Imagination: Key to Learning

coberst, this is a topic that I have always wondered about, so I am book marking for now.

Re: Imagination: Key to Learning


Well, you could empathize with what you imagine to be the thoughts of that family. As with any historical reconstruction, there may or may not be good historical evidence for believing one knows what was in the head of someone long since dead, and there's certainly nothing wrong with trying... but we'll never know for sure.

It's a fine line to straddle, but working in historiography has taught me to be wary of those who claim to get in the heads of others, especially others who are dead. It's been a common tactic among those covertly trying to promote an ideology. (I'd much rather have my ideologies promoted openly.) As my favorite historian puts it: "Dialogues with the dead, or with inanimate things, are metaphorical when not delusional." [Richard Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), xxi.]

Frankly, I don't think empathy has anything to do with imagination, historical or otherwise. To have true empathy, one must have experienced a similar situation. Even when I was caught up in the apprehension of the hurricanes in Florida, it was very difficult for me to feel what those people must have felt during Katrina.

Not one historian, scientist, nor psychologist has ever been able to explain the imagination of the human mind. Perhaps creativity is a part of it, but there is another illusive abstract.

I have never been able to substantiate this, but I read a brief article when I was doing graduate work at UVA, and it ascertained that there was a negative correlation between intelligence and creativity. To me, that is the most fascination declaration that I have ever experienced, and I still think about it from time to time.

It's extremely hard to believe. I can think of too many counterexamples--I know plenty of unintelligent creatives, and plenty of uncreative intelligents. I'm inclined to agree with your suggestion that something as broad as imagination can't possibly be "explained," or at least traced to a single "source."

I found it difficult to believe as well, Shapeless, but perhaps the key lies in the fact that creative people don't perform well on certain tests designed to measure attributes of intelligence.

Some people wonder off to things that they find interesting. The tests are not accurate.

Man, I got that completely backwards. What I meant to write was that I know plenty of intelligent creatives and plenty of unintelligent uncreatives.

Well, Shapeless, I think the entire idea of creative thinking is simply not measurable.

I spent some time this morning researching Paul Torrance's attempt to create an objective test that would measure divergent thinking, and decided that there was no such creature.

I agree with you, Ray.

I do not believe that imagination is the key to learning. In some ways, creative thinking can be measured, by ways like a custom contest- no rules or procedures in the way, do what you want with your mind in anyway possible. But in other ways, creative thinking or imagination can corrupt the path of learning, and derive a student from what they should be doing, to a creative method of what they want to do.

Welcome to A2K, DBD. It's difficult to believe that you are a 9th grade student.

But its true

Then, my dear, if you are an example of the up and coming citizens of tomorrow's world, I can breathe a little easier. <smile>

My initial reaction was NO WAY !

But on reflection, I am a highly creative person with a vivid imagination. (I make a living by it.) Mostly that's a good thing except when my wife asks if I put the rubbish out. I can see myself doing it...but did I actually do it or I am I imaging that I did it? The two are equally clear in my mind. So for me, a great imagination equates with a really unreliable memory. (Incidently, it also makes me very wary of the "eye witness accounts" of others.)

So, I can imagine how highly creative people might do poorly on certain tests.

. thats funny how you say that you imagine yourself doing it. I do the exact same thing when getting up for school. On certain days, (this is right before I get up, but I go back to sleep) my mind will imagine that I went through the entire schoolday. And when I wake up five minutes later, I just stare at the wall, dumbfounded.

falls right in line with a book i'm reading for class. The Power of Their Ideas..." by debrah meiers.

Hmm. Well, makes some sense.

An example: learning a new swimming stroke. In order to do it, first you must imagine what it is like. You picture it in your head, and see yourself doing it, and then give it a go. In this way, you learn. If you can't picture yourself doing it, you can't basically. That's why scared kids have so much trouble getting it right, even though you know they can!

When talking with athletes I look up to, they have all said in different words "The secret to really kicking butt is to mentally rehearse yourself going through the exact motions, seeing yourself going further than you actually logically think you can, and winning. Everything right to the end."

The negative correlation between creativity and intelligence.....I could only chalk up to the measuring or the definitions of those things. Isn't creativity one of the core elements in intelligence?! Without that ability to view many possible angles and hold ambiguity, how would one learn anything new?!

flushd, I really don't know the answer, but I do know this. ding dong Letty left her garage door open all night long and the entire house yelled, Welcome thieves. I had my mind on something else creative, and this morning, I don't remember what it was.<smile>

I once heard it expressed that true creativity was really innovation; in other words, being able to take something that has a specific purpose and use it in a completely different manner. I like your idea about learning to swim, however, as a product of imagination.