Dialogue with Kieran Egan

P（Qingyu Pan，the author of this book）

E（Kieran Egan，Canada Research Chair in Education）

P：Hello，Professor Egan. It's my honor to invite you to talk about your academic life to the Chinese readers.

Chinese readers are interested in your school experience. We know that you read history（Honours）at the University of London，and obtained a Ph.D. in the United States. Later you studied cognitive psychology，and finally raised your Imaginative Education Theory. Would you please tell us what caused your academic interests to change？

E：At school I had been better known as an athlete，but I had always had an interest in history and particularly the history of ideas. My own educational history was a bit unusual. I did not do well academically at school，and the further I progressed through the system the more puzzled I was about what I was supposed to be doing. I think I was interested in education throughout，because I was reflecting on my own experience. When I finished my B.A. degree in London，I began to think about going into a career in teaching. During my teacher education program I made contact with a group of researchers in Kingston-upon-Thames to the south of London and，instead of getting a job in teaching，I worked with them for a year on new techniques for raising the level of students’ thinking while they responded to“programmed”questions. It led me to apply for the Stanford Ph.D. program and to work，at the same time，as a consultant with the IBM corporation near San Francisco，applying the programming technique called“Structural Communication”to their latest computer systems. So I was continuing throughout these diverse activities to reflect on education and how it could be made most valuable for enlarging and enriching people's lives-whether by using computers or traditional forms of teaching. Much of my initial work，even working at IBM was on history-I wrote，for example，a history of the corporation using the Structural Communication format and mounted it on their System 1500. Since then my interest in education has incorporated a deep interest in the history of educational ideas and also how history can give us deeper understanding of education today and how we might shape it in the future to be more effective for all our children.

P：You put forward the theory of Cognitive Tools inspired by the Russian psychologist Vygotsky's theory of psychological tools. Chinese readers are very familiar with Vygotsky's theory. Although researches about his theory are very rich，no one in China has developed a new kind of education theory based on his thoughts. Can you talk about what is the most theoretical impact of Vygotsky's theory on you？What aspects has your theory of cognitive tools given impetus to Vygotsky's views？

E：Actually，while I have found Vygotsky's ideas very valuable and helpful to my thinking，I had worked out the basic form of my theory，published initially in 1979 in Educational Development（New York：Oxford University Press），before I had even heard of Vygotsky. What I later found Vygotsky so valuable for was his ideas about how we pick up“cognitive tools”as we grow up in a society-which enabled me to make the developmental scheme of my theory more sophisticated-and also his ideas about how we internalize as“cognitive tools”what are initially external“cultural tools”. This helped we expand on the“recapitulation”imension of my work. Both of these theoretical features also then led to a series of practical“tools”for use in everyday teaching. So Vygotsky helped me to recognize that in education one needs both a clear educational theory which must guide one's choice of methods of teaching and the curriculum.

P：Through reading the Imaginative Teaching in Classroom written by Professor Pan Qingyu，Chinese readers have a preliminary understanding of your education theory，and feel that it is a kind of hopeful and vivid educational thought. However，they don't know clearly how to apply the theory into teaching practice，especially into Chinese classrooms，and also feel a bit dazed. Can you tell us about the current situation of the application of the theory in schools from around the world？What issues should we pay attention to in the use of the theory？

E：Most of the work of our Imaginative Educational Research Group（IERG） have focused recently on how to show how the theory has very clear and direct practical applications. So we have developed on the IERG website （www.ierg.net） a number of innovations for practice. These include details of practical techniques，in the“Teachers’ Tips” section，to lesson plan outlines，and also to new programs，like our increasingly widely adopted“Learning in Depth”program （www.ierg.net/LiD），our“Imaginative Ecological Education”program （www.ierg.net/iee），our “Whole School Projects” program （www.ierg.net/wsp-one of which is currently underway in Qingdao，China），and our newest“Imaginative Literacy” program （www.ierg.net/ilp）. We do have many schools in dozens of countries that are now applying Imaginative Education in their daily practice，and there are websites in many of those countries dedicated to helping teachers in those countries implement the program.

P：Your five series of cognitive tools did greatly broaden the teachers'teaching design vision，and enriched their design means.However，in the face of so many design methods and teaching modes，many teachers will fall into hesitation and confusion，and do not know where to start their teaching design.We hope to learn from your suggestions about how to put a variety of cognitive tools as well as all kinds of teaching modes which you put forward into teaching practice. How can teachers show their positive creativity and flexibility when they make the use of cognitive tools in classrooms？

E：Increasingly we recommend that teachers do not try to take on all of the theory and practice of Imaginative Education at once. Rather，we recommend that they take up a single“cognitive tool” and readjust just that one dimension of their teaching. Usually we find that teachers are very surprised at what a huge impact the change has on their students’ interest and learning. The great persuader of the value of any new practice in education is teachers’ sense of its success in their daily teaching. IE can begin in the very smallest ways，but we find that once teachers discover the impact in their classrooms，they will increasingly take on further aspects of the approach.

P：Then it is the last question. You know that there are certain cultural differences between China and Canada. These cultural differences may have some impact on the application of IE theory into Chinese classrooms，for example，China's education emphasizes on learning outcomes rather than learning process，which will be an obstacle to apply cognitive tools into classrooms. How should we look at this phenomenon and solve these problems？

E：Our interest，too，is on learning outcomes. IE is not some boutique or luxury style of teaching. We say that the imagination is one of the great workhorses of learning. IE schools do extremely well in terms of student examination outcome successes. Consider the case of the IE Charter school in Portland，Oregon，in the U.S.A. It is a community school in a far from wealthy area，and yet last year in the Washington Post“education challenge”，they scored 2 school in the whole country! IE，then，is intensely focused on educational outcomes. Our claim is that engaging students’ imaginations unlearning will improve learning according to any measure or test or assessment technique. IE is not simply some process that is valuable in itself. It is a process that is valuable because it produces valuable results.

P：Thank you very much for your enthusiasm and meticulous answers.We look forward to the next dialogue which is no longer peripheral issues，but the practical problems emerge from China's real classrooms where teachers take advantage of IE theory.

Thank you once again！