This essay explores the existential difficulties involved in being a non-indigenous scholar of philosophy and early childhood education in an indigenous context. It begins by recalling an encounter with young Sámi children that happened while doing research at an early childhood centre in northern Scandinavia. This is read alongside the poetry of…

No one sincerely doubts that schools should take seriously the need to develop children's imaginations and their capacity to be imaginative. The issue is what does this mean? And what are its implications? This paper, which is mostly inspired by the writings about the imagination of two British nineteenth-century Romantic poets--Coleridge and…

The author was invited to speak at a poetry slam conducted by Urban Poets, a group of teenage poets who perform their own works with the most passionate intensity. She had trouble deciding what to say to the young generation whose world differed so much from hers. She turned to Walt Whitman and a poem he wrote, "To the Young Poets," telling them…

In this essay, the authors suggest that there is another, different and more ancient way of looking at the moral and social role of the teacher and the processes of education in which she is involved. This alternative perspective draws on older, more imaginative and complex sources of meaning than the latest Gallup poll or the latest adjusted…

Argues that the cultivation of the imagination in schools and colleges is largely ignored because of utilitarian biases in the education system, where achievement is determined by quantitative measures of cognitive skills. Discusses Williams' view that acts of the imagination transform reality and applies view to English education. (JG)