Edith Cobb “The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood”

Edith Cobb is one of the few grand old ladies in educational thought and worth reading even today. Actually, one might say, that only today the general public starts to understand the true depth and value of her ideas in the first place. “The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood” is Edith Cobb´s lifework. She collected materials before publishing anything for very many years. The book came out only in 1977, the same year when she died.

I have found traces of her ideas in Margaret Mead´s work. Mead was a close co-worker and even wrote an introduction to the book. Cobb´s thoughts about children and their connection to nature are amongst others praised by a popular contemporary journalist and thinker George Monbiot , if just to mention few she has influenced.

Edith Cobb was not a typical educational thinker, she did not follow one school or tradition, instead she mixed ideas and research results from various fields of studies. This was probably the reason why writing a book was such a long venture. To combine and integrate the impossible, to read and learn in multitude of areas parallel, is not an easy task, but can be a rewarding one.

During the years she has developed an original independent vocabulary. Already for that reason only, one might want to read the book now, 40 years later.

Cobb starts by describing the anatomy of wonder.

“…rhythm, like motion, is a cosmic experience, in fact, and the child´s “world making” is a continued cosmic speculation in the form of a recreation and rearrangement of parts of the environment into the synoptic wholes in which the self exists.” (p.43)

Her work is based on numerous autobiographies and play observations. At her time her research methods were way out of the common approach. It was at the height of the positivistic era of experimenting, testing and interrogating. While discussing her methods in the first chapter of the book, she does not mention much about the background of her study. Instead she writes:

“… individual men and women ultimately create cultural and social history in terms of their particular world imagery and their capacity to lead others to participate in the world as they see it, politically, aesthetically, philosophically, or otherwise.” (p.18)

Here you can find her way of approaching the research and introducing it to others. Even though it says little of the actual method of her study, it states clearly the underlying values. I have been missing that kind of declaration in the work of most authors in the field of education.

What is world image? She mentions it in several occasions.

“The concept that the individual´s creation of a world image is the central drive towards human learning (as adaptation to the environment) brings out the ecological pattern of give and take, not only between inner and outer world, but also between past and present as the “autobiographical” search for futurity.” (p.69)

According to Cobb, is nature part of our primary needs, like breathing and eating. Children need nature in order to be creative, to be able to imagine and learn.

“Even in the simplest day-to-day activities, the experience of being oneself, a “circular causal system” in one´s ecology, with the capacity to add forms or to change the very shape and nature of the environment, is in itself a far more creative process, with a much more profound meaning for human beings, than is generally conceded.” (p.69)

She emphasizes terms like “map” and “mapping” because these two words “express an immediacy of experience of organism and environment that has been extended, extrapolated, and transformed into speech as well as into systems of behavior…” (p.46-47). Nature and places in nature have deep meaning to our growing up and becoming an adult. The childhood experiences of explorations and mapping “permits condensation into symbolic pattern or form” as a child and in later life (p.47).

“[B]ecause of our complex eyes, vision has undoubtedly been the ruling experience in the development of human culture and language.” (p.47) Based on that idea she proposes “Intuition, therefore, can be considered to be a type of “seeing,” stimulating in turn the organizing process we call imagination.” (p.47)

As she had followed children in their play for years, she also proposed her original view on play.

“Play can be observed to be a sort of “fingering over” of environment in sensory terms, a questioning of the power of materials as a preliminary to the creation of highest organisation of meaning.” (p.48)

She invites us to think about evolution theory as well as psychoanalysis in her terms throughout the book. Sometimes it is hard to follow the connections she is trying to establish between different theories and ideas. One might consider this being the main difficulty with her style of writing. At the same time it is obvious that the kind of wondering in the world image of hers brings to us novel ideas never really thought let alone discussed before.

I finish this overview with a thought from Edith Cobb directed towards the future of our society, the vision about tomorrow.

“Child fills in the distance between the self and the objects of desire with imagined forms. This psychological distance between self and universe and between self and progenitors is the locus in which the ecology of imagination in childhood has its origin.” (p.56)

It is important to maintain our unique individuality created in contacts with natural environments and not too lose ourselves in the specialized technocratic world of today. Mankind needs the creative imagination of our children more than ever.

Ivan Illich. Deschooling society using learning webs.

Ivan Illich´s book “Deschooling Society” was first published in 1971. That is six year before I was born. In his book Illich is criticising the educational system and institutionalisation of education, which used to be public good is now made an obligation. People give up their power and leave education to the specialized institutions where specialists work. During this process we lose our freedom, our right to decide. He calls for disestablishing the schools, unschooling our society.

The pupil is

“schooled to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is “schooled” to accept service in place of value.” (p.1).

It is not about man´s education but about bureaucratic machinery, the means to control and keep the social order.

Illich says, “Curriculum has always been used to assign social rank.”(p.12). To him there is no question about it, this is a fact. Of course there is plenty of research published by now (see for example Pierre Bourdieu or Nils Christie) that indeed shows Illich`s notions being correct. “Instead of equalizing chances, the school system has monopolized their distribution.” (p.12)

“A second major illusion on which the school system rests is that most learning is the result of teaching.”(p.12). This is hard for educators and systems administrators to swallow, even today, 40 years later. As a possible innovation Illich suggest “learning webs”. According to him will this kind of good educational systems:

“provide access to available resources at any time in their lives; empower all who want to share what they know to find those who want to learn it from them; and, finally, furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the opportunity to make their challenge known.” (p.75).

While being part of MOOC (massive open online courses), I know that Illich has got his dream come true. Even though there are minor drawbacks and some try their best to control and institutionalize, the realm of educational practices is shifting. People are taking more responsibility of their personal learning as well as teaching others. It is indeed happening.

Illich called this kind of process “unschooling”. I would talk of networking and learning in networks, it is a parallel educational system that exist inside and outside of institutions. His book is worth attention, because he foresaw this new wave of education at the times when computers were just starting to emerge and global online learning communities were unimaginable for the most.

About the photo. You might wonder what have children to do with all of this.

The photo is taken in an ordinary kindergarten somewhere in Eastern Europe. I guess the guarding teacher went out for a second. The author, place and date are unknown. It might be dated back to seventies or it might be taken today. How to we know I am telling the truth? I know places like that because of my personal experience, years of attending soviet kindergarten, working and researching in the field.

All the children are forced to sleep during the daytime in former soviet countries even today.  The Berlin wall has never fallen for these children, freedom does not exist. It is between 13.00 and 15.00, right after lunch, when all the children from Estonia to former East Germany have to go to sleep. Most of the children older than three or four years do not need it, but they have lay for two hours anyway.

Why do they keep doing it? It is a regulation made everywhere in order to save finances, you do not need adults during that time, teachers can take a break or fill in the files. During the sleeping time or “piece hour”, as they so ironically call it for example in Estonia, children are usually forced to lay under their blankets with their eyes closed, they are not allowed to move, talk or play. There is one adult watching them all the time, keeping order.

This is a perfect example of modern educational system for our own good. In Estonia 95% per cent of all the children attend this kind of early educational institutions.  In EU they call it exemplary level of early educational attendance. Congratulations, Estonia!