Imagination in Teaching and Learning

The Middle School Years

Kieran Egan

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780226190358, 9780226190334
• eBook ISBN: 9780226244136
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

It is widely believed that a child's imagination ought to be
stimulated and developed in education. Yet, few teachers
understand what imagination is or how it lends itself to
practical methods and techniques that can be used easily in
classroom instruction. In this book, Kieran Egan—winner of
the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for his work on
imagination—takes up where his Teaching as Story Telling
left off, offering practical help for teachers who want to
engage, stimulate, and develop the imaginative and learning
processes of children between the ages of eight to fifteen.

This book is not about unusually imaginative students and
teachers. Rather, it is about the typical student's
imaginative life and how it can be stimulated in learning,
how the average teacher can plan to achieve this aim, and how
the curriculum can be structured to help achieve this aim.
Slim and determinedly practical, this book contains a wealth
of concrete examples of curriculum design and teaching
techniques structured to appeal specifically to children in
their middle school years.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• I. A Very Short History of the Imagination
• II. Why Is Imagination Important to Education?
• III. Characteristics of Students' Imaginative Lives, Ages 8-15
• IV. Imagination and Teaching
• V. Image and Concept
• VI. Some Further Examples
• Conclusion
• References
• Index