This conceptual and practical paper aims to expand understanding of imagination in ways that have direct implications for leadership education and research. First, imagination is conceptualized as soil, an analogy that can address misconceptions about imagination and broaden understanding of the multiple ways it contributes to leadership. Next, an…

Our intention is to share our lived experiences "as" educators "of" educators employing Imaginative Education (IE) pedagogy. We aim to illuminate IE's influence on our students', and our own, affective alertness, and to leave readers "feeling" the possibility of this pedagogy for teaching and learning. Inspired by the…

"Engaging Imagination in Ecological Education" illustrates how to connect students to the natural world and encourage them to care about a more sustainable, ecologically secure planet. Cultivating ecological understanding can be more challenging for teachers than simply imparting knowledge of ecological issues; it requires reimagining…

This article explores how mental imagery evoked from words might enhance the learning of cross-curricular content and how it may help cultivate students' "ecological understanding": that deep sense of connection to a living world and the care and concern to live differently within it. With reference to Elliott Eisner's and Kieran Egan's…

Imagination is rarely acknowledged as one of the main workhorses of learning. Unfortunately, disregarding the imagination has some clearly negative pedagogical impacts: Learning is more ineffective than it should be and much schooling is more tedious than it need be. In this paper, we outline a somewhat new way of thinking about the process of…

Many have observed that the curriculum is a mile wide and scarcely an inch deep. This article provides a rationale for including in-depth study of a place-based/local topic within educational programs aimed at cultivating ecological understanding. Following a brief exploration of some of the obstacles to in-depth learning, it describes the ways in…

In environmental and ecological education, a rich literature builds on the premise that place, the local natural context in which one lives, can be an emotionally engaging context for learning and the source of life-long concern for nature. A theory of imaginative education can help uncover new tools and strategies for place-based educators.…

This paper sets out to explore the role of story in education. Through the employment of story itself as medium the discussion examines how story is currently used in educational settings. The next step is to posit story as a learning tool and curricular heavy-lifter through introduction to the theory of Imaginative Education as proposed by Kieran…

Both local and global issues are typically dealt with in the Social Studies curriculum, or in curriculum areas with other names but similar intents. In the literature about Social Studies the imagination has played little role, and consequently it hardly appears in texts designed to help teachers plan and implement Social Studies lessons. What is…