Imagination is what inspires a child to become an adult beyond their current circumstances.

     Why grow imagination?  What's the big deal?  Children already have plenty of imagination.  Look at all the imaginative ways they find to get out of chores and avoid homework!  We need to hold their feet to the fire.  We need annual tests in reading and math to make sure they are keeping up.  If they can't keep up in elementary school, things only get harder in high school.
     We need to grow children's imagination because that is how they grow as healthy human beings.  Imagination is what inspires a child to become an adult beyond their current circumstances.

Imagination is what inspires a child to become an adult beyond their current circumstances.

Imagination is what inspires a child to become an adult beyond their current circumstances.

     Yes, I meant to repeat that line again and again.  A member of our community recently shared a key story from his childhood.  We are on a planning team together dedicated to "pathways to career readiness."  As our team worked through the meaning of "pathways," Stephan shared this observation.  "When I was in fourth grade I wanted to do something with computers.  Computers fascinated me.  I needed school to give me a pathway in fourth grade, that would have allowed me to follow my interest in computers."
     Stephan, with this one story, ignited our team's work and helped us see "pathways" as not just road maps to a career, but "authentic experiences that to enable a child to grow imagination."  We can become what we can imagine.  The central purpose of public education is to grow the imagination of children; enable them to see a world beyond their present circumstances.
     It was not important to Stephan as a fourth grader that he have a career in computers.  What was important was that his desire for knowledge and experience be met by the adults and school available to him.  If his interest had shifted to forestry, or carpentry, or astronomy public education needed to shift with him.  In fact, public education should be providing students frequent, authentic experiences in a wide variety of fields before children ask for them, before they even know that they exist.  Oh yes, and not just children of privilege, children who score well on tests, children who are polite, children who sit still, children who do their homework, children who eat their breakfast, or children who earn good grades; all children need to grow imagination beyond their current circumstances!
     Children live in a world created by adults, particularly in elementary school.  Is school  growing imagination in a dedicated, purposeful way?  Is school narrowing the world into a tunnel of despair or a vast expanse of pathways to new and exciting adventures?  Tom, the struggling elementary school student is learning to hate school, as it methodically narrows his world.  In the next post we will consider another student's situation as he also develops a fixed mindset thanks to his breezing through the same tests that have sorted Tom out of "specials" into "remediation."