Does Imagination Fit in the Education Puzzle?

By Melissa 

Have you ever looked at a box of crayons and wondered what the point of the white crayon is? I have to say that I was the culprit of that exact thought for many years, until I realized the motivation behind that thought. Throughout my childhood years I was allowed the glorious freedom to draw with no rules or limitations except one: The white crayon must not be used. As a child, I took the rule at face value and did not think it would hurt me to not use white. As an adult, I realized there was one crucial aspect of my childhood that I was shutting out by not using that prohibited color. My teachers were stifling my imagination.

Imagination cannot be bottled or recorded, but to a child between the ages of 0 and 8 imagination is better than their birthday and Christmas combined. After my realization about my coloring days, I thought about where else imagination was left out of the education puzzle?  How many times could the use of my imagination have led me to a better understanding of the world around me? Seeing as my memory isn’t the best, I looked to my current students where I am student teaching and to the internet for research. After careful observations, I realized that for my students their imagination is their connection. It is something for them to hold onto and to cherish. I know this is a bit of a paradox, because you cannot touch or feel imagination. When you are a child though, it is as if they can. Imagination incites a feeling in them that holds more weight than something physical. They need that imagination for the value in their work. Vygotzky believed that the imagination was not just an important part of the school day, but a necessity. He said, ‘imagination is not just an idle mental amusement, not merely an activity without consequences in reality, but rather a function essential to life’ (Vygotzky, p. 13, 2004). Unfortunately, there is little time for them to express these imaginations. They are quickly stifled because of the ever so infamous line in teaching “We do not have time, save it for later”.

As far as the research I so hoped I would find on this topic to justify my beliefs, there was much less than imagined. The philosopher Kieran Egan believed the small amount of research was due to the fact that it is too complex, but “ if we pay attention to children’s imagination rather than to their logical skills, we can observe features of their learning that are often observed” (Egan, p. 27, 1994). As teachers we say our goal is to learn as much from our students as they learn from us, but imagination is a dream place to do so that is never seen as a priority. 

We do make learning about children’s real life and tangible experiences a priority in education. I am not discounting the benefits, but highlighting the fact that as teachers we have to acknowledge a child’s imagination as an experience for them. They have created their own experience and story which is more known to them than any experience that was chosen for them to do by someone else. As teachers, rather than planning our lessons “in terms of objectives to be attained and more in terms of good stories to be told” the possibilities of what we can learn from our students is limitless (Egan, p. 31, 1994). I charge you to let the white crayon be used as much as possible.