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—William Shakespeare
Fantasy as motivatorTo me, fantasy and the development of the imagination are an integral part of growing up. As teachers we are often heard to say, "capture their interest and you are away", but for how long? I believe that I happened upon a way to harness this force to create a sustained imaginative environment in which deep learning flourished.
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I have eighteen years teaching experience at the primary level. I believe they were productive years for the children and myself. The last two years, however, teaching six year olds, were different from the rest. In those years, my classroom was a place where fantasy became the main motivational element in the children's learning. In the first year there was a large, stuffed bear living in the corner of the classroom and during the second year, a small witch who came out of a storybook and caused havoc in the classroom for a full year.
The children became totally involved with these characters, as did I, as did everybody who came into contact with the children. The atmosphere in the classroom was noticeably different. There was an air of shared enjoyment, genuine happiness and pleasure in learning that I don't think I had ever managed to make a permanent feature throughout a year before. Above all, the children worked consistently, totally absorbed in their learning. The heightened imagination seemed to permeate every aspect of the school day, in particular their literary acquisition.
In order to contextualize what I am going to write, the reader should be aware of some of the formative influences in my background. 'Fancy' was bred in me in a rather isolated country childhood. I was happy and secure for the first five years and then, one morning I was put on a bus and travelled the ten miles to the nearest town to attend a small school for girls.
I don't think I really knew what school was until it started. I didn't know anyone and there was certainly no gentle transition with brief visits before the real thing began. The journey to and from school seemed interminable. When I was little I used to spend a lot of time imagining whom I would choose to be my parents if the world were to stop for everyone except the occupants of our bus. As I grew older I would wait in excruciating anticipation for the bus driver to negotiate a particular corner. If he hit the curb then I would fail the eleven plus examination and would not be able to go to the grammar school. If he didn't hit it then I would pass.
The children became totally involved with these characters, as did I, as did everybody who came into contact with the children. The atmosphere in the classroom was noticeably different. There was an air of shared enjoyment, genuine happiness and pleasure in learning that I don't think I had ever managed to make a permanent feature throughout a year before. Above all, the children worked consistently, totally absorbed in their learning. The heightened imagination seemed to permeate every aspect of the school day, in particular their literary acquisition.
In order to contextualize what I am going to write, the reader should be aware of some of the formative influences in my background. 'Fancy' was bred in me in a rather isolated country childhood. I was happy and secure for the first five years and then, one morning I was put on a bus and travelled the ten miles to the nearest town to attend a small school for girls.
I don't think I really knew what school was until it started. I didn't know anyone and there was certainly no gentle transition with brief visits before the real thing began. The journey to and from school seemed interminable. When I was little I used to spend a lot of time imagining whom I would choose to be my parents if the world were to stop for everyone except the occupants of our bus. As I grew older I would wait in excruciating anticipation for the bus driver to negotiate a particular corner. If he hit the curb then I would fail the eleven plus examination and would not be able to go to the grammar school. If he didn't hit it then I would pass.
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I was taught by kind, ageless, seemingly genderless nuns, whose qualifications to teach would, I am sure, be questioned today. I have wonderful memories of hot summer days when afternoon lessons were often abandoned and we would go for a 'nature walk'. This title gave educational purpose to a stroll through the gardens, which usually culminated at the lily pond.
There we would lie around the edge of the pond, trailing our fingers in the water as we observed pond life. We then wandered back and pored over books in an attempt to identify what we had seen. I know a great deal about newts, frogs and assorted pond life, the learning of which was deeply absorbed in a relaxed environment, which allowed time to think and questions to form. |
At the age of eleven, due no doubt to the bus driver's improved skills at negotiating corners, I moved on the local grammar school for girls. There I learned facts, which were regurgitated in tests and examinations, long before digestion had occurred. As a result, my self-esteem as a learner went down and down. I was learning in a way that had no foundation in previous knowledge or understanding and can say with certainty that I remember nothing of what I learned there in those seven years of privileged education, other than random facts about Greek and Roman pillars and the climactic conditions that affect wheat growing in the Prairies. I did learn how to pass examinations if that is the purpose of formal education.
I believe that any teacher, in any educational system, can build on young children's innate enjoyment of make believe and plan their teaching to utilise this powerful force.
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I then went on to be 'educated' to become a teacher with a divergent learning background but a focused understanding of the sort of teacher I wanted to be. Somehow I had to bring 'lily pond' learning into my classrooms.
In urban schools this was obviously impossible in the literal sense, so I started working on ways to create imaginative environments. I have memories of classrooms transformed into rain forests, deserts and arctic scenes. Of the time we made a huge spider's web, which covered the classroom ceiling and hung paper spiders and flies from the string web. These 'topic related' extravaganzas were great fun and very motivating, but they were short-lived as they only lasted for the duration of the topic. |
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I remember vividly the 'spider' children begging me to leave the web because they loved to come into their very different classroom, but it was pulled down to make room for something else. In doing so, I must have destroyed all the magic I had created. I also probably slowed down the momentum of the learning of many of the children. At that time I just hadn't realised the full potential of what I was doing. In retrospect I can see that the experiences were a natural progression towards the years with the Bear and the Little Witch that I am now about the recount.
I believe that any teacher, in any educational system, can build on young children's innate enjoyment of make believe and plan their teaching to utilise this powerful force. Nothing I am about to describe needs more than an ability to say, 'Let's pretend' and the confidence to follow the children's lead within a framework of professional knowledge.
—From the Introduction to The Power of Fantasy in Early Learning. Learn more here.
I believe that any teacher, in any educational system, can build on young children's innate enjoyment of make believe and plan their teaching to utilise this powerful force. Nothing I am about to describe needs more than an ability to say, 'Let's pretend' and the confidence to follow the children's lead within a framework of professional knowledge.
—From the Introduction to The Power of Fantasy in Early Learning. Learn more here.
