Customer Reviews

An Imaginative Approach to Teaching

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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!