We’re pleased to welcome Paige Arnell to the blog as a guest writer on the role of imagination and creativity in education today. Paige is the head of school at Kirby Hall School, which serves PreK through 8th grade learners in Central Austin.
The imagination is an essential tool of the mind, a fundamental way of thinking.
—Ursula K. LeGuin
The changing landscape of childhood is much discussed in the parenting and education world. The reality of digital saturation generates much debating of how, when, and where, and pundits of varying authority weigh in on benefits and dangers. Whatever your philosophy, there is no question that we’ve entered a radically new way of growing up.
There are many points of entry for the anxious here. No matter your pedagogy or teaching philosophy, for all educators it is a time of considerable questioning and revising.
One thing that is becoming more and more evident is that for earlier generations so much of the “work” of learning was happening outside of the schoolhouse door. When children were bored and left to their own devices—without devices, when children were gathering in groups together to make their own entertainment, when children were staring down the long hours of a blank afternoon, they were actively engaging in this essential work of imagining. Out of necessity, they made something out of nothing. They invented a landscape of discovery and collaboration. Obviously, some children did more than others; there were leaders and followers. This is not new information. Waxing nostalgic for childhoods of the past appears to be a perpetual exercise of adulthood; however, what we are newly considering is how much this work of recreation dramatically affected the tasks of the classroom. We now are seeing that children entering school without this practice are at a deficit, and that the tasks of deep learning are becoming more difficult for them.
Imagination is the foundation of critical thinking. Without imagination, we have no creativity, we have no curiosity. Without imagination, one might argue, we have no thinking.
This is nothing new, and resources abound for creative activities for children. Unfortunately, what many of these amount to are really no more than decorative activities. A creative writing prompt, a craft with a specific end product, a writing “journal” with pre-filled images and fill-in-the-blank responses. Perhaps some glue, glitter, and markers will be involved. These are nice activities, and many children enjoy them, and they make for cute wall decoration, but they rarely require real working of the mind.
These times require more from all educators. These times require us to ask ourselves more challenging questions. They require us to evaluate what it might mean to prioritize the imagination within our classrooms and schools.