PEDAGOGY AND THE ROMANTIC IMAGINATION

ABSTRACT: No one sincerely doubts that schools should take seriously the need to develop children's imaginations and their capacity to be imaginative. The issue is what does this mean? And what are its implications? This paper, which is mostly inspired by the writings about the imagination of two British nineteenth-century Romantic poets – Coleridge and Wordsworth – provides some answers. Maybe that's what the problem is these days. We don't have time to imagine. (Tracey Emin, artist, Independent, 29 June 2007)