The Educational Imagination: Reflection

 This article was both familiar and unfamiliar to me. There were many ideas that were new to me and a few that I had encountered before. The first thing that stopped me in the article was this idea that because classrooms are crowded, children need to learn to delay their gratification, as the teacher cannot give every student their attention all the time. This is something that I've subconsciously been aware of, and something that I would have categorized under learning 'social skills', and regarded as a positive. Reading the article however, they don't necessarily frame this as a positive thing. It really made me think about what other things I view as positive in the classroom, without critically examining them. For instance, is it good that we're teaching students to delay their gratification in this way? What is it preparing them for? Reflecting on my own learning, the best experiences for me were often in very small groups, where the class was ten students or less. Something that contributed to my learning was this instant gratification from my instructor - I could participate more freely, ask a question - get an answer right away, they could instantly check my understanding by asking me a question. Are there many places in the 'real world' where we encounter such large groups that we must work within? Or is this an artifact of schools that we are socializing kids to just because of resource constraints?

Another thing that stopped me in the article was 'The cultivation of imagination is not a utopian aspiration'. As a person, I deeply value art, imagination, and creativity. Something that I try to communicate about mathematics is how deeply creative and artistic it is. I think that math is often taught in a very 'left brained' way - meaning that it follows a predicable pattern, and everything is very algorithmic. To me, this way of thinking about math could not be farther from the truth. Good mathematics is out of the box, it's creative, often times it's brand new! It requires the ability to relate seemingly unrelated things, to build connections cross-disciplinarily, to think around problems, to visualize strange concepts (how do you really think in n dimensions? what does that even look like?!), the list goes on and on. Good mathematics require your whole brain, the left and right hemispheres, and this should be cultivated in schools today, not in some far off utopian future where art can be pursued because we've 'solved' all the worlds problems and can now take a break. 

I think that the BC curriculum does connect with Eisners ideas. I wasn't too familiar with the BC curriculum so I looked it up for math 10. Some things that stood out to me were 'Think creatively and with curiosity and wonder when exploring problems', 'Develop, demonstrate, and apply mathematical understanding through play, story, inquiry, and problem solving', 'Take risks when offering ideas in classroom discourse', and 'Use mistakes as opportunities to advance learning'. I think these things speak the hidden curriculum that Eisner discusses. The last two points highlight social learning - taking risks in the classrooms, learning from mistakes. The first two speak to valuing art and creativity as much as we value science and math. I actually really like the BC curriculum and I'm excited to work with it!