Imaginative Education at the Point of Assessment
Tim Waddington, Simon Fraser University
Those of us who love Imaginative Education, love it a lot. By utilizing the complex interrelationship
between the emotional and intellectual, and constructing compelling narratives around rigorous levels of
specific curricular content, we have all seen the benefit to students; deeper, richer and more detailed
understanding, a willingness to ask probing questions, a greater tolerance of ambiguity and multiplicity,
and learning come alive. Student engagement, as ever, is the key and imaginative education has proven
itself time and again very, very effective towards such ends.
It might appear incongruous, then, to admit that Imaginative Education has not (as of yet) placed a great
deal of emphasis on the issue of assessments. By using the principles of IE, I have managed to conceive
of a senior history curriculum that has produced, on repeated standardized measurements no less,
significantly above average levels of achievement. Anecdotally, moreover, I can attest to students finding
a deep resonance with the curriculum, a humanized manner of understanding through which they find a
salience in what they study that connects to their own lives, to the choices that they must invariably make
in determining their own being. What I find unfortunate, even 'sad' I suppose, is that the myriad of
traditional forms of assessment - the essay, the exam, the diorama to name a few - do not typically allow
educators to tap into the more profound set of available outcomes, where self and curriculum engage each
other with what we might call, lacking a better word, 'depth'. If we prefer assessments which privilege
static, dissected and controllable formations of knowledge, we might properly worry that we are failing to
tap into or, worse, dishonoring all that engagement we have so carefully sought to provoke through IE in
the minds of our learners.
And so, this question: How might we deploy the cognitive tools of Imaginative Education specifically at
the point of assessment and what might we fairly expect the outcomes to be?
This question, or something thereabouts, has prompted me to begin experimenting with my lower grades,
where learning and assessment design allow for a bit more creativity and fluidity. For example, in the
context of a Middle Ages unit, I have moved away from formal paragraph writing, the traditional unit
exam, and the obligatory 'creative' project, most of the latter of which are, upon completion, so prescribed
with criteria that any genuine creativity has long ceased to be possible. In their place, I have moved
towards a more portfolio-minded assessment whereby students select from a series of activities connected
to curricular topics, choosing four of eight written exercises and two of four representation tasks. The
difference: each of the tasks explicitly directs the students to write or represent with an eye towards
specific cognitive tools and, in the case of written topics, particular styles of writing. Here are three
examples:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Plague - The Black Death
Cognitive Tools – Extremes and Limits, Humanization of Meaning
Style of Writing – Descriptive
Easily, the most nasty, disgusting and frightening event of Medieval times was the onset of the plague,
known as the “Black Death”. Imagine you are a humble peasant farmer, tending your fields, raising your
flock, and serving the local manor lord…until one day, villagers start falling ill and dropping dead.
*Thunk!* “There goes Robert the fletcher!” In about one page, describe the sights, smells and sounds of
the Black Death, and what you feel about all the horrifying things you are experiencing. The best work
here will purposefully include the most extreme, icky, nauseating, putrid, foul…well, you get the picture.
Be sure to find or create images that demonstrate what you want to describe.
All Ashore that’s Goin’ Ashore! The Battle of Hastings
Cognitive Tools – Heroic Quality (Leadership) and the Literate Eye
Style of Writing – Persuasive
Here, your task is to write about one page that praises the leadership qualities of the handsome, the suave,
the debonair William the Conqueror as he led the Norman invasion and established the feudal system.
Show your knowledge of the causes and events of the Battle of Hastings and explain both why the feudal
system was established and how it worked. Your purpose is to heap praise on William, who is the most
charming and manly of all men, to make him sound like the greatest, most intelligent and heroic leader
that ever was. Be sure to include some form of graphic: a map, flowchart or other picture.
Boneheads, Hare Brains and other Dullards – Kings and Queens of the Middle Ages
Cognitive Tools – Binary Opposites, Collections
Style of Writing – Descriptive, Expository
Let’s admit it, absolute power is a pretty cool thing…if you’re the one that has it. Medieval times were
filled with the most motley crew of characters you could possibly imagine. Starting a war that lasts 97
years? Check! Threatening the Pope with an invasion of Rome because you want a divorce? You bet!
Marrying your brother’s widow after bumping him off? Yup! Got that one too! Your task here is to
describe, in about one page, who you think are the four or five most interesting of all the medieval
monarchs. In your work, try to find the biggest heroes, villains, numbskulls and crooks who ever
tarnished the crown. It might be a good idea to find portraits of the rulers so we all know exactly who to
throw darts at!
I think it's important to notice that there isn't anything particularly revolutionary here. The Black Death,
for example, is a prime opportunity for students to write in descriptive styles, and the cognitive tool of
extremes and limits alongside the humanization of meaning appear well suited, even motivational,
towards the end of pushing learners into deep contact with material being studied. Likewise, by
suggesting that the royals of medieval England were of a uniquely iniquitous disposition, we can invite
the children's imaginations to engage with the material through particularly engaging lenses. The greater
the color, the better. We know these things instinctively as teachers, so it's really a matter of shaping the
intellectual and productive space in which the children operate so as to promote engagement, imagination
and creative modes of expression. What's more is the recognition that nothing, other than a dry, alienating
and ultimately faulty claim to objectivity is lost in assessing learning in this manner. In order to write
something of merit, students will still need to perform quality research and work through the processes of
writing, the skills of which can also be taught. Students will need to know a lot and will be far more likely
to engage in a deeper appreciation of role, audience and process of writing, asking questions such as 'have
I really brought out the grossness and suffering of this?' or 'how could I write this so that it's even more
funny?'. Surely, such self-talk is in service of a brand of literacy which is fluid, flexible and appreciative
in addition to being 'grammatically sound' and 'well proofread'. While one could go on for a while
offering such benefits, it might in the interests of brevity be enough to say that the material we have to
teach is engaging enough in its own right and doesn't particularly benefit from our overzealous attempts
to boil it down into inert, 'knowable', and thereby testable bits of memory. If we want children to know
and love what we offer them, we need to respect its emotional as well as intellectual quotient. We need to
engage the imagination.
Ultimately, few things are quite as frustrating as pouring one's heart and soul into hopefully well-crafted
lessons and then spending hours into the evening, sequestered away from friends and family, marking
tests and essays only to find two weeks later that students have long-since forgotten most of which we
presumed we had 'taught' and they had 'learned'. The truth of the matter is that we do not enjoy nearly as
much control over such outcomes as we would like to assume. By deploying the cognitive tools at the
point of assessment, we might set the students into an intellectual and productive space which allows just
enough room for imagination and creativity to gain traction while maintaining a rigorous demand for
detailed and specific knowledge of historical contexts. The potential of Imaginative Education, as I have
attempted to depict it here, is its emphasis on the emotional and intellectual aspects of knowing in their
coincidence. We cannot, and probably should not, attempt to control every outcome in our classrooms, for
such results in deadened, sterile environments and the most shallow of learning gains. To the extent that
all learning is to a greater or lesser extent languaged, it behooves us to construct a space around students
so as to subtly direct them towards multiple expressions of literacy and to plain old love language. In
using the cognitive tools at the point of assessment, we might at least be consistent between the
profession of our aims and our measurements. Engagement, as ever, remains at the center.
Tim Waddington is proud to be a public school teacher in Surrey BC, specializing in History, Giftedness,
and the Humanities. He began his career in 1996, after several frustrated attempts at real jobs such as
warehouseman, inventor and left-handed sculpting. Tim holds degrees in Education and Leadership and
is actively procrastinating his way through a Doctoral Thesis on Existentialism at Simon Fraser
University.