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Imagine! Online-March/April 2007
Up one levelThis newsletter focuses on reseach and using IE in teaching.
Imaginative Education in Practice: A Conversation with Gianni Hadzigeorgiou
An interview with Gianni Hadzigeorgiou. One of our IERG associates, Gianni holds a BSc (Physics), from the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, Greece, a MA (Biomechanics) a MEd (Education), Leeds University, England, and an EdD (Doctor of Education) (major Curriculum and Instruction), University of Northern Iowa, USA. He currently holds the position of Associate Professor of Education at the University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece. His research interests include: curriculum reform (with an emphasis on science education), science concept development in young children through sensorimotor activities and narratives, and the role of imagination in science education.
Sean Blenkinsop describes his Current Work
Author: Sean Blenkinsop. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Sean Blenkinsop and I have been part of the Faculty of Education at SFU for almost 18 months and the IERG for almost 30. I was hired after a stint as an IERG post-doctoral researcher, which in turn happened shortly after finishing a doctorate in philosophy of education at Harvard. The result, you ask, of this whirlwind, beyond being a new faculty member and moving thousands of miles across Canada into the most expensive housing market our nation has to offer, well … I am the least known of the three co-directors of the IERG. So apparently, although anonymity has some significant advantages, my job, in 400 words or less, is to rectify that seeming dearth of knowledge and tell you a little more about my research interests and current research projects. My doctoral work focused on the philosophical school of existentialism, primarily relating to questions of choice, dialogue, and freedom, and was an initial exploration of thinking more comprehensively about a philosophy of education based in existentialism.
Dalene Swanson updates us on her IE Activities
Author: Dalene Swanson, who joined the IERG as a postdoctoral scholar in Imaginative Education in September 2006. Prior to that, Dalene completed her Ph.D. in Curriculum Studies at UBC and was honoured to receive four prestigious national and international awards for her doctoral research. Since joining SFU, Dalene has taught a required course in the Imaginative Education Master’s program at the Surrey campus. The EDUC 820 course, Current Issues in Curriculum and Pedagogy, ran from September to December 2006. Dalene thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the wonderful students in the Surrey cohort and having the opportunity to experience a strong sense of pedagogic community with them.
Owen Tyers discusses his Research
Author: Owen Tyers. As the human population grows and Western models of capitalism and consumption spread around the globe, what should be the aim of education in North America? What, if anything, can make a curriculum worthwhile in our rapidly changing, market driven, increasingly technological society? To explore these questions, Owen is considering the vital relationships between intelligence, education, and our ability to sustain ourselves as a species. A central component of his research involves the introduction of an extended framework of intelligence, the Pentad Model, along with the associated concept of environmental intelligence (ENVI).
Anne Chodakowski writes about IE and Teaching
Author: Anne Chodakowski. My research explores what Egan’s theory of imaginative education might imply for the theory and practice of teacher education. Underlying this investigation is the belief that the imaginations of students will be more regularly engaged in learning if pre-service teachers are familiar with the theory and practice of imaginative education and if those teachers are educated in ways that stimulate their own imaginations. One chapter specifically deals with Somatic Understanding. I suggest that Egan has not developed this notion as thoroughly as the other kinds of understanding. I build on his theory by exploring particular ways in which our understanding is embodied (both for pre-linguistic children and for adults—and everyone in between), how pre-service teachers might be encouraged to include Somatic Understanding in their classroom teaching, and how their own Somatic Understanding might be engaged more fully in their pre-service teacher education.
Gillian Judson explores IE's links to Ecology
Author: Gillian Judson, who is currently exploring the theoretical and practical terrains of imaginative education and ecological education. Three questions guide her research: What are the central features of ecological education? How might the imagination help ecological education realize its goals? What would an imaginative ecological education look like in practice? In pursuit of possible answers, Gillian’s doctoral research considers how to connect two currently unrelated educational fields: Egan’s (1997) theory of Imaginative Education on the one hand and ecological education on the other. How the imagination, with its emotional roots and somatic core, might facilitate the development of students’ ecological understanding, or sense of interconnectedness within the natural world, is currently unexplored terrain.
Catherine Broom investigates Historical Roots
Author: Catherine Broom. Catherine is fascinated with understanding the roots of the present through investigations of the past. She is currently conducting a historical study of BC’s Ministry of Education curriculum guides for social studies, focused on citizenship education. This research is particularly relevant as much interest has currently been fostered in academia regarding citizenship education and as the Ministry of Education in BC has just released a new Civics 11 course. [The new guide is found at: http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/civic11.pdf] She has completed research into the founding of this controversial subject and linked its emergence in BC in 1930 to the American progressive movement. She has discovered 6 major curriculum revisions to the curriculum guides over the twentieth century.
Lesson: A Romantic Guide to Transgression for high school English Literature
People have roles within their societies and are aware of the expectations inherent in those roles. However, an individual may assert that transgressing rules may be critical in the pursuit of a higher purpose, regardless of the consequences. Students will explore roles within their family, culture and society to determine the essential rules as well as the personal and societal consequences of transgressing them.
Dr. Popenici: Thank you and Farewell
Author: Kieran Egan. We greatly regret that Dr. Stefan Popenici's time with us is concluding at the end of April this year. Stefan has been an enormous help to the development of IERG, taking charge of setting up the website for IRNIE [http://imaginativeeducation.org/IRNIE], and arranging a mammoth trip for himself and IERG directors to meet with a number of our associates in Romania, Georgia, Italy, Spain and Israel to plan future research and development work.