For generations, schools have aimed to introduce students to a broad range of topics through curriculum that ensure that they will at least have some acquaintance with most areas of human knowledge by the time they graduate. Yet such broad knowledge can't help but be somewhat superficial—and, as Kieran Egan argues, it omits a crucial aspect of true education: deep knowledge.Real education, Egan explains, consists of both general knowledge and detailed understanding, and in...

Saved from certain death on the Whistler-Vancouver highway after his luxury car malfunctions, Mark Morata feels honour-bound to reward his rescuer, Geoff Pybus, with a token of his undying gratitude. Geoff, a frustratingly humble university professor, happy with his family’s lot in life, only wants the impossible: for his modest, straightforward wife to get tenure at her university.Luckily, Mark is a man for whom impossible is just another word. As a sophisticated importer-exporter...

In this new and practical contribution to the importance of imagination in learning, Kieran Egan and his colleagues demonstrate how individual contributions to a coherent large-scale project can produce enormous results of great educational value. Helping all participants to feel pride for more than just their own individual work, such Whole School Projects (WSPs) encourage appreciation for the abilities of others and enable everyone involved to recognize that all kinds of learning styles,...

"A fascinating piece of writing, presenting ideas that are fresh and exciting."-Katherine Taddie Kelly, Literacy Coach and Reading InterventionistWaco Independent School District, TX"Focuses on enhancing students′ metalinguistic awareness and not just their intuitive use of words, fostering the development of higher mental functions."-Elena Bodrova, Senior ResearcherMcRELBring out the fun in fundamentals of literacy!...

Young people learn most readily when their imaginations are engaged and teachers teach most successfully when they are able to see their subject matter from their pupils' point of view. It is, however, difficult to define imagination in practice and even more difficult to make full use of its potential.In this original and stimulating book, Kieran Egan, winner of the prestigous Grawemeyer award for education in 1991, discusses what imagination really means for children and young pe...

It is widely believed that a child's imagination ought to bestimulated and developed in education. Yet, few teachersunderstand what imagination is or how it lends itself topractical methods and techniques that can be used easily inclassroom instruction. In this book, Kieran Egan—winner ofthe prestigious Grawemeyer Award for his work onimagination—takes up where his Teaching as Story Tellingleft off, offering practical help for teach...

For many children much of the time their experience in classrooms can be rather dull, and yet the world the school is supposed to initiate children into is full of wonder. This book offers a rich understanding of the nature and roles of wonder in general and provides multiple suggestions for to how to revive wonder in adults (teachers and curriculum makers) and how to keep it alive in children. Its aim is to show that adequate education needs to take seriously the task of evoking wonder ab...

This is a philosophical treatment of the conceptual and normative aspects of topics which are currently a matter of policy debate in education. The authors have focussed on such concepts as liberty, autonomy, equality and pluralism, and have provided a philosophical commentary which relates these concepts both to a background of philosophical literature, and to the institutional contexts and policy debates in which they function. The book will be of significance to all policy makers who ne...

Cultivating Curious and Creative Minds presents a plethora of approaches to developing human potential in areas not conventionally addressed. Organized in two parts, this international collection of essays provides viable educational alternatives to those currently holding sway in an era of high-stakes accountability. Taken together, the chapters in Part I of Cultivating Curious and Creative Minds provide a sampling of what the cultivation of curious and creative minds en...

This unique collection of chapters takes the reader on a tour to explore innovative preservice and inservice teacher education practices from many regions of the United States, Canada and the world. Each of the chapters offers an authentic, documentary account of successful initiatives that break the traditional mold of teacher education.Section I presents unique preservice teacher preparation programs and initiatives. These chapters offer compelling ideas to readers who seek chang...

Beginning with descriptions of the ways in which children make sense of their experience and the world, such as fantasy, stories and games, Egan constructs his argument that constituting this foundational layer are sets of cultural sense-making capacities, reflected in oral cultures throughout the world. Egan sees education as the acquisition of these sets of sense-making capacities, available in our culture, and his goal is to conceptualize primary education in a way that over comes the d...

This book describes four ‘layers’ or stages of education – Mythic, Romantic, Philosophic and Ironic and shows how children at each stage most effectively learn, and how they can be helped towards educational maturity. While drawing on a wide range of philosophical and psychological literature, this new theory is primarily constructed from close observation of children in their common and intense imaginative engagements, and in everyday educational practice.