A Curriculum of Imagination in an Era of Standardization

In A Curriculum of Imagination in an Era of Standardization: An Imaginative Dialogue with Maxine Greene and PauloFreire, a volume in Landscapes of Education [Series Editors: William H. Schubert, University of Illinois at Chicago &Ming Fang He, Georgia Southern University], Robert Lake explores with the reader what is meant by imagination in thework of Maxine Greene and Paulo Freire and their relevance in an era of increasingly standardized and highly scriptedpractices in the field of education. The author explores how imagination permeates every aspect of life with the intent todevelop capacity with the readers to look beyond the taken-for-granted, to question the normal, to develop various waysof knowing, seeing, feeling, and to imagine and act upon possibilities for positive social and educational change. Theprincipal aspect of the work illustrated in this book that distinguishes it from other work is that an 'imaginary' dialoguebetween Maxine Greene and Paulo Freire runs through the book using actual citations from their work. Each chapter starts with such a dialogue interspersed with theworks of others and the author’s critical autobiographical reflections. With a brief overview of the socio-cultural evolution of imagination from pre-literate times to thepresent, the author explores some of the current iterations of imagination including the eugenics movement and 'dark' imagination, sensing gaps and creative/criticalimagination, metaphors as the language of imagination and empathy as social imagination. Reflecting upon emerging tensions, challenges, and possibilities curriculumworkers face in such an era of standardization, the author calls for a curriculum of imagination.After providing a brief overview of the socio-cultural evolution of imagination from pre-literate times to the present, the author looks at some of the current iterations ofimagination, including the eugenics movement and 'dark' imagination, sensing gaps and creative/criticalimagination, metaphors as the language of the imagination, and empathy as social imagination. All of these ideasare then incorporated in a curriculum of imagination that is envisioned through Joseph Schwab’s fourcommonplaces of curriculum followed by a discussion of emerging tensions, issues and possibilities for praxis andscholarship in present and future inquiry