Pedagogies of the Imagination: Mythopoetic Curriculum in Educational Practice

ISBN-13: 9781402082818 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008 / 270 str.

Timothy Leonard; Peter Willis

Opis

I have long admired the mythopoetic tradition in curriculum studies. That admiration followed from my experience as a high-school teacher of English in a wealthy suburb of New York City at the end of the 1960s. A dream job I taught four classes of 15 20 students during a nine-period day in a dream suburb (where I could afford to reside only by taking a room in a retired teacher s house), many of these often Ivy-League-bound students had everything but meaningful lives. This middle-class, Midwestern young teacher was flabbergasted. In one sense, my academic life has been devoted to understanding that searing experience. Matters of meaning seemed paramount in the curriculum field to which Paul Klohr introduced me at Ohio State. Klohr assigned me the work of curriculum theorists such as James B. Macdonald. Like Timothy Leonard (who also studied with Klohr at Ohio State) and Peter Willis, Macdonald (1995) understood that school reform was part of a broader cultural and political crisis in which meaning is but one casualty. In the mythopoetic tradition in curriculum studies, scholars labor to understand this crisis and the conditions for the reconstruction of me- ing in our time, in our schools."

Spis treści

Foreword: William F. Pinar.- Acknowledgements.- 1: Introduction: Timothy Leonard and Peter Willis.- Part A: Mythopoesis and Curriculum Theorizing: 2: Watching with two Eyes: The place of the Mythopoetic in Curriculum Inquiry: Patricia E. Holland and Noreen B. Garman.- 3: The Shadow of Hope: Reconciliation & Imaginal Pedagogies: Peter Bishop.- 4: Myth in the Practice of Reason: The Production of Education & Productive Confusion: Aidan Davison.- 5: Care of the Self: Mythopoetic Dimensions of Professional Preparation & Development: John Dirkx.- 6: Imagination & Mythopoesis in the Science Curriculum: Timothy Leonard.- 7: The Mythopoetic Body: Learning through Creativity: David Wright.- 8: Autobiography and Poetry: Peter Hilton.- 9: The Resilience of Soul: Patricia Cranton.- Part B: Mythopoesis in Educational Practice: 10: Imaginal Transformation and Schooling: James Bradbeer & Abdul Ghafoor Abdul Raheem.- 11: Idealism and Materialism in the Culture of Teacher Education: The Mythopoetic Significance of Things: Rad Fawns.- 12: Spiritual Grounding and Adult Education: Leona M. English.- 13: Ignatian Spirituality as Mythoposesis: Gerry Healy.- 14: Mythopoetic Spaces in the (Trans) Formation of Counsellors and Therapists: Frances MacKay.- 15: Critical Pedagogy and the Mythopoetic: a Case Study from Adelaide's Northern Urban Fringe: Brenton Prosser.- 16: Capacity and Currere: Mary Doll.- 17: Thinking, Feeling & Willing: How Waldorf Schools provide a Creative Pedagogy that nurtures and develops Imagination: Tom Stehlik.- 18: Getting a feel for the Work: Myhtopoetic Pedagogy through phenomenological evocation: Peter Willis.- Conclusion: The mythopoetic challenge: Timothy Leonard & Peter Willis.

Blurb

This book is about the practice of Imaginal Knowing in education. Imaginal knowing is not fantasy, but is linked to the way humans imagine the real world. Imaginal knowing moves the heart, holds the imagination, finds the fit between self-stories, public myths, and the content of cultural knowledge. It is deeply personal, yet open to the universe. The curriculum, as conceptualized here, is the medium through which imaginal knowing is evoked in both teachers and students.

Educators from United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada offer a vision of educational practice seasoned in years of reflective pedagogic engagement. They speak here of a genuine and practical alternative to overly bureaucratic educational processes that can crush learners through a closed system of arbitrary standards and mindless testing. There is hope that education at all levels from elementary to professional, graduate and post compulsory education has the capacity to break out of these artificial constraints. These authors show us ways to make this possible.