Cultivating Imagination

This is a program for anyone who would value time to:

• learn about the nature and functions of imagination 
• deepen understanding and cultivate imagination around a current issue
• envision and carry out a research project meaningful to your education pursuits
• refine their capacity to synthesize through writing and art

We’ll begin this inquiry by taking stock of the ideas you carry with you into the program: What is imagination?  What's my relationship to and experience with imagination?    What's the relationship between learning, problem solving and imagining? How do I understand the moments that released and moments that limited my imagination?  How might we cultivate the kind of imagination that supports humane, just, and sustainable ways of engaging in our worlds?   

 

From there, we will work together each week to unfold concepts of and ideas about imagination through weekly readings, seminars, and community based events, noticing ways that they push, pull at, and add complexity to our understandings. We will draw on insights from sociologists, philosophers, and educational psychology about (i) the nature and purposes of imagination, including the functional, the liberatory, and the “lopsided” (Benjamin, 2024) and (ii) the habits of mind and contexts that both cultivate and constrain imagination.  We'll spend time with works by Maxine Greene, Ruha Benjamin, Martha Nussbaum, and Angela Davis, along with insights from stories, community-based events and local art museums.  

 

We will also work together to consider how a research process can both deepen understanding and cultivate imagination.  In the first 2-3 weeks, you will collaboratively pose a question related to some current issue; you’ll then identify the resources and process for informing this inquiry.   As you work on the project for the next four weeks, we will practice skills for creative research.  To support your weekly work, you’ll engage: (i) workshops on uncovering informational resources, (ii) models and mentor stories (Napolitan and Bowman, 2018); (iii) peer consultations, and (iv) develop your skills in maintaining research journals.   In the final 2-3 weeks of the quarter, you will synthesize themes and insights from your inquiry through word and art.

 

You’ll demonstrate your learning through weekly writing and meaning making, documenting your research process, engaging and supporting peer consultation and feedback loops, and offering a final creative synthesis that integrates art and writing.

 

4 - Foundations of Education  

4 - Information Literacy and Research 

4 - Research project: [Title]

4  - Synthesis through Writing and the Arts