IMAGINATION

source:www.wallpapersforall.com/imagination-wallpaper-2/

 

 “There’s no use trying,” Alice said, “One can’t believe impossible things.”  

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. 

“When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. 

Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass -

by Carol Read's ABC of Teaching Children

We may not subscribe to the White Queen’s idea of a daily half-hour of imagination practice or set our children homework to believe six impossible things before breakfast. However, if we ignore the importance of developing children’s imagination – and the other side of the coin, which is teaching imaginatively ourselves – we are likely to be far less effective with our classes, whatever their age.

Imagination is to do with conceptualising and visualising with our ‘mind’s eye’. It is to do with thinking ‘outside the box’ and believing that things apparently not real or possible could be or are. Through using our imaginations we generate fresh thinking and new ideas. Through teaching imaginatively in a way that integrates, builds on and develops the imagination, children become better at such things as:

• asking ‘good’ questions
• thinking creatively
• solving problems
• understanding concepts from other areas of the curriculum
• seeing different points of view
• empathising with others
• evaluating their own and others’ ideas
• thinking in images
• remembering and memorizing
• goal-setting
• relating what they learn to other things they know
• expressing and communicating their ideas (whether verbally, or visually through drawing, or kinesthetically through mime or drama).

When we look for opportunities in our teaching to build on children’s natural capacity to imagine in order to help them learn language, there are a number of other significant benefits too:

• Children become more engaged in their learning.
• They feel greater “ownership” of what they learn.
• There is a higher level of involvement and participation.
• Children feel their ideas are valued.
• They develop greater self-confidence and self-esteem.
• They become more respectful of, and willing to listen to, others.
• There is increased humour and enjoyment in lessons.
• Children’s concentration spans increase.
• Their behaviour improves.