart (2000). Family life and media violence: A qualitative study of canadian mothers of boys, In Van den Bergh and Van den Bulck (eds) Children and media: Multidisciplinary perspectives. Garant: Lueven. 89-110. Kline, S., Stewart, K. & Murphy, D. (2006). Media literacy in the risk society: An evaluation of a risk reduction strategy. Canadian Journal of Education. 29 (1), 131-153. Lundstrom, M. (2004). Media savvy kids; For students inundated by images, critical thinking skills help sort fact from fiction. Scholastic Instructor, November/December, 2004. Retrieved Dec 8, 2009 from http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/instructor/Nov04_mediasavvy.ht m Large, M. (1990). Who’s bringing them up? Gloucester: Alan Sutton. Postman, N. (1985). Amusing ourselves to death. New York: Penguin Books. Reid, B (nd). The spirit of Haida Gwaii. Retrieved Dec 1, 2008 from http://www.billreidfoundation.org/banknote/spirit.htm Rohrbach L.A., Grahan J.W., & Hansen, W.B. (1993). Diffusion of a school-based substance abuse prevention program: Predictors of program implementation. Prev Med, 22, 237-260. Schor, J.B. (2004). Born to buy: The commercialized child and the new consumer culture. New York: Scribner. Silverstein, S. (1974). Where the Sidewalk Ends. New York: Harper and Row Publishers. Smith, D.W., Steckler, A.B., McCormick, L.K., & McLeroy, K.R. (1995). Lessons learned about disseminating health curricula to schools. J Health Educ, 26(1), 37-43. Stewart, K. (2007). Re-Imagining Media Education: Exploring new strategies for elementary students’ emotional and social engagement.

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Our Schools/Our Selves, Journal of The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 89, Fall, 17 (1), 71-84. Winn, M. (1985). The plug-in drug: Television, children and family. New York: Penguin Books.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN EDUCATING IMAGINATIVE TEACHERS: EDUCATING TEACHERS IMAGINATIVELY BERNIE NEVILLE

Introduction The notion of the ‘five-minded animal’ which Kieran Egan develops in The Educated Mind (1997) is one which has framed my thinking about teaching and learning for many years. I started thinking about teaching and learning within this framework in the eighties, when I discovered Jaynes’, McLean’s and Ornstein’s writing about brain physiology and Jean Gebser’s notion of ‘structures of consciousness’. In the nineties I became aware of Robert Kegan’s model of ‘orders of thinking’ and Merlin Donald’s theory of the evolution of consciousness. These quite different kinds of thinker come at the issues from within different disciplines and from different directions, call on quite different kinds of evidence to support their arguments, and use quite different language to express them. There is little indication of mutual influence between those whose focus is on brain structure, those whose focus is on individual cognitive development, and those who think of consciousness as collective and cultural, rather than individual and psychological. What it all adds up to for me is best summed up by Kieran Egan: We have, you might say, a five-fold mind, or, more dramatically, we are a five-minded animal, in whom different kinds of understanding jostle together and fold on one another, to some degree remaining ‘somewhat distinct’. (1997, p.80)

It seems to me that this is extremely useful theory, with implications for the way we teach. It is more than a restatement of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, which teachers are generally familiar with and which has some influence on what happens in schools. What Kegan is

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saying (and Gebser and the rest) is quite different from what many teachers are inclined to learn from Piaget. Five-minded animals do not cease to think concretely when they get the capacity to think abstractly. Archaic, mimetic, magical, mythical, romantic, right brain, first, second and third order processes – whatever names we choose to give them – do not become inaccessible or useless to us when we get the knack of rational, philosophic, fourth order, left-brain thinking. Gebser, whose theory of the emergence of consciousness focused on culture rather than individual psychology, argued in the mid twentieth century that the kind of consciousness characteristic of the culture of scientific materialism is a corrupted form of mental consciousness which has devalued feeling, imagination and intuition and is no longer able to deal with the world as we experience it. Indeed, he argued that it is this kind of thinking that has got us into our current emergency and is unable to get us out of it. However, he suggested that the twentieth century was seeing the emergence in Western culture of a structure of consciousness which accepts the validity of the other four (simpler, earlier) structures and integrates them with the mental structure in a more complex structure which he calls ‘integral’ ʊ a consciousness which is transcends ego and mere rationality. When Egan writes about ‘ironic mind’ (the most complex of the five ‘minds’, as he describes them) as the integration of the somatic and philosophic modes of thinking, he is making an observation on similar lines. As is Kegan, when he writes about the transformation of fourth order thinking – characterized by critical observation of the contents of our minds – into fifth order thinking, which brings an awareness that our truths are a function not only of what we think but of our culturally embedded way of thinking. Egan and Kegan, in writing about individual cognitive development, are echoing what Gebser said fifty years ago about cultural evolution. We do not leave behind our ‘childish’ or ‘primitive’ ways of thinking when we become adult or modern. We do not cease to think concretely or magically or mythically or romantically when we learn the trick of thinking abstractly. We do ourselves a disservice individually and culturally when we identify with our ability to think abstractly and philosophically and underestimate the impact of imagination, emotion, intuition and bodily sense on our individual and collective behavior. We do our students a disservice when we teach as though we and they are essentially ‘thinking’ beings with access to the somewhat problematic and inferior capacities of imagination, emotion and intuition. Effective teaching will value and engage all of the five minds of both teachers and students.



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Infant and primary teachers may be ready enough to acknowledge the importance of feelings and imagination in the educational process, but many are still stuck in the enlightenment notion that these functions are inferior to what we generally refer to as ‘thinking’. At worst they are a distraction from, at best a preparation for or supplement to, the real work of education, which is imparting information and teaching students how to think about it and remember it. Whatever individual teachers may do in their classrooms, they have to work in an education culture whose decision-makers and administrators think in terms of assessment, measurement and accountability, manifestations of what Gebser called the ‘deficient rational structure of consciousness’ characteristic of modernity. Secondary schools are more deeply embedded than primary schools in a culture of deficient rationality, and those of us who work in universities are well aware of the dominance of deficient rational thinking in the ways we do what we do in that sector. Subjects which might be expected to have an aesthetic focus are taught in ways which privilege measurable outcomes. Emotional and intuitive responses count for very little when the chips are down. Whatever is quantifiable and measurable and therefore assessable in the formal content of the curriculum counts for a great deal more. However we want to imagine university education, we may find ourselves having to conform to a system obsessed with measurement, locked into a set of problematic assumptions about how teaching and research should be standardised, measured and benchmarked. I want in this chapter to offer some suggestions about how teacher educators might approach the task of preparing students to be imaginative teachers. After 12 years teaching in secondary schools I regarded myself as a fairly imaginative, and even creative teacher, though when I look back on it now I’m not so sure. I'm more aware of wasted opportunities than I am of having engaged my students in an exciting exploration of life through an imaginative approach to teaching. Nevertheless I can assert that during my dozen or so years in secondary classrooms I learned and learned again that there are more effective ways of teaching than ‘telling them stuff’ and getting them to practise remembering it. I learned that engaging my students emotionally and imaginatively in curriculum, encouraging them to identify with characters from literature and history, dramatizing, finding the places where the content touched their souls and, above all, engaging in play and having fun, was actually a very good way to achieve excellent examination results and to make not only the students, but also their parents and the school, happy. Having learnt all that, I forgot it.



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When I became a university teacher I accepted the conventional ways of doing things. Student teachers needed to know certain things and it was the task of academics to tell them what they were. Student teachers needed to be able to do certain things and it was the task of academics to give them training in these skills. Reading Carl Rogers, Paolo Freire, Ivan Illich, Martin Buber and assorted humanist psychologists at the time certainly shaped what I thought the students ought to know about teaching, but it sat somewhat uncomfortably with the way I was actually teaching. It wasn't bad, just more timid and more conventional than it needed to be. The way I was teaching in a pre-service teacher education program did not adequately match the vision of education that got me into teacher education in the first place, and it did not adequately model the kind of imaginative teaching that I hoped my students would engage in once they got into the classroom. I gradually became aware of my discomfort, my somatic understanding, and found the opportunity to do something about it. I was at the time teaching an elective subject on using drama techniques in teaching. In a moment of enlightenment I realized that while I was teaching my students to use dramatic methods in teaching Mathematics or English or Economics, I was failing to follow my own advice when I was teaching my own students about Education. The La Trobe Postgraduate Diploma in Education (Secondary) program at the time was structured so that students could choose from a number of different courses, each with a different emphasis – political, psychological, feminist, anthropological, sociological, philosophical – depending on the interests and obsessions of the staff involved. In this context a colleague and I were able to initiate a course with an emphasis on experiential learning and dramatic/socio-dramatic approaches to teaching about teaching. Play, both serious play and light-hearted play, was to be at the centre of our activities. My initial promotion of the course to students was clearly inadequate, as only four of them signed on for it in the first place. However, after preferences were distributed we ended up with 16 students. It was a great year, characterized by enthusiasm, engagement, transformative learning – all the things which occasionally make teaching the most exciting and satisfying thing you can do. Word of mouth converted the 16 students in the first year to 20 something in the second and 30 something in the third. Over the 20 or so years that I was involved with it, the course reflected the changes in the university system which backgrounded it. Student selection from a menu of diverse courses became ‘inefficient’. Resources in staff and facilities declined, as the Vice-Chancellor at the time announced that “Education is



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not a priority in this university.” The two of us started in 1979 with a handful of students in a large, flexible space. In the nineties, team teaching became an unaffordable luxury and I was faced with bigger and bigger classes in spaces which didn’t give us room to move. What I was able to do became more constrained and less playful. I did learn, however, that an approach that works with twenty students who have specifically chosen the program can also work pretty well with fifty students who have not had the opportunity to choose. In the early years, when students had the luxury of selecting into this course among others, I could count on the class consisting mainly of Drama, English and Language graduates. The mathematicians, physicists and economists stayed well away. They need not have. When the luxury of choice was removed and they found themselves in these unfamiliar surroundings, they were just as engaged as the students who came to it more naturally. It is not generally regarded as problematic for teachers of little children to talk of the significance of play as a mode of learning. However, if teachers at the ‘serious’ end of high school talk that way they will be looked on with suspicion. University teachers who share the same conviction are inclined to be careful who they talk to. Nevertheless many of us have imaginative and playful approaches to the content of teacher education. I wish to share some of mine. I trust that some of my readers, whether or not they are involved in teacher education, will have ideas and routines of their own to share with me. What follows are some examples of strategies or routines which I have used as a teacher educator. Although I no longer have much involvement in pre-service teacher education, and rarely get a chance these days to teach the way I describe below, I indulge myself by using the present tense in what follows.

First, some principles • Allow the re-invention of the wheel. There are things which are obvious to the teacher-educator which student teachers must discover for themselves. Telling them a hundred ‘key facts’ about teaching may appear to save time. Letting them have the experience of discovering for themselves what counts in teaching is a much better way of ensuring that they know it. • The kind of activities which characterize good teaching in primary school also characterize good teaching in adolescent and adult classes. • Teaching and learning are more effective if the rigid distinction between teacher and student can be broken down. The designated



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teacher and designated student share a moment of learning in which these designations may be irrelevant. Questions are more important than answers. A good place to start teaching content is to provide students with an experience which stimulates their interest and has them asking questions. Teaching is most effective when students feel some ownership of the curriculum. Educating future teachers involves a degree of personal transformation in which they construct a new professional identity. Kolb distinguishes four learning styles. Egan describes a five-minded animal. Gardner nominates eight intelligences. Jung describes four functions of the psyche. Good teaching covers all bases. Gaining knowledge and learning skills are not incompatible with having fun. Focusing on process is not incompatible with achieving outcomes. Aesthetic, emotional and imaginative engagement is not incompatible with intellectual stimulation and the construction of knowledge.

Second, a structure In principle, at least, my teaching follows the experiential learning model: Experience > reflection on experience > reflection on principles > action leading to new experience. It is sometimes a challenge to find an experiential starting point for a class on whatever the topic may be, but it belongs with the challenge of being an imaginative teacher. It is clearly more difficult, though certainly not impossible, to find an experiential starting point for 300 students in a lecture theatre than for 30 in an open space. However, recollected experience can sometimes be as stimulating a starting point as immediate experience. Experience without immediate reflection may well lead to learning. However, in the teaching context reflection is an integral part of the process. I tend to make a clear distinction between reflection on the experience, which is immediate, concrete and largely descriptive, and reflection on principles, which draws on what is already known, imagines possibilities, generalizes and shapes future action.



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A toolbox for teacher educators Introductions It seems to me that good teaching involves establishing a positive relationship with students as quickly as possible. For me this involves, at a minimum, learning their names in the first session. If I can do this in a few minutes through an exercise designed to have everyone in the class learn everyone’s name, all the better. One method I use is to ask the class who has trouble learning names, and take a volunteer from this group to show him or her how to learn names. I tell them that I understand perfectly well that they simply cannot remember names, but that in this exercise they will pretend to be someone who is really good at it. If they have trouble remembering a name they will not be bothered by it because they know that they can remember it next time without any trouble. After all, they are only pretending. Then we go around the group, introducing themselves to each of the other students and greeting them by name. We start with one student, the second is introduced to the first, the third is introduced to the first and second, and so on. When this is going smoothly we start introducing two at a time, then three at a time, then four. Each time we recapitulate all the previous names. By the time the student has introduced thirty or forty students to each other, everybody, including me, knows everybody’s name, or is close to doing so, and the student at the centre of the process has re-identified as someone who can remember names. I conclude with a maxim attributed to Henry Ford: ‘If you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.’ It takes a little time, but it’s worth it. Learning something that I’ll never forget (A) I ask students to recall an occasion when they learned something they will never forget. They tell these stories to each other in groups (I want them to consciously stay in the story-telling mode, and not to start discussing the incidents critically or theoretically). I then ask the groups to choose one story from the stories they have told each other and act it out for the class. When all the groups have had their turn we see if we can make some generalizations about the conditions for this kind of learning. My experience has been that the episodes of significant learning chosen by students almost always come from outside the classroom situation. Learning something that I’ll never forget (B) I ask them to recall an occasion in their formal education where they learned something that changed them in some way. As before we examine



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specific cases through enactment and discussion and see if such experiences have something in common. This exercise leads, in my classes, to a discussion of transformative learning, and the notion that many of the children and adolescents we teach may learn negative things about themselves which they will have difficulty unlearning. Understanding children and adolescents (A) The students form groups of three. I ask them to take themselves back to particular age in childhood and adolescence. I ask them to reflect on what life was like at that age: Who were the most important people? What did they most enjoy doing? How did they spend their time? What did they think about adults, about teachers? What were the best things about school? the worst things? What things were really important to them? What did they want to be when they grew up? What music did they listen to? Who were their heroes? And so on. I ask them, in turn, to become themselves at that age and allow themselves to be interviewed by the other two students in the group, who will simply set out to understand how this child/adolescent thinks and feels. It is important that they do this in present time, not as a memory ʊ ‘I like hanging out with my friends’, not ‘I used to like hanging out with my friends.’ When each of the three has been interviewed they introduce each other (as children/adolescents) to the larger group. Understanding children and adolescents (B) When they go out to schools on teaching practice I give them a task. I ask them to choose a particular child who seems problematic in some way and observe them closely during their teaching round. Talk to them when the opportunity arises and try to understand how they experience school. If possible follow their classes through an entire day to get a sense of what that experience is like for them. When the students are back on campus I have them identify with that student and allow themselves to be interviewed as above. They are then introduced in role to the larger group, who are invited to ask them further questions. There are a lot of insights to be gained from identifying with a student. When students have encountered either ‘management problems’ or ‘learning problems’ with a particular student, it is sometimes very effective to have them identify with that student and talk about the situation from the pupil’s point of view. They can be interviewed in role



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and find that they understand the ‘problem’ much better than they thought they did. Dealing with nightmares I invite the students to talk about their negative fantasies of teaching: “What are you afraid might happen when you are teaching? What kind of classroom situation do you feel that you are not well equipped to deal with competently?” I ask the students to share this in groups, and to decide on one situation/incident which they think is worth exploring. The groups then act out these situations in turn, simply presenting the incident without attempting to show a way of dealing with it. I then introduce Karen Horney’s notion that we all learn early in life how to deal with difficult interpersonal situations. In such situations we have the options of either moving away from the other person, towards the other person or against the other person. We find in infancy that one of these options works for us better than the others and we keep doing it. It becomes habitual as our immediate response to situations of conflict. She suggests that we all have a preferred way of responding to interpersonal conflict, and if we are really neurotic we will keep rigidly responding in the same way even when it is obvious that it is not working. However, most of us have some control over how we react and are able to override our immediate impulse and choose the most appropriate way to deal with a particular situation. We apply the Horney model to the ‘nightmare’ situations. I ask the groups to act out three incompetent/ineffective ways of responding to the situation: ineffective moving away, ineffective moving towards, ineffective moving against. I then ask them to demonstrate three competent/effective ways of dealing with the same situation: moving away, moving towards, moving against. In the discussion which accompanies this experience I am likely to remark on the strange but extremely common behavior of human beings: when something isn’t working we are inclined to simply do it harder. There may be a thousand other things we can do. It is better to try one of them. Re-enacting critical incidents Re-enacting and exploring critical incidents from teaching rounds can be a rich and engaging learning experience for students, with the opportunity it provides for using a range of psychodramatic and sociodramatic techniques: deep exploration of the situation through



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interviews with the characters in role, role reversal, modeling, mirroring, role training. We might start with a situation which the student feels he/she did not handle adequately. We move through an exploration of the perceptions, attitudes and behavior of the student and (through role reversal) the other actors in the drama. We move to the student’s attempts to find a better way of handling the situation, assisted by other members of the class through modeling alternative strategies and giving supportive feedback. We rehearse the new behavior. Playback An alternative way of exploring critical incidents is playback. The students, in small groups, tell each other their stories. Each group chooses a story to be told to the whole group. One of the other small groups acts out the story getting feedback from the original narrator as to whether they are depicting the incident accurately. After a couple of attempts they portray it accurately, to the narrator’s satisfaction. In the course of this exercise the dynamics of the situation are explored and the narrator has the satisfaction of having the experience shared and understood. Modeling good practice I ask for a volunteer who is prepared to explore an incident or situation which occurred during their teaching practicum, an incident or situation which they feel they could have handled better. I ask them to choose three members of the group who they would like to see demonstrate how they would handle the situation. These three leave the room while the student sets up the situation with the help of the class and acts out the notcompletely-satisfactory way he or she reacted. The three students enter the room in turn and react spontaneously to the same situation. After class discussion of the appropriateness and effectiveness of different responses to the situation, other students may volunteer to show how they would handle the situation. The student whose ‘case’ it is then has the opportunity to try out and rehearse a more satisfactory response. Role-playing There is an essential difference between role playing and psychodrama. In psychodrama the protagonist is acting as himself or herself in remembered or fantasized situations. In role play we take on the behavior of some one else. However, the boundary between role playing and psychodrama is often crossed.



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Role playing is most effective when the actors stop pretending to be troubled or troublesome adolescents, for instance, and find the troubled or troublesome adolescent within themselves and speak from that part of themselves. When I ask the class to become a year nine class for the purpose of an exercise, I need to persuade them to put aside their stereotypes and preconceptions, to stop thinking in terms of ‘pretending’, and to behave in the moment in as authentic a way as they can. Role play can be structured or unstructured. I have some set pieces which I use to stimulate discussion of particular issues, e.g. appropriate responses to apparent evidence of child abuse. I have also found it productive to leave the issue and the perspectives as broad as possible. For instance I might divide the class into groups of four with the following instructions: • In your group of four designate a principal, a teacher, a parent and a student. • You are going to meet concerning a problem which concerns the student and the school. • You are going to have some conflict regarding your perceptions of the problem and how it should be dealt with. • Take some time to get into role. Don’t talk about what you are going to do, or think about the words you are going to say, but become your character with your particular perspectives and goals and talk to each other in role. The playing out of these scenes raises awareness of substantial issues and enables the sharing of information and experience. It can be emotionally engaging, enlightening, energizing and entertaining, for both actors and audience. Art for exploration’s sake When students return from teaching rounds I hand out pastels and ask them to draw this experience in whatever way they like. I ask them not to look at one another’s drawings at this stage. When the drawings have been finished and collected I hand them out at random and ask the students to imagine that the drawing they have received was done by themselves. They each explain to the group what they meant to convey by ‘their’ drawing, and answer any questions put to them by the group. Pastel is a convenient medium, but others, such as collage, can be even more effective. An alternative process is to have the students take their own drawing to a small group for appreciation. (I find it is better to talk about ‘appreciation’ rather than ‘interpretation’.) I suggest that the students in



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turn place their drawing in the centre of the group and initially stay silent while the other students comment. I ask them to keep their comments descriptive. Say ‘I notice that…..’ without interpreting or evaluating. Leave interpretation to the student who is responsible for the drawing. Evaluation is irrelevant. Games teachers play I introduce the notion of interpersonal games (Eric Berne’s 1963 book Games People Play is still the best way into this idea) and make some suggestions of games which teachers may play, e.g. Doormat; Isn’t it awful; Macho man; Concentration camp; Sex goddess. I point out that a game only continues as long as both parties (teacher and class) are getting something out of it and are willing to keep it going. Sometimes the games are initiated by the students: You can’t make me; What did you do on the weekend, Sir?; Scapegoat; Pop star; Uproar. Games can be erotic, narcissistic, sadistic, masochistic. After brief discussion I ask them to talk in their groups about their own experience of schooling and the games they played on (with?) teachers. They suggest games I’ve never had a name for. We build up a substantial list on the board. I then ask the groups to choose a game that they recognize from their experience and act it out for the class. I interrupt the enactment at some stage to deepen the experience by interviewing the characters in role. I invite the class to assist me in this process. Negotiating curriculum I regularly check that the content of the course is meeting the students’ needs. This involves reflection on the following questions: • What do I need to know in order to be a good teacher? • What, out of all this, do I know already? • What do I still need to learn? • How, when, with whose assistance, will I learn it? This is a good opportunity to demonstrate different ways of using group techniques in class. I find that if the stated purpose of a session is to demonstrate a group technique, and the content is ostensibly introduced only for the purpose of the demonstration, discussion about the content is likely to be freer than when the professed intent is to discuss the content. This exercise can conclude with a summary of the discussion on the whiteboard, with comments in four columns representing the group consensus: need to know/know already/still need to learn/ how will we learn. This is followed by the question: What should we do next?



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Group Games I regularly use warm-up games at beginning of a session. Apart from building group cohesion they provide a bridge from the kind of consciousness which suffices for survival outside this classroom and the kind of consciousness which optimizes learning during the coming session. Besides this, there are a number of interactive games which I have found useful to raise issues and help students reflect upon their hitherto unreflected assumptions. I am particularly fond of the MultiPurpose, Multi-Phasic, Tower-Building Blocks Game, which I devised some years ago to give participants a problem-solving experience where their fairly predictable assumption that the game is competitive would leave them frustrated until they realized that the task could only be completed cooperatively. Performance Where a task includes a presentation I insist that the individual or group presentation cannot consist simply of an oral report, but must involve the creative or dramatic arts in some way. Read your poem, sing your song, dance your dance, mime your mime, paint your painting which tells us who you are, what you’ve done and how the doing has affected you. Involve your audience. Active feedback I like to get regular feedback from students from time to time, and like to push them into reflection on their engagement “I’d like you to reflect on how well this course is meeting your needs. Give it a score between one and a hundred. Now line up according to your scores. If your score is close to zero because it is not meeting your needs at all stand down this end of the room. If you score it at a hundred stand down that end. If in between, find your place in the line.” When students have sorted themselves in this way, I split the line between the ‘satisfieds’ and the ‘unsatisfieds’ get a conversation going between the two groups. There are numerous other questions on which students can score and line up in this way. “How satisfied are you with your own level of engagement in learning in this course?” “How sure are you that you want to be a teacher?” “How ready do you feel to start being a professional teacher?”



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Walking through One way of helping students reflect on learning during a teaching practicum is to have them ‘walk through’ it. This can be demonstrated with one student and then the others can do it in pairs or small groups. I take students through a series of their encounters ʊ e.g. with the school as an institution, with their practicum supervisors, with other staff, with pupils, from the beginning of their teaching round till the end. We explore the message they have heard in each of these encounters and their response to it. For example what has the school communicated to them (reverse role and speak as the school) and how have they responded (put words to it). We go through such encounters in sequence. It is a good idea to take each of these in turn to explore and rehearse it, and then to run through the teaching round from beginning to end. Students can also ‘walk through’ their whole teacher education experience, exploring each significant encounter with people or ideas and reflecting on how of their notions of education and their own professional identity have developed. They can keep ‘walking through into the future’, exploring their vision of the creative possibilities of a teaching career. And so on… We occasionally start a class with a ten minute meditation, or a visualization. Or we start with a game of some sort, to establish a mood or warm up to a topic or a process. I have found that time spent on warm-up is rarely time wasted. This is not all we do. While some students cannot get enough of this sort of thing, there are others who have difficulty in acknowledging that experiential learning represents ‘real work’. They want me to tell them the ‘facts’ about teaching, not to have to discover, construct and articulate truths of their own. I have to meet these needs as well, especially in the beginning, by ‘telling them stuff’ in the conventional manner, if only to maintain credibility. However, I really believe that the best place to start teaching anything is to provide an experience which raises the questions which demand the answers. I fear that in tertiary education we waste a lot of time answering questions that haven’t been asked. It is better for student teachers to go into the profession mulling over unanswered questions than with no questions at all.

Conclusion This is not about making teacher education more entertaining, though that wouldn’t be a bad thing, for our experience tells us that bored students



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taught by bored teachers do not learn much. It is about making education more effective. Among other things, it is about shifting the focus of education from remembering to imagining. Unfortunately, schooling is too often focused on the past, on what is already known, rather than on imagined possibilities, even though, as David Bohm points out “the power to imagine things that have not been actually experienced has… commonly been regarded as a key aspect of creative and intelligent thought” (1996, p.50). More generally speaking, it is about engaging all five minds, all five ways of understanding. Egan sees somatic, mythical, romantic, philosophic and ironic understanding jostling together in our response to the world. I rather like the image of jostling. Maclean gives us an even more vigorous image when he compares the interaction of our reptilian (brainstem), old mammalian (limbic system), and neo-mammalian (cerebral cortex) brains to three drivers, each with a separate steering wheel and its own idea of where it wants to go, all trying to drive our car at once. (If we graft the notion of brain lateralisation on to Maclean’s theory of the triune brain we find four drivers, with left brain and right brain also competing for control). Gebser suggests that we have reached a point in human history where the jostling must stop. He argues that a new (integral, holistic) kind of thinking is urgently required for our survival. If he is correct in his observation that this new kind of thinking is currently emerging in our cultural consciousness, we may suggest that the role teachers play in this is a critical one. We may also suggest that they are not always well prepared for it. The infant and primary teachers among us may know how to engage the magical consciousness of early childhood through ritual and incantation; teachers in the middle years may know how to engage the older child’s mythical/romantic consciousness through story and discovery; secondary teachers may even have some success in engaging the adolescent’s mental/philosophic consciousness, giving them the occasional satisfaction of thinking scientifically, mathematically, analytically, even aesthetically in their quest for the truth; tertiary teachers may know how to reinforce these particular cognitive skills. However, we may fail to acknowledge that these ways of understanding are not phasespecific, that the developmentally later, more complex, cognitive tools do not displace or disable the simpler tools which precede them, but sit side by side with them. We may lack the readiness to engage all of these ways of understanding in the education of prospective teachers. Yet there is more to it than this. Gebser, Egan and Kegan propose that we have a fifth ‘mind’. There is a structure of consciousness or a way of understanding which transcends mental/philosophic/fourth order



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consciousness. Integral, ironic, fifth order understanding not only preserves the simpler kinds of understanding but finds in them the foundations for a new way of perceiving and understanding the world. For Egan, ironic understanding manifests a reflexiveness which “brings along with it Mythic, Romantic, and Philosophic thinking, thereby enriching one’s ordinary everyday perceptions and transforming pervasive doubt and negativity into possibility” (1996, p.161). Kieran Egan’s suggestion that the capacity for ironic thinking is essential for surviving in the kind of society and culture we now experience echoes Robert Kegan’s observation that a postmodern society demands that we be capable of ‘fifth order’, multi-perspectivist thinking. Gebser goes further, with his observation that only a new kind of thinking will enable us to survive the crisis of our world and of our times. He goes to some length to describe the kind of thinking (arational, aperspectival, atemporal, nondualistic, nonegoic, transpersonal) he is talking about. He also goes to some trouble to assert that while his model of emerging structures of consciousness (archaicmagic-mythical-mental-integral) proceeds from simplest to most complex it does not progress from worse to better. For him, like Egan, we are fiveminded animals, and all of our five minds have their place in our lives and, we may say, in education. The industrial-era thinking which dominated educational decisionmaking in Australia during the past couple of decades, and which seems to be replicated in the ‘education revolution’ promised by the current government (2010), is not merely ineffective but damaging. It seems likely that we can look forward to increasing standardisation of content and provision in teacher education. In my own university during the past two decades we have suffered the rhetoric of efficiency, accountability and instrumentalism and a systematic effort to banish forever the horrors of ‘over-servicing’. We have simultaneously suffered the experience of diminished imagination, diminished resources and declining standards. I suggest that any real ‘education revolution’ will bring creativity, spontaneity, imagination and play to the University curriculum in the places where they have been lost or neglected.

References Bohm, D. (1996). On creativity. London: Routledge. Donald, M. (1991). Origins of the modern mind: Three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.



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Egan, K. (1997). The educated mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Gebser, J. (1985). The ever present origin. (Trans. Neil Barstad) Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. Horney, K. (1948). Our inner conflicts. New York: Norton. Jaynes, J. (1976). The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral Brain. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Kegan, R. (1994). In over our heads: The mental demands of modern life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. MacLean, P. (1990). The triune brain in evolution. New York: Plenum Press. Neville, B. (1981). The multi-purpose multi-phasic tower-building blocks game. Small Groups Newsletter, 4, 11-13. Ornstein, R. (1991). Evolution of consciousness: The origins of the way we think. New York: Touchstone.