by Alan Haskvitz

No greater source than Albert Einstein said the true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination. As such, it is almost an indignity when schools are forced to stuff children full of facts without bowing to the greater good of creativity and the encouragement of imagination. It is by far the most overlooked part of a child's education.

Imagination is difficult to define. It is obviously an intellectual mechanism that takes existing data and reintroduces it in a variety of forms. But what gives some people an abundance and others a fear of it? Research indicates imagination starts with a child's play instinct. This is the ability for children to recreate something with themselves as a centerpiece. Imagination requires the reformation of existing outcomes -- call it a form of empathy. You can stimulate such thinking with "What would happen" questions. A parent or teacher can easily do this with social studies. Recreating is a great way to enhance imagination.

Perhaps the sorriest part of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is its total emphasis on standardized testing results and lack of incentives for the creative. These are not mutually exclusive goals, but given the limited time in a school year -- it represents less than 20 percent of a child's year -- it is easier to stress cognitive data rather than stimulate both inductive and deductive solutions to problems from a variety of perceptions.

For example, in my classes I teach students how to calculate how fast they walk and relate that to the distances explorers covered. They next apply that knowledge to discovering an imaginary island. They write about what they might see, draw maps, and even describe the flora and fauna. Thus their math skills are enhanced and inculcated into the realm of their imagination. Could that be measured on a standardized test? No. However, if a question came up that required converting distance and time, they would be prepared. And if confronted with the absurd possibility they may actually have to walk someplace, they would have an idea of the duration of the agony of the feet.

In a balanced society, the goal should be to produce well-rounded students, not lean to the side of good test takers. Indeed in Singapore, long a leader in test score performances, parents have actively complained the only thing their children know is how to take tests. And over 30 percent of the students believed life was not worth living. (High Stakes Assessment in England and Singapore)

Truth be told, most students have a rich and varied imagination that can eke its way out if given a chance. Howard Gardner, who introduced the concept of multiple intelligences, pin-pointed several areas where children can excel. These include musical, spatial, linguistic, math, relationships and others that serve as a good base for developing an innovative child. Online tests can give insight into which area might interest your child, but most parents and teachers are probably well aware of their child's strong suits.

10 Steps

Imagination is global. No one country has a lock on it, but few if any, show concern about nurturing it outside of business and industry applications. So how can an educator or parent nurture imagination in a child? Well, since no two families are alike I can only speak in generalities. As such, I have isolated 10 steps to enhance the imagination opportunities in and out of school.

• First, break the habit of seeing imagination as only appropriate for art or music. Almost every article written on imagination and children is about story telling, music or art, despite the fact, as Gardner has pointed out, many other significant intelligences can be encouraged.
  
  To stretch this limited view of imagination, point out to youth that everything they use has been invented by someone who applied imagination to solving a problem. Having a child think about who invented the pocket or the wheel builds better observation skills and increases the awareness of possibilities. So the first priority is to give a child problems to solve, and as this naturally develops, it encourages imagination. Indeed, problem solving is nothing more than applied imagination at work.
  
  
• Secondly, do things differently. This could be as simple as asking the child to map out a new route to the supermarket or to learn how to write with both hands. The true enemy of imagination is acceptance of the status quo.
  
  
• Third, think about how you can make things better. A man just made a small fortune redesigning the fork. He made a wood model of one, watched how people used the fork, and imagined a better version. It can cut on both sides, fits into the hand better, and has dull tongs to grip pasta better.
  
  
• Fourth, observation is the mother of imagination. A child who is not exposed to new things cannot bring new thinking to a problem. For imagination to grow, a silo filled with resources must exist to feed it. When Gardner writes about the types of intelligences, he is writing, in essence, about how individuals deal with problems in a particular realm better. The more experiences, the greater the imagination that can be brought to bear on potential solutions.
  
  
• Fifth, don't evaluate imagination. Don't tell someone their imagined solution is bad or good. Don't tell them why it will or wouldn't work. Ask them to explain it. Try to crawl into their mindset. The imagination cannot always be judged by those close to it, and truly imaginative work can require a long gestation. Outside of asking for an acceptable explanation of the work and having it done in a neat manner, judgment should be left until a later date. That does not mean you can't grade the work, just make sure your rubric doesn't evaluate the imagination applied.
  
  
• Sixth, spend considerable time asking questions. You can call this the Socratic method, or you can call it playing the devil's advocate. But any work left unchallenged is a missed opportunity to stretch the imagination of a student. Frequently, I have seen the outside of refrigerator doors filled with good work from children. Yet, not once have I seen an explanation of why it was there other than a positive comment from a teacher or parent. Asking a child why they drew that type of tree might reveal they really never looked at trees. A little exploration could provoke the child's imagination into drawing a tree that would grow extra thin branches to make it easier to make pencils. Asking questions promotes imagination because it promotes thinking.
  
  
• Seventh, deprive a child of something, and let him or her create a replacement. A child needs an identity, and frequently it is based on what they can do. My son the football player, my daughter the flutist extends into life when people frequently ask others what they do for a living. This identity needs to expand from what they have done to what they can do. Observe this in the very young, who enjoy playing with the box more than the toy in it. They apply their imagination to playing with the box and are only deprived of this opportunity when distracted by the store-bought merchandise. It does not take long for the child to trade his or her imagination for that of the individual who invents the latest new toy. The result is a constant demand for new toys rather than new playthings.
  
  
• Eighth, don't overly reward imagination because rewards stymie additional thought and potential improvements. If a student compiles an innovative way to solve a problem, accept it as such, but encourage them to continue to improve it. For example, a student comes up with an inventive way to draw a map that shows population density. If overly compensated for this effort, the student may lose the desire to improve it.
  
  
• Ninth, actively encourage play and experimentation with new ideas. Keeping an open mind is difficult in a world where one-word answers are the key to good test scores. Knowledge is what you already know; imagination is what makes it grow.
  
  
• Finally, encourage the process more than the product. When I researched and published my work on using Japanese Quality Circle in the classroom, most vivid was the fact that if you have a good process, the product will always turn out well. If you work on just the product, it might turn out okay; but if it doesn't, you won't know where it went bad. Encouraging students to use all their senses makes them more aware of possibilities.

Every student has basic perceptions that reflect what he or she has witnessed. Those students with the ability to combine these experiences and create anew require the insights to see how things came to be. Putting it all together, in other words, so the body and brain are engaged in meaningful learning embodied in the product provides the best education.

Imagination is essential to the mental health of a child and society. The creation of alternative solutions moves civilization forward one person at a time. Einstein relished his gift of creativity more than his cognitive abilities. To stimulate students to seek unique perspectives requires teachers and parents to understand they can teach from a multitude of perspectives. This requires both experience and a vast education, both formal and informal. If you lack these traits, look outside for ideas, help, and motivation so as not to deprive students of the joy of looking at a grain of sand and seeing a silicon chip.

In conclusion, play, expanding the rules, and using phrases like: "Put yourself in the shoes of," "What would happen if?" "Is there a better way?" and "What do you think?" push a child's imagination. These methods give him or her the strength to overcome obstacles of thought and bring fresh and innovative ideas to benefit all. Imagination should be given at least as much time to develop as reading, writing and arithmetic. Although it is not easily evaluated or graded, it should nevertheless be a part of every child's education and thus force politicians and number crunchers to find an imaginative way for them to deal with it. Remember everything that's been created came from someone's imagination.

Helpful websites

REC Arts/Entertainment

Stimulate Creativity with Myths and Legends

REC Language Arts

Online Multiple Intelligence Tests

Multiple Intelligence Inventory

(Alan Haskvitz will speak at the 2006 Imagination in Education Conference in Vancouver, July 12-15, with Howard Gardner and others. Imaginative Education Research Group)