Jenny+&+Margaret

__Agreed Format:__ Decide what this looks like as a group when we meet. - '  His work connects and extends on the story telling approach exemplified by Plato in his allegories and in Rousseau’s //Emile.// In addition his work supports Bruner's claim that "any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development" and is compatible with the work of Lipman and Matthews.' //(Johnson, T & Reed, R. p234)// -     -   Children can deal with both complex and abstract and conflicting concepts from young age which is evident in the stories they understand. Taking the example of Cinderella, Egan identifies that young children are able to understand and 'grasp concepts such as fear / hope, kindness / cruelty, and good / evil.' (//Johnson, T & Reed, R. p234)//
 * __ Jenny & Margaret's Planning Page __**
 * Introduction-reporters get assignment: **
 * Introduction of philosopher-reporter **
 * Quote: ‘ My work focuses on a new educational theory and its implications for a changed curriculum, teaching practices, and the institution of the school.’ **
 * Connection to other philosophers
 * His criticism of Piaget is that we should be focussing on what children can do rather than what they cannot. We should be focusing on the development of imagination rather than logico-mathematical capacities. Egan points out that Piaget's focus is on an area where the difference between children's and adult's thinking is at it greatest. Egan also believes that 'peoples intellectual development would be better understood by focusing on the role played by the intellectual tools available in the society into which a person grows than by relying on Piaget's psychological thories of development.' (Johnson & reed, p236) Commonly ti is derived from Piagetian research that young students are able to develop a concept of historical causality and yet students understand the concept as it realtes to story development.


 * Human beings developed multiple tools for understanding their world. Egan suggests that being educated means to acquire these kinds of understanding and acquire them in sequence in which each developed historically. Somatic, Mythic, Romantic, Philosophic and Ironic. Education involves people "recapitulating, repeating for themselves, the discoveries and inventions that have accumulated through the history of that culture." Johnson & reed, P235) Egan focuses on the linguistically based tools of understanding or ways of knowing.
 * Egan focuses on the kinds of conceptual abilities children use for stories and draws on the engaging and communicative powers of story form.

-  Binary opposites assist human kind in learning about the world they inhabit. This is not just a feature of children’s stories. Our media present information to us in much the same way and we use binary opposites to organsie and make sense of new information. If we can't fit the new information into such structures, the information is at risk of being meaningless to us. Binary opposites can be used as a means of organising and selcting content in teaching. - Stories give us an opportunity to engage our affective responses. We need to rehumanise Mathematics and Science in particular. Stories have the power to be affectively engaging. -  He believes that metaphors and analogies assist us in understanding mysterious things eg. He uses an analogy of how the function of the heart became clear only after the invention of the pump. Egan discusses education in terms of the analogy of an assembly line. -     -   This does not mean that everything should be delivered in the form of a story but rather use the rhythm or story structure to plan our lesson. Setting up the expectation at the beginning, this is elaborated or complicated in the middle, and is satisfied in the end. -  Storytelling brings out the emotional and imaginative importance which is far better than just keeping the focus on content and context. -  He compares the power of using story to teach content to that of an assembly line. “factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned into products to meet the various demands of life” -  We should teach for understanding and in so doing acknowledge the role of imagination
 * Story rhythm: There is a rhythm in stories. They set up an expectation at the beginning, this is elaborated or complicated in the middle, and is satisfied in the end. Stories hold their power if the events stick to and carry forward the basic rhytjm. Egan uses this approach in teaching, leave out items that fail to carry forward and engage. Essential details only. It is this rhythm of expectation and statisfaction that will give us a principle for selecting content.
 * He believes that binary opposites are obvious structural devices that can be seen in children’s stories – eg. Good & evil / fear & security / courage and cowardice. Binary opposites are the main structuring lines along which the story moves forward.
 * Believes that our entire curriculum has a story attached to it and we need to be more open and more imaginative in our delivery.

Summing Up: Egan advocates the use of some features of the story format in order to make new knowledge meaningful and engaging to children. Stories ar ea great way to efficiently organise and communicate meaning. The story needs a rhythm and underlying binary opposites to engage interest and provide a criteria for the selction of content. Links to his site List you tube clips and what they were about (Margaret) Link to lesson plan delivered
 * __ Newspaper article. __**

Brief outline of a couple of other lesson plans available – copy from descriptions (Margaret)