Imagination: An Idea that Matters

How an Emergent Curriculum Approach Needs Imagination

Abstract

Why imagination is an idea that matters

Kiana is a student in the Bachelor of Early Childhood and Curriculum Studies program at MacEwan University. She aspires to combine her passions for children and travel to make a difference and become an advocate of quality and continuity of early learning and care in varying countries. As a growing educator, she has had many chances to reflect and draw on childhood experiences. Through these reflections, she recognized that imagination is a key factor behind her adventurous time as a child. However, she is left questioning, did she lose that sense of imagination as she began to grow up? Why does it become challenging to follow a child's play when they imagine the impossible? Imagination is an idea that Kiana is intensely passionate about. She wants to advocate for imagination in an early learning environment, for she understands it is a child's way of making sense of the changing world around them. Reflecting and wondering has sparked her journey of curiosity - leading Kiana to want to know more about how imagination plays a significant role in a child’s life.

 How an Emergent Curriculum Approach Needs Imagination

In this presentation, Kiana examines and explores the idea of imagination and its essential role in an emergent curriculum. Drawing on past childhood experiences and wonderings about current practices, diving further into how children’s and educators’ imagination contributes to an emergent curriculum. Through engaging in research about various early childhood curriculum theories and practices and connecting them to the idea of imagination, Kiana acknowledges how embracing imagination opens up endless possibilities that allow children and educators to make meaning of the world. By sharing knowledge and findings, Kiana wants early childhood educators to take this presentation as an inspiration to play alongside and encourage children’s imagination. Looking at the following steps, educators need to make it a responsibility to create exciting learning that is irresistible for children and take risks with their imagination to develop possibilities that create spaces that inspire and feed children’s imagination.