robert fitzgerald, phd

News from IERG...
The 6th. Conference on Imagination and Education was held in Canberra, Australia from Jan. 29th. To Jan. 31st. 2008. Participants came from more than a dozen countries. It was a lively and excellent event. Sean Blenkinsop, Tannis Calder, Kieran Egan, Mark Fettes, Kathryn Ricketts, Kym Stewart, and Jean Warburton came from the IERG at SFU. The Dean of Education at SFU, Dr. Paul Shaker also attended, and graciously introduced Kieran Egan’s talk.The conference theme was "Imaginative practice, imaginative inquiry" and it aimed to connect a cross-section of educators and administrators from elementary & high schools, universities, professional organizations and work-place settings in a dialogue and exploration of imaginative and creative ways of teaching, learning and conducting educational inquiry.Miranda Armstrong, long a user of IERG ideas in Australia, gave one of the most generally appreciated talks. Sean Blenkinsop, Tannis Calder, Mark Fettes, and Kym Stewart each gave well-attended and appreciated talks. Kathryn Ricketts led a significant group in a dance workshop. Noel Gogh and Bernie Neville, from LaTrobe University, were also prominent speakers. The organizers of the conference were IERG’s long-time and valued associate Thomas Neilson and Robert Fitzgerald seen here. After the conference a group gathered at the University of Canberra to discuss future steps for IERG-Australia and began the tasks involved in seeking grants and setting the new group on its feet.

We are finalising submissions for the 6th International Conference on Imagination and Education to be held 29-31 January in Canberra next year. To date we have over 110 submissions and the program promises to be varied and stimulating. Once we are through the review process submissions will be available via our online conference system. This system has been developed by the folk at UBC & SFU as part of the Public Knowledge Project which...

"is a federally funded research initiative at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University on the west coast of Canada. It seeks to improve the scholarly and public quality of academic research through the development of innovative online environments. PKP has developed free, open source software for the management, publishing, and indexing of journals and conferences. Open Journal Systems and Open Conference Systems increase access to knowledge, improve management, and reduce publishing costs. See Software & Services for demos, downloads, and information about these systems."

The beginning of 2008 will see a noteworthy event held in Australia for the first time. The Imaginative Education Research Group (IERG) at Simon Fraser University, Canada, and IERG associates at the University of Canberra are hosting the 6th International Conference on Imagination and Education. The conference aims to stimulate discussion of imaginative education and its applications in all sites of learning, and to ensure that educational experiences are imaginatively engaging for both teachers and learners. The work of the IERG (and others) can be seen as part of a growing swell of interest in imagination and the way in which it influences creative and emotionally engaging education. In the last fifteen years brain research has confirmed the importance of engaging affective domains in learners (e.g. Damasio 2003; LeDoux 1996), showing that to do so increases levels of attention, retention and enjoyment in the act of learning. Research into how our brain works has also shown that emotional engagement is closely related to images and the imagination (see LeDoux 1996). When we imagine, the part of the brain associated with emotions, the amygdala, is activated together with the cortex of the brain (where logical processes mainly take place). In other words, if we engage students’ imagination, we engage their affective domains, resulting in a more enjoyable and memorable learning journey.

One of the keynote-speakers at the 6th International Conference on Imagination and Education, the Canadian Professor of Education, Kieran Egan, also sees imaginative education as a means of engaging children emotionally in learning. Egan’s work, perhaps best exemplified in The Educated Mind (1997), has become a noticeable contender in effecting a paradigm shift in education that supports the recent developments in brain research. Rationality is not simply a set of computing skills; the mind works as a whole, and its whole includes our bodies and our emotions and imaginations. (Egan 2005, p.100) Egan builds on the philosophical premise that children learn more deeply and more profoundly through interacting with what they can imagine. He grounds his theoretical approach with practical ‘cognitive tools’ such as the use of story-telling, metaphor, binary opposites, jokes and humour, and association with heroes, etc. – mental and culturally inherited tools which become progressively more sophisticated as the child develops. As such, Egan provides a conceptual framework for understanding imaginative education as both a philosophically and methodologically very different approach to education than has been seen so far.

Note: if you want to know more about the upcoming 6th International Conference on Imagination and Education: “Imaginative Theory, Imaginative Practice”, to be held in Australia for the first time from Tuesday 29th January to Thursday 31th January, at the Rydges Hotel by the Lake, Canberra, please visit http://imaginativeeducation.org/conferences

REFERENCES

Damasio, A. R. (2003). Looking for Spinoza : Joy, sorrow, and the feeling brain. London: Harcourt.

Egan, K (1997). The Educated Mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding Chicago; University of Chicago Press.

Egan, K. (2005). An Imaginative Approach to Teaching. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass A Wiley Company.

LeDoux, J.E. (1996). The Emotional Brain. New York, Simon and Schuster.