In looking back to childhood, and what constituted daily life, a case is made for unique ways of knowing that unfold through play, place, and tradition. A closer look at the relationship between childhood memory and the particularities of place, suggests that adult creativity, a sense of psychological stability, and an attitude of wonder, even…

Teaching students to appreciate the beauty of life in the world through aesthetic education, using a variety of teaching principles to extend their aesthetic experience, will promote "aesthetic intelligence" for children in Taiwan. This can enrich their aesthetic literacy, and give them a desire to perceive and appreciate beautiful…

The young adult novels of multi award-winning New Zealand writer, Jack Lasenby, are strongly influenced by his careers as a primary school teacher and deer-culler, and love of story. In his first novel, "The Lake," Lasenby depicts Ruth, the protagonist, as a learner who seeks knowledge in much the same way that he, the author-teacher,…

This paper, based upon our experiences starting a school, is part dialogue and part theory. The three authors have all played important roles in the design, creation, and ongoing support of an innovative public elementary school. The first part of the paper describes the impetus behind the creation of this "buildingless," environmentally…

Dance archives can bring students into contact with historical subjects through artifacts of the past. This article advocates the use of archival projects in undergraduate dance history courses, arguing that such hands-on learning activities give students dynamic and interactive experiences of history. The author describes a creative project she…

Thinking about three- to six-year-olds rarely brings to mind an image of young children engaged in conversation in the formal setting of an art museum, yet these are actual comments made by preschoolers and kindergartners who spend time on the Mall in Washington, DC, visiting museums as part of their early childhood program. Today, an increasing…

From an evolutionary perspective, the normal social play of children involves kids of various ages. Our human and great-ape ancestors most likely lived in small groups with low birth rates, which made play with others of nearly the same age rare. Consequently, the evolutionary functions of children's social play are best understood by examining…

While John Dewey's learning theory has been widely credited as the essential theoretical underpinnings of service learning, lesser attention has been paid to his concept of moral imagination regarding its immense potentials in nurturing college students' moral growth in service learning. This article explores Dewey's framework of moral imagination…

Imagination might be understood as letting our senses, perceptions and sensibilities run free for no apparent reason. Here, for this special edition what might be "remarkable" is the "opening" of our imagination provided orally through storytelling. This opening involves the "placing" of our own and our listeners'…

In this article, the author uses Gary Saul Morson's concept of sideshadows to attend to the multiplicity of narratives that occur in a third-grade classroom. The author advocates for experiential learning in order to make more visible to teachers children's internal thinking within language arts, especially English-language learners. Additionally,…

Designed for primary and junior students, the Drama Hike is a real walk into the woods: smelling, feeling and seeing Nature. It is also an imaginative search for ancient civilizations, in this case the "Hully Gullies." The purpose of the trip is to discover what these people might have looked like, their social habits, religion, sports and so on.…

In this article, the author discusses the importance of early childhood play. Play is simply shorthand for everyone's capacity for curiosity, imagination, and fantasy--everyone's creative dispositions. What makes play unique is that it enables everyone to create new learning experiences. To illustrate, an infant who drops a rattle from the crib,…

Sociologists agree that the sociological imagination fosters students' critical thinking skills (Eckstein, Schoenike, and Delaney 1995; Haddad and Lieberman 2002; Logan 1976; Mayer 1986; Misra 2000). The challenge lies in motivating students to develop their sociological imaginations. Convincing them of its importance and practical value takes…

An English-as-second-language teacher feels that everyone has creativity and imagination, and the teacher's role is to nurture those qualities. Drawing on the Foxfire core practices, she acknowledges and reinforces those moments when learners reveal their own unique insights into learning, and she facilitates exploratory and innovative thinking…

Asserts that play is an important medium for young children's learning, one that contributes to the child's cognitive, physical, emotional, and social development. Discusses the qualities that distinguish play from other activities, the skills children develop from exposure to a variety of play experiences at home and in the classroom, and…