Two
weeks ago, I spent a Saturday traveling to the century-old District Library in
Jackson, Michigan, one of more than 2500 beautiful public libraries--on three
continents--funded by industrial magnate and innovative philanthropist Andrew
Carnegie. The draw was a workshop on using research in writing, plus a luncheon
keynote featuring one of my favorite authors, Diana Gabaldon. Gabaldon took
questions after the workshop and the keynote--and both times, someone in the
audience asked her who Jamie (a character running through most of her novels)
looks like. As in--which living person, preferably a star, served as model for
your hero?

Both
times, Gabaldon gently demurred, saying that while she had an image of Jamie, readers should create their own vision.
This was not an answer that pleased the audience; there was the sense that they
wanted a name--or better yet, a color photo. And at my table, a Gabaldon reader
confessed that she starts all books by turning to the last pages--to see (her
words) "who died and who got together." Only with that concrete information could she start reading.

There's
plenty of evidence that students in this media-saturated world are losing their
capacity for rich imagination.  One of my
favorite instructional strategies in teaching middle school music is structured
role play. Assigning students a character to inhabit-- rock star, entertainment
lawyer, singing monk-- is a powerful way to force them to "think
different." There's always a subgroup of students who resist, claiming
they don't know what to do or say-- "Can't you just write it down, so I
can read it?" Explaining divergent thinking--or the endless possibilities
for changing one's narrative-- isn't always helpful. They're looking for the right
answer.

Turning
kids on to different kinds of music--every music teacher's #1 goal--is an
exercise in developing the imagination, particularly for band and orchestra
teachers who can't use lyrics as a means of illumination.  I remember one stunning moment back in the
80s, rehearsing a sensitive passage with my 8th grade band.  A young man raised his hand and said it might
be easier to play the piece if we knew what it was about. I replied that people
didn't ask Beethoven what his fifth symphony was about, but he persisted,
saying "You know, like on MTV, where you can see what songs are
about?"

That
comment sent me on an enduring quest to embed the ideas of imagination and
inspiration (literally, "drawing breath") into my classroom pedagogy.
Musicians use a range of non-visual and non-literary tools to represent
emotion, story, purpose and occasion. Part of musical imagination is
craftsmanship--having the knowledge and skills to create. But another part is
the willingness to be playful, to recombine familiar elements into something
new, to take a risk or wait on inspiration. My students had some rudimentary
knowledge and skills. What they didn't have was permission to honor or evaluate
their own interpretations and images.

As
much as I would like to pin my worries about diminished imagination in children
on MTV and a thousand other always-on media sources, I can't. Media, whether
brilliant or boring, is only the product.  Imagination is a process. A process fed and
honed by comprehension and competence--but also the ability to delay
gratification, to fool around with ideas. The women at the library who wanted
to see the definitive picture of their fictional hero, or know how the story
turns out before reading, were lacking the capacity to suspend fulfillment and
tinker with possibility. They wanted the answer.

Einstein
is famous for  declaring that imagination is more important
than knowledge. Here's the rest of that quote: "For knowledge is
limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the
entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Imagination
is a real thing. It belongs in every vision or proposal for what our children
should learn, preparing for their 21st century lives.