An Imaginative Approach to Teaching [Hardcover]

Kieran Egan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2005 | ISBN-10: 078797157X | ISBN-13: 978-0787971571 | Edition: 1

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

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Kieran Egan’s work on imagination and learning has addressed our needs as teachers to foster more creative thinking within our classrooms. Tapping into this creative energy has added a whole new level of fascination, not to mention fulfillment, to our ‘middle years’ teaching. We encourage all educators to use the book to put this unbelievable theory into practice in the near future!”
--Anne-Marie Dooner, Peter Obendoerfer, Nicole Marie Kerbrat, and Principal Verland Hicks, middle school educators, Ecole Leila North Community School, Winnipeg, Manitoba

"As we come to expect from Kieran Egan, this book is imaginative, engaging, wise, and practical. A terrific resource for teachers at every level."
--Nel Noddings, author, Happiness and Education and Lee Jacks Professor of Education Emerita, Stanford University

From the Inside Flap

How can we best help children through each stage of that long educational journey from pre-literate kindergarten to complex abstract thinking in high school?

In this book, award-winning educator Kieran Egan shows how we can transform the experience of K-12 students and help them become more knowledgeable and more creative in their thinking. At the core of this transformative process is imagination—which can become the heart of effective learning if it is tied to education's central tasks.

An Imaginative Approach to Teaching is a groundbreaking book that offers an understanding of how students' imaginations work in learning and shows how the acquisition of cognitive tools drives students' educational development. This approach is unique in that it engages both the imagination and emotions. The author clearly demonstrates how knowledge comes to life in students' minds if it is introduced in the context of human hopes, fears, and passions. To facilitate this new educational approach, the book includes a wide variety of effective teaching tools—such as story, rhythm, play, opposition, agency, and meta-narrative understanding—that value and build upon the way children understand their experiences. Most important, Egan provides frameworks for lesson planning and more than a dozen sample lessons to show how teachers can use these tools to awaken intelligence and imagination in the classroom.

Teachers, teacher educators, and staff development professionals will find this book to be an invaluable resource for understanding the theoretical underpinnings and practical strategies for effectively engaging students' imaginations.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (February 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078797157X
• ISBN-13: 978-0787971571
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,201,922 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars stimulating stuff, October 5, 2005

By 

Kristin Lems "Kristin/*" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Imaginative Approach to Teaching (Hardcover)

My hardcover book is now covered with pen marks in the margins, saying "Exactly!" "I've always felt this way!" and so on. Egan has touched on the whole conundrum of formal education -- that the wonderful mysteries of our lives and the world around us that should unfold throughout the process of getting educated are instead usually squelched! He talks about topics that "formal" educators ignore, but that really matter -- for example, the role of gossip in helping us remember information, the importance of children's "collections" (baseball cards, rocks, whatever!) and how they should not be discounted in the classroom, and much more. I also found provocative Egan's contention that activating prior knowledge is less important than activating future curiosity (or something to that effect). This is a natural choice for a preservice or inservice teacher education program because it brings up many topics that are glossed over or left out of programs. Teachers want to be creative, but most textbooks are dull, dull, dull -- leaving us in the same position as the students whose creativity we cherish. This is a keeper!