IMAGINATION: THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENT IN CREATIVITY AND ARTS EDUCATION
Gerda van de Windt
Imagination, that
is the ability to mentally visualize images and create things that are
unique and have value in society, underlies our modern
concept of reality. It is illustrated
through universal myth and the dreams of individuals. We are all born mythic thinkers and
our imagination is the basis of learning everything about
our reality with a child's innate sense
of enchantment and wonder. Teachers and the educational
curriculum must learn to facilitate
this innate ability to think mythically and visually
through fantasy and play. Only through
the development of our imagination, which is so readily
accessible in childhood, can we
teach and learn to visualize a better future for our
troubled world. By imagining the reality
of others, and learning respect for the diversity of
cultures and the natural world, can a child
reach his or her true potential and work together with
others to improve our world. Our
existence on this planet depends on a new imagining of reality,
where people learn to work
and play together in nature, and protect each other and
the beauty of the natural world, the
animals, and all other living creatures with whom we share
this world. Arts Education is
crucial in the development of the imagination, and should be
seen as the focus of the
educational curriculum.
The Arts are the basis of all education, and the imagination is
the stairway to the healing of our world and her
inhabitants. As if on the wings of
reality,
our imagination can visualize a new and brighter future
for our troubled world.
The concept of imagination has been
defined as the capacity to think of things in terms
of possibilities, and is a conscious and intentional act
of mind as well as the source of
new and useful ideas and things in a particular context
or discipline (Egan:43). Without
imagination to inspire us, evolution and development would cease
to be, both in the Arts
and how we live in this world. By the interplay of the imagination and our
rational minds,
we can visualize and bring to form a culture for the new
millennium where we can live in
peace with each other.
The concept of the imagination is complex
and has close connections with both memory and
emotion. Oral cultures depended on the imagination to pass on
their myths, stories, songs and
dances to the next generation but with the advent of
monotheism the people's imagination could
"remember a past and imagine a future different from the
past." (Egan:13).
Plato rejected the
imagination and wrote that artists and poets must be banned from
society. He began a long
history of division of the imagination and the senses from
the rational and the abstract notions
of truth.
Aristotle had more respect for artists and realized that through
creative achievements,
the artists tried to represent universal metaphors of the
human experience through "mental
images that connect to the sensations of the world with
reason. The imagination is constantly
involved in intellectual activity." (Egan:15).
Bailin agrees
that creative achievement requires the use of the imagination, but the
imagination is not a component of the thinking process that can
be separated from, nor can it
transcend the level of skill in a given context or
discipline. Rather, skill and
imagination are
interwoven, and the reciprocal interaction between them allows
for creative achievement and
growth to manifest in new and useful developments in a given
context or discipline. (Bailin:111).
These skills must be
taught in the school curriculum so that students have the necessary
knowledge in the disciplines to effectively engage the
imagination which is crucial for creative
achievement. Instead of
the Platonian distrust of the senses and the imagination
as a
"distrusted servant to the intellect" (Egan:18), our
imaginative faculties connect us to the
source of our being which is embedded in our bodily
experiences. From the day we are born,
we use our imagination to create meaning from our environment,
and to visualize our place
in both the land and the culture. The innate cognitive ability to creatively
balance between
reality and the imagination, allows a child to learn through
the senses, and by using memory
and emotion, through stories and play.
After the Enlightenment and Cartesian
dualism, the imagination increasingly becomes
separated from reason.
Descartes claimed that the "imagination is not necessary to my
essence" and saw the "imagination, passions as
obstacles to be overcome by reason
in its search for truth..." (Egan:21).
Kant described the imagination as a
natural function that is at the basis of perception. It
provides the fundamental structure to what we experience, and
what we experience is pre-
determined by the imagination. (Egan:21. The imagination lies at the very source of
our
reasoning, and cannot be separated from cognitive processes if
those cognitive processes are
to be effective. The
mind constantly plays back and forth between imagination and rationality
and cannot be separated as they are part of a whole. And imagination is part of everybody's
cognition, and is not limited to only a special few. The imagination is a necessary cognitive
tool for survival, as well as a source of great wisdom and
pleasure, and is part of all of us at
birth. We all have it, and use it constantly in our daily
life. Survival demands it. But it must
be "cultivated indirectly. It grows, if it grows at all, as a
consequence of our efforts in imparting
understanding...and (must be) taught in a imaginative way, so that
much that cannot be taught
may be caught..." (Barrow:90).
The spontaneous generation of images that
comes out of memory and emotions, is part of
the cognitive process and acts to balance the rational
act of consciousness to make meaning
from our surroundings.
The imagination enables us to see beyond the established and known
traditions in a particular context and is crucial for growth and
development to occur. However,
it also requires the a solid knowledge of the skills of
the given discipline as support, and then the
imagination can freely explore and play with new and useful
possibilities. It is crucial that the
skills be taught in the school curriculum to provide the
student with the cognitive tools to project
their thinking and to underpin the imagination. The knowledge of what has gone before, and
the
traditions of a discipline is also necessary, if the individual
or group is to take the evolution of a
concept further along its development in a manner that can be
seen to be of value to the
community within particular context in which it occurs. The imagination cannot autonomously
provide the leaps of discovery without the skills to support
it, and these skills must be taught so
that the next generation is able to add to the dialogue in
a particular discipline in an effective
and valuable way.
Imaginative vision depends on the organization of ideas of the previous
generations so that new ideas and things may be generated out of
the possibilities presented
to us through our imagination. (Bailin:111).
The imagination in harmony with the skills
and knowledge that has been assimilated in
our minds, is able to reshape existing ideas in new and
effective ways. This occurs through-
out the creative process, as the mind perceives the many
varieties of possibilities and makes
choices of what to leave in and what to leave out. This is a constant process of using the
learned and now semi-conscious skills and knowledge, and the
conscious act of judgment.
But to the individual
it is experienced as a dance between two different ways of thinking and
feeling, which might lead to the idea that the imagination is
strictly an unconscious act.
Because there is a strong emotional
component to the interaction with our imagination,
we often think that this process is an unconscious
one. Freud wrote that the imagination
was related to unfulfilled wishes in our childhood that
had been repressed and came into
consciousness through the creative process. There may be some truth to that, as contact
with the imagination may allow repressed feelings and
emotions to surface and manifest
themselves into the art making process. However, our rational thinking has a emotional
component to it as well.
Cognition is full of emotionality, and can be experienced when
we are surprised by what the imagination presents to us
in new ideas and things. The
creative act is one of discovery and surprise and often makes
us aware of things in wonder
and awe of the diversity of possibilities. Indeed, without this awe and wonder we only
perpetuate the known and the given of the traditional, and are
unable to extend our minds
to see the new and wonderful possibilities in the
context in which we work. It has been
noted, that the new and possible can only be a
rearrangement of existing paradigms, and
that everything has been thought before. Only by the reorganization of existing
knowledge
can evolution of the traditions and concepts be
generated. This knowledge of tradition,
and the skills are the underpinnings of all creative
achievement (Portelli & Bailin:40), and
are crucial for effective and useful change. Once this knowledge and skill has been
learned
it will manifest itself as seemingly unconscious,
however they are high-speed problem-
solving and rational processes that reflect the level of
individual mastery and expertise.
(Portelli
& Bailin:46).
There are many different ways that we can
engage our imagination, be it visual, verbal
or aural, but it must be a conscious conceptualization
if it be effective and useful in some
context. (Barrow:86). The imagination grows through cultivation and
understanding of the
unfamiliar and unknown which is exciting and stimulating as
exploration and understanding
feeds our need for knowledge. This need for nourishment of
knowledge is the beginning of
intellectual stimulation to know about the diversity of the human
experience. (Barrow:90).
This is important to education, as
teachers must learn to teach imaginatively in order to
engage their students in effective thinking processes. Children are naturally imaginative
and creative, and are able to creatively interact and
create meaning of their world through
mythic thinking and playing 'as if' they become socialized
in their culture. The school
curriculum must facilitate this natural ability or children to
emotionally interact with others
and learn to live in their culture through the use of
their imagination. Often the
acculturation
process deprives the student of their innate power to
visualize in an imaginative manner. As
they are taught the foundations of knowledge and skills of
the traditions of the various disciplines,
they loose their ability to engage freely with their
imagination in useful and valuable ways.
The
solid underpinnings of tradition within a context then
become a confinement to the powerful
cognitive ability that students enter the school system with to
imaginatively conceptualize and
reorganize the given, in order that they discover new and
dynamic ways of doing and creating
in their environment.
If teachers learn to facilitate the child's imaginative faculties, they
will be
able to visualize a better way to interact and create a
better world for themselves and for others.
Children are born with their imagination
in tact, and they use it to make sense of their
environment from birth on.
As they develop their cognitive skills, the imagination is generally
repressed, and by the time they enter the school system, their
imagination has been
relegated to the background if not destroyed alltogether. The
innate ability to engage
their imagination in childhood must be fostered and further
developed by sensitive teaching.
The school curriculum must effectively use
this innate imaginative quality of children to
introduce students to the tremendous diversity in the world,
both throughout history and
across cultures.
Fostering the knowledge of the variety of experience of living in our
world
will open up the students' understanding of the
other. The customs and practices and the
variety of the values and beliefs that different people and
cultures base their knowledge upon
will allow the students to understand and effectively
learn from others outside their frame of
reference.
The new global society of the internet and
easy and generally safe travel across the
world, is facilitating an unprecedented understanding and
knowledge of the ways of being
of others, and is invaluable in strengthening students'
ability to apply this new knowledge
to their own.
This cross fertilization of ideas, as well as the skills and traditions
of others,
is of tremendous importance, if we are to learn to live
in harmony on this fragile planet.
Not only the diversity of people and
cultures must be taught in the school curriculum, but
appreciation of the arts and the meaning of art in various
cultures along with the myths and
stories that give meaning to people must be presented to the
students and taught in a open
and imaginative way.
Through understanding of the values and beliefs that are embedded in
the arts from cultures across the world, the students may
learn in a enjoyable and aesthetic
manner why we are different.
This opening up of the known and given within our culture can
only benefit from this interaction, and together, as a
truly global community, we can begin
to heal this world and eachother,
and hopefully live together in a respectful way without the
need for conflict.
The future of our species depends on learning to get along, and only
through
understanding of the diversity of others, but also of the
similarities of the human experience,
can the imaging and creation of a peaceful world be
successfully achieved.
At the beginning of a new millennium,
intellectual thought within the educational curriculum
is needed to foster the imagination in our schools. We are in a unique position to manifest the
advent of a peaceful interaction in a global world, as
peacemaker in the world community. We lead in multiculturalism and living
together in a
pluralistic society with respectful interactions between a
enormous variety of people of different
cultures.
between eastern and western cultures. This interaction provides a unique
possibility of the
synthesis between the two ways of thinking and feeling which
have divided East and West for
centuries. This
interaction is a daily fact of life in our educational system, and must be
addressed and enhanced through the explorations of the
multiplicity of cultures in our world.
This is the great challenge that faces us
in the education of the next generation, to give
them the knowledge, as well as the tools and skills to
effect a new way of living together in
our world, where the strengths of the other are respected
and learned from, and empathy for
individual differences and the other's way of being. Only in a deep respect of the humanity of
everyone can we live in peace and build a better world for
all. Teachers can facilitate this
knowledge through the use of stories to illustrate and teach
the tremendous complexity of
the human experience and the contexts in which this
experience is embedded in the variety
of environments that this human experience has grown out
of.
The imaginative child can think of things
as possible in minute detail and they use their
imaginative faculties to invent and discover with great
originality because the child plays
with the notion of the possibilities of solutions rather
than what is actually there in reality.
This empowers the
child to freely try out a variety of solutions to problems, rather than to get
stuck in a traditional formula. The ability to come up with a number of
possible solutions
enhances the generation of novel and useful ideas beyond the
actual. (Egan:33). However,
a rational, cognitive choice must also be part of this
process, if the solution is to be effective
and useful, both to the child and to their
environment. Successful problem solving
requires
that there is balance between the imagination and rational
thinking, and that one mode of
thinking is not superior to the other mode of thinking. Rather, they need eachother
for
optimum cognition, reason balanced by passion, and vice
versa. Our intellect comes from
both our emotions and our reason, and work together in
order that we may explore and grow
in knowledge.
People have used their imagination since
time began to create meaning out of their
environment and used their imagination to teach their children
how to take care of the land
and animals on which their society depended for survival.
Oral cultures used the power of
myths, stories, songs and dances to teach the fundamental
truths of the cultural survival
of the group, in order that the next generation could
visualize the needed skills and knowledge
needed to survive.
Mythologies have explained and provided meaning to the natural world as
well as the individual's place within it and society, and
are a valuable cognitive tool that uses
memory and emotions to affectively connect with our innate
bodily knowing.
Through exploration of the mythologies of
the world, teachers
can begin to impart under-
standing of how the human race developed over time and place,
the challenges that people
learned to live with in their environments, and the reasons
why people think and act as they
do in order to make sense of their world. Dr. Eisner wrote that knowledge is a process
not
a commodity, and that books are codified symbols
only. He warns that the school
curriculum
develops children's articulation at the expense of their
innate ability to visualize imaginatively
which they are born with, and that they lose this through
acculturation. As teachers, we must
try to retain this natural ability for visualization in
children as well as provide them with the
knowledge necessary for acculturation, as a true synthesis
between the them will allow the
child to imagine, to see and visualize the experience of
being alive through their senses and
through their body knowing, as well as with their rational
mind. (Eisner:1-5).
The Arts and Humanities teach these
skills, but is neglected in our educational
curriculum.
Through exposure to
the traditions through history, art, literature, dance, drama, poetry and
music, the students will learn to engage emotionally and
intellectually to the power of the
imagination. Without this
knowledge, students are left with a limited concept of knowledge
which disempowers the next
generation from effectively generating and visualizing the necessary
changes that the ever changing environment demands from them.
Oral cultures and the
mythologies of the world are a valuable source of knowledge that
can be consulted for
symbolically teaching the individual his or her place in their
society, given the context of their
environment. Not only do
the myths, stories and songs teach the next generation their place
in society, but they also teach respect for their
environment and the animals and plants, that
cooexist with us and support the survival of the group. The individual learns that there is a
need for balance between the visionary and the conventions
of their society. This is simple
concept is vital to the educational and psychological benefit
of both the students and teachers
in the contemporary educational system. (Egan15-16). Through
interaction with other cultures
we can begin the work of healing the divisions that have
plaqued humanity for centuries. As
reason and imagination regain their rightful place in the
curriculum, and the Arts and Humanities
again become central to the educational curriculum, we will
live a more balanced and peaceful
existence with eachother.
Western culture, beginning with Plato, saw
reason and passion as opposite ways of thinking,
and this developed into an interpretation of conflict
between the two.. But the primitive oral
cultures knew that rationality was underpinned by fantasy and
the ability to allow the mind
freedom to wander and explore imaginatively and
passionately. Oral cultures enjoyed the
metaphorical way that the imaginative element of our thinking
could teach rational concepts as
to how to live daily life, and that this vital
information was remembered through the sensual and
symbolic interactions of the imagination.
Children are born as mythic thinkers and
use metaphor and fantasy to develop their
knowledge about their environment. Metaphor is fundamental to language and
thought and a
necessary tool for effective rational thinking. The child naturally explores his or her
environment
in a sensual and tactile manner. Through the senses one is able to experience
the world with
wonder and awe.
Children see the world, not as something to exploit, but as nature for
its own
sake, and they experience everything through engagement
with their emotions and their senses.
They see the beauty of
the trees, whereas "we see trees as lumber." (Egan:228).
Oral cultures also saw themselves as part
of nature, not opposed to it. They
understand the
interconnectedness between all things, and the responsibility that
society has to cultivate the
earth and protect the animals and plants from harm and
extinction. This was of thinking is
becoming extremely necessary today, as nature has been sadly
neglected and exploited. If
our culture is to have a future, a remembering that it is
the earth and her bounty that sustains
human life. Without the natural world, we will die, it is as simple as that, and this deep knowing
must be taught to the next generation, if there is hope
that humans continue to survive as a
species on this fragile planet.
Contemporary psychological research on the notion of the
creative process and the
imagination, have found that the imagination is a necessary part
of the creative process, and
that somewhere between the imagination and the reality
principle, the mind can play on a
infinite measure of continuum between these binary
opposites. Both imagination and
rationality
are necessary in order that a seperation from the here and now may occur without a complete
severing with the past.
(Csikszentmihayi: 63). The past and tradition generation from
effectively
generating and visualizing the necessary changes that the ever
changing environment demands
from them. The mythologies of the world provide a solid
foundation of knowledge and skill,
which can anchor the individual to his or her reality, and
serve to balance the imaginative flight
of fancy that often leads to original ideas or products.
For centuries, the oral cultures anchored
their societies symbollically
to their environment
through their myths and stories. Through sophisticated techniques of memory,
these stories
were passed along to the next generation. Generation after generation, each in turn,
memorized
these stories and songs to pass the traditions of the
culture to their children. This natural
instinct of human beings to communicate ideas metaphorically
in their myths, stories and songs
can be a effective tool for teaching the contemporary
student about the diversity of their reality.
The stories will
connect with the students to help provide and create meaning out of their life
experiences and their interpersonal relations, and provide modelling for approaching and
surviving in their environment.
It is crucial that we teach the next generation the notion of the
interconnectedness of all living things on this planet. This idea is a central to world
mythologies, and is a universal focus of oral cultures, as they
respected and lived in harmony
with their environment.
Education requires a reconnection with the
myths, stories and songs, but today from
every culture.
Western culture has long forgotten its myths, stories and songs by which
the people lived their everyday lives. The stories that supported the culture and
its values
and beliefs. To
live without a myth is to be set loose in the world, and to have no anchor
to one's environment.
The west can learn from the oral cultures that survive today, and
perhaps can, if not remember their myths and stories, create
new myth, for a new
millennium. One that we
can give to our children and feel good about.. A myth that will
anchor the next generation firmly to their place on and in
this world, and the inherent
responsibility that this position entails. But it will take the active use of our
imagination
to visualize this new myth that we so desperately need
today. A myth that we can all
share, not only with our children, but with other cultures
across this world. A myth
that we can be proud of.
A myth of light that can be added to the lights of other cultures
that lives in this world.
The Arts and Humanities are desperately
needed to become central in the educational
curriculum, as these areas are more inclined to be open to the
creativity that is possible
when we engage our imaginative faculties. Only through actively engaging with our
creative imagination, as individualsin
our chosen disciplines, be it academic, artistic or
living a 'authentic' life in the public world of business or
the private world of the family.
Collectively, our
individual imaginations can facilitate the rebuilding of the imbalances in
the contemporary consumer orientated world, where one
culture has abundance and the
other one starves.
In a world of abundance, these imbalances are not necessary.
Our imagination will actively present a
variety of solutions to problems that plaque the
modern world, all we need to do is make the choices
necessary to impliment them.This
will
require a good, hard look at the reality of our world, and
our place in it, and it will become
obvious that we must strive towards harmony, both in nature
and between cultures. The oral
cultures and they myths, stories, songs and dances can teach
contemporary western
culture tremendous wisdoms and knowledge when it comes to the
stewartship of this precious
planet. Everyday, it
becomes more apparent that the status quo cannot continue if we are
to survive as a species.
The children look to us, their elders, for
guidance and knowledge about the survival of the
world that they will inherit. Are we giving them what they so desperately
need and also want?
We do not have the
myths, stories, or song to pass on to them.
The stories that can anchor
the next generation to their environment, and teach them
to be respectful of the earth, and all
her creatures. And
the deep knowing that everything is connected as in a great web.
Everything reflects
and interacts with eveything else, and damage to one
part, damages the
whole. There are no
myths that tell our children how to live, love and play, as well as survive
and live in harmony with those around them, nor how to
live life in an authentic and honourable
manner. The oral
cultures still remember these great truths that knowledge is embedded in
nature and in the body and its experiences in the
environment, and we might respectfully learn
from them about living honourably
on this land.
The artist as well, has one foot straddled
in the imagination and the other in the 'real' world,
and is in a unique
position to share the magic of discovery, that is the creative process.
The Arts in all its
variety, underlies and provides a solid foundation for our known reality.
Without the Arts, the
human ability to create and imagine will shrivel up and become just
another marketing tool to be used to sell commodities to
people who only consumed. Barrow
wrote that the imagination need not be restricted to the
arts (Barrow:86). However, exposure
to the Arts will facilitate a person's understanding and
appreciation of the Arts, and nurture the
imagination of the
individual. The engagement with the
art-work will often resonate on a
emotional level, which
fosters the use of the imagination so that new ideas can be assimilated.
(Portelli
& Bailin:47).
Emotional engagement is part of our innate
and complex cognitive abilities and cannot be
separated from rational thinking. (Bailin:127). Rational processes are not antithetic to the
motional, and are part of our cognitive thinking. Our emotions are an important cognitive tool
in making evaluations and decisions about the multiple
stimuli that enters our thinking every
moment of the life.
Our emotions help us to make sense of our world and to create meaning
from our bodily experiences in our environment and
interactions with others. They prompt us
to action, but also require require
verfication with actual experience to be useful and
valuable
to others. (Portelli & Bailin:46).
Emotional engagement is the primal
cognitive tool that has helped our species to survive,
but must be balanced by rational thought to be at its
optimum power. A balance between the
imaginative, intuitive and emotional way of knowing, and rational
and practical knowledge must
be obtained in order that we can use our cognition to
its fullest. Western rationality and
Cartesian dualism has
explained reality as a separation between the imagination and rational
thought. This chism has separated us from nature, and can no longer be
seen as a viable
model for our culture's survival. Nature will always be here, but will we?
If western culture continues with its
destruction of the natural world, at the expense of
everything that coexists with us on this earth, we will be the
great losers. Diversity in
everything is what makes this planet thrive, and western
culture's focus on rationality as
the focus of cognitive thinking has damaged cultural and
natural ecosystems to the brink
of extinction.
Rationality must be tempered by the affective imagination so that human
thinking again regains its balance. As our thinking becomes more balanced between
passion and reason, our interactions with eachother
and with the natural world will also
become balanced.
We can learn much from eastern thought
about the use of our imagination, and by going
inward to consult our inner self and the universal
consciousness that underlies what we
perceive as reality.
There is a well of inner wisdom that lies waiting to be tapped, just
underneath consciousness.
The artist knows this place as well, as they have trained
themselves to enter this world of the imagination. The place where east and west meet, become
only binary opposites on a continuum of the same scale,
and active interaction between the two
is experiences as a continual dance of knowledge, both
of the body and of the mind. The artist
knows that it is a matter of keeping one foot firmly
anchored in this reality, as
the journey into the imagination is not without
danger. Reason is crucial to balance and
connect the individual who dares to explore the inner world
of the imagination. It is in this
manner that the artist can live as example to others as they
demonstrate that the dance
between imagination and reason can be one of joyful
interaction with the symbolic metaphors
they encounter during the creative process, and their
meaning for society which lies
embedded in the art products they create.
Mihaly Csikzentmihayi describes the contemporary artist as:
"They have struggled through
marshes of ignorance, deserts of disinterest,