1. Developing minds and imaginations 14 th. April, 2010 University of Exeter Kieran Egan Simon Fraser University

2. Development of children’s minds Homogenizing/socializing Accumulating privileged knowledge Psychological development Cognitive tool acquisition What are cognitive tools? 75,000 years ago to today.

3. Kinds of Understanding IE is based on five distinctive kinds of understanding that enable people to make sense of the world in different ways enable each student to develop these five kinds of understanding while they are learning math, science, social studies, and all other subjects needs to be accomplished in a certain order because each kind of understanding represents an increasingly complex way that we learn to use language Somatic Understanding (pre-linguistic) Mythic Understanding (oral language) Romantic Understanding (written language) Philosophic Understanding (theoretic use of language) Ironic Understanding (reflexive use of language)

4. Somatic Understanding understand experience in a physical, proto-linguistic way physically relates to the objects and persons encountered

5. Somatic: the body’s toolkit Bodily senses Emotional responses & attachments Humor & expectations Musicality, rhythm, & pattern Gesture & communication Intentionality “little factories of understanding” Ted Hughes

6. bodily senses Minds and bodies--rather than enminded body and embodied mind. Mind spreads into senses Games that bring them together--plops, clicks and touch Basis for further understanding-- Einstein and light waves; Taliban education minister.

7. emotional responses & attachments Orientors to knowledge throughout life Fundamental organizers of our cognition Expectation and frustration, or satisfaction “perfinkers” Setting us in a network of love & care

8. humour & expectations The smile appears at a uniform time in children everywhere, even deaf/blind Peek-a-boo The unexpected and incongruous Affectionate communication nets

9. musicality, pattern & rhythm Singing Neanderthals (Steven Mithen) Rhythm tracking Walking, marching, and dancing We are a musical animal Meaning in pattern

10. gesture & communication & intentionality Baby, cat, and door Novel combinations, from the beginning “interlock the infant’s growing mind with those of its caretakers and ultimately the broader society” Merlin Donald (1991, p. 255)

11. Mythic Understanding understand experience through oral language now rely on language to discuss, represent, and understand even things not experienced in person

12. The toolkit of oral language Story Abstraction and emotion Opposites and mediation Affective images generated from words Jokes and humour Metaphor Sense of mystery and wonder

13. Cognitive tools: Story

14. Cognitive tools: Abstraction and emotion The structure of children’s fantasy: articulated on binary oppositions; abstract; affective. Concrete content requires abstract concepts.

15. Cognitive tool: Opposites and mediation

16. Cognitive tools: Affective images generated from words Teacher and Japanese garden Image and concept in teaching Image and emotion

17. Cognitive tools: Jokes and humour When is a door not a door? What do you call a bear with no ear? Why did Lucy cross the playground? Observing language as an object, not just a behaviour Vivifies thought and language, and, incidentally, gives pleasure to life

18. Cognitive tools: Metaphor Tool that enables us to see one thing in terms of another Lies at the heart of human inventiveness, creativity and imagination Maintaining children’s metaphoric capacity

19. Cognitive tools: Sense of mystery and wonder Isaac Newton as an old man Representing the world as known, and rather dull. What a wonderful adventure!

20. From cognitive tools to planning teaching

21. Examples: Mythic understanding Teaching “properties of the air” in grade 3 Teaching place value in grade 2

22. Cognitive tools so far: Story Abstract and affective binary opposites Affective mental images Jokes and humour Metaphor Mystery and wonder

23. Romantic Understanding understand experience through written language Literacy in a New Key: Literacy as a cultural acquisition and the learning tools it can provide

25. From oral to literate culture Cinderella to Superman: Peter Rabbit to Hazel and Bigwig ‘win’ in ‘window’ : ‘at’ from ‘cat’ : stop and watch the stopwatch White bears on Novaya Zemla; Blue shamrocks on Sirius 5.

26. The literate eye The list The inventory The table The flowchart Organizing experience and features of the world in visually accessible terms

27. Extremes and limits of reality

28. romance, wonder, and awe

29. associating with the heroic

30. revolt and idealism

31. matters of detail

32. humanizing knowledge

34. Examples Teaching about eels in grade 8 Teaching “interior opposite angles are congruent” in grade 7

35. Underlying principle All knowledge is human knowledge; it grows out of human hopes, fears, and passions. Imaginative engagement with knowledge comes from learning in the context of the hopes, fears, and passions from which it has grown or in which it finds a living meaning.

36. Romantic cognitive tools so far: The literate eye Extremes and limits of reality Romance, wonder, and awe Associating with the heroic Maters of detail Humanizing knowledge

37. Transition from Romantic Understanding Processes rather than discrete events (feudalism/local politics) Agents/victims within processes rather than transcendent players From limits and extremes to charting terrain (kinds of maps) From induction to deduction—more of the time From lay-literate to theoretic communities

38. Supporting philosophic understanding The craving for generality From transcendent player to historical agent General schemes and their anomalies The search for authority and truth Definition of the self

39. The craving for generality The reduction of phenomena within established “laws” Conception of regular universal sequence Development of an abstract vocabulary

40. From transcendent players to historical agents Related to the world via complex chains and networks “I am born with a past” Imagining the past and remembering the future (Namier).

41. General schemes and their anomalies Metanarratives of nature, society, history, psychology: the nature of things Focus on what supports general scheme Anomalies come along with supports Anomalies gradually compel adjustment of general schemes Anomalies overwhelm general schemes--ideally

42. The search for authority and truth Products of philosophizing yield truths Tests to yield certain knowledge Elimination of metaphor, intuition, images, speculation, and the “poetic” A privileged view of reality—objective Dictionaries, encyclopedias, textbooks

43. Definition of the self Defined by social, historical, psychological etc. processes Secured by knowing the Truth, by finding one’s place in the metanarrative or general scheme

44. Philosophic Planning Framework 1. Identifying powerful underlying ideas 2. Organizing the content into a theoretic structure 2.1. Initial access 2.2. Organizing the body of the lesson or unit 3. Introducing anomalies to the theory 4. Presenting alternative general theories 5. Encouraging development of the students’ sense of agency 6. Conclusion 7. Evaluation

46. Ironic Understanding Irony and Socrates “’Tis all in peeces, all cohaerance gone” (“alienating”) More inclusive irony (“sophisticated”) Modulator of other kinds of understanding and cognitive toolkits

47. Please feel free to contact us to give us your feedback, to join our online community, or to receive more information. Imaginative Education Research Group c/o Faculty of Education Simon Fraser University Burnaby, B.C. Canada V5A 1S6. Ph: 778-782-4479 Fax: 778-782-7014 Email: ierg-ed@sfu.ca http://www.ierg.net