Imagination, creativity and Children's literature inaugural lecture to honour Dr Henry Maurice Saxby AM, 1 May 2012.

Ewing, Robyn

This is an enormous privilege and, at the same time, I think this is one of the hardest gigs I've ever had. I'm sure lots of you owe just as much as I do to Maurie. Like many of you, as Libby said, I am a former student of Maurie's. He introduced Children's Literature to those of us in third year of the B.Ed Primary at the University of Sydney in 1975. At the same time he was lecturing to just about every other student learning to be a primary teacher across Sydney.

What I've chosen to do tonight is to draw from Maurie's own writing to foreground some of the themes that are really important for us all as lovers of children's literature. You won't be surprised to know that Maurie's work is as relevant now as it was in 1975 when he read us excerpts from the Silver Sword and I am David and really showed us just how powerful children's literature could be in transforming who we are as people and taking us to another dimension, taking us to different worlds. I'll probably leave out lots of important things but they'll be for the next lectures.

I'd also like to personally acknowledge the Indigenous people of this particular land, and their elders, both past and present, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. Our Indigenous cultures acknowledge how important the Arts and Story are in terms of being at the centre of Indigenous ways of knowing and being and becoming. I think we have lots that we can learn from putting the Arts and Story at the centre of the curriculum.

Let's start with the first word of the title: Imagination It's very hard to define imagination:

Imagination is the ability to think of the possible not just the actual, it is' the source of invention, novelty and flexibility in human thinking ... it greatly enhances rational thought ... (Kieran Egan, Imagination and Education Research Group, 2007, my underlining)

Kieran Egan talks about it as being our ability to think beyond the actual to invent, to think of things differently and flexibly. I like the way he emphasises that imagination greatly enhances rational thought not just the affective side of our lives (I believe it's very difficult to separate out the cognitive from the affective in actuality). Our greatest thinkers acknowledge the importance of the imagination in giving them their inventions, Einstein being one of them. And the ability to think of the possible, not just the actual is what can allow us to break with the traditional and go beyond the stereotypes. That is something we don't appreciate enough. Egan has also suggested that we spend too much time working out what children's prior knowledge is and building on that and not enough time extending their imaginations.

Similarly, Jill Bennett (1991) author of Teaching reading through picture books (1991) asks:

Isn't imagination--'What if ... Suppose that... '--at the heart of all learning developments whether scientific, technological or artistic? (my emphasis)

She too foregrounds the importance of the imagination in scientific and technological developments as well as in the artistic, again, pointing to how important the imagination needs to be in everything that we do.

Let's move onto: Story.

In her famous quote Barbara Hardy (1968, 1977) claimed story as a 'primary act of mind'. We all know that quote and would have argued about what it meant at university. Similarly Maurie in Books" in the life of a child points out that:

We are all largely governed by and at the same time enriched by story.

Our lives are relegated by gossip, anecdote, family lore and oral history....

But fiction--imaginative narration--still holds" a crucial part in the self-development of most responsive human beings. (Saxby, 1997, p.3-4)

We live our lives through story. Maurie said that long before many others who are given the credit for it. He defines fiction as 'imaginative narration' and demonstrates how crucial that is in terms of our self development. So, again, story should be at the centre of what happens in the curriculum. Even though we have narrative listed as one of our quality teaching dimensions (NSWDET, 2003), I don't think we appreciate enough that story should be at the centre of what we do in the classroom. We need to think about story as we approach the incoming Australian English curriculum. The current document is very much content laden and not sufficiently focused on what we can do with imagination, creativity and problem solving.

Creativity is the next part of the title: Messer (2001, p.2) defines creative expression as: A dance between innovation and logic--flowing, exuberant, expressive, joyful. I'm not going to rehearse the many definitions of creativity. Suffice to say it's something that I believe that we all have as human beings that it's one of the things that make us human. And yet, according to Ken Robinson young children use 90% of their creative potential. You only have to watch young children in action to see this actually happening--as opposed to us in adulthood. While this is a generality and I'm sure many of you use a lot more, Robinson says the average adult only uses about 2% of their creative ability. So what happens to most of us as we make that journey to adulthood? A serious issue for us to reflect on.

Renowned artist, Shaun Tan (2006) says that a creative work often remains permanently unfinished. And that if we immerse children in creative work we will allow them to explore themselves, given that we are all works in progress. We are all unfinished. Having an opportunity to explore a creative work will enable the interrogation of the unfinished and the taken for granted parts of our own experiences (or, in Michael Apple (1992)'s words, our saturated consciousness). In the 21st century it is critical to have the opportunity to think about the things we take for granted in terms of what's happening in Australian society at the moment.

Next, Literature

Literature can enable us, as Aidan Chambers (1985, p. 16) says: ... to find the best expression of the human imagination, and the most useful means by which we come to grips with our ideas about ourselves and who we are

So reading literature should be one of the most important things we aim to do in early childhood and K-12 classrooms.

I'm aware that I am preaching here to the converted--you're here as guests or members of the NSW branch of CBCA so I'm really not telling you anything new. But I have to say that a lot of teachers no longer possess this confidence in the importance of children's literature and the role it should play in the classroom.

Somewhere along the line in the last few decades we started focusing so much on literacy and literacy skills that lots of teachers lost the literature. Even though many may have read as a child (and I'm one of those children who was regarded as a bookworm rather derogatively by my parents), lots of Australian teachers, lots of teachers all over the world the UK research has the same message--do not have confidence to choose quality children's literature to use in their classroom. I'm a really strong advocate of teachers and I'm not saying that to accuse them of doing something wrong. I am saying that we have a responsibility to find a way to make sure that teachers who have lost confidence in choosing literature for their classrooms can rediscover it for themselves first and then they will understand its importance in the lives of every child.

And similarly with parents: lots of parents are so busy or did not have such experiences in their own childhood, they too do not feel confident about choosing quality literature for their children. Both teachers and parents tend therefore to revisit the literature of their youth. Now while that's good, and there are some really important literary works that we should revisit, some of the best contemporary children's literature in the world is Australian. And some of the best children's authors are in this room.

I also use Maurie's work to think about children's literature you will know there is a big debate about what children's literature is exactly. No doubt it's part of a bigger set of literature but he distinguishes a body of work that we call children's literature that takes account of children's 'child-ness' :

Perhaps" books written for children (as distinct from young adult literature), carry inherently a multiplicity of images or what Hollindale (1997) calls' 'signs 'of childness '--the quality of being a child.... 'Childness' is enduring, while concepts of childhood change with time and the cultural environment. (Saxby, 2000, p.18).

For children it's really important that the books we choose take account of their child-ness. We can have a big discussion about the commodification of childhood today and how the concepts of childhood are changing. But all of you have elements of child-ness within you and can identify what's important and relevant for children.

I mostly read children's literature and young adult fiction rather than adult literature. I recently read a novel, that was beautifully written and it was all consuming but, in my view, there was no hope. Its sadness profoundly affected me for days. I think that's one of the defining features that are important for children. Katherine Paterson says there must be hope. I think the childness in children's literature is related to our souls.

Our responsibility is to become trusted others to make sure that we introduce all kinds of literature to children. That we don't just allow them to read the same comfortable authors over and over but scaffold so that they read books that they won't just delve into by themselves thus providing opportunities for them to continue to develop their imaginations and creative and flexible

thinking. They will then be able to be the problem solvers of the twenty first century that the Melbourne Declaration (2008) and other documents talk about. They are also going to be more likely to cope with the increasing acceleration of change that we are all experiencing and that they are going to experience at an even greater pace.

The Millennium Book of Myth and Story Maurice Saxby & John Winch (1997)

I have chosen to foreground the Millennium book because it's the book that Maurie said he is most proud of. He describes the book as:

a commentary in word and image on a universal search for meaning--a search that began in the infancy of the race and which is never-ending. I hope that it will prove a source book for readers, young and old, to reflect on their own life's journey, their involvement with mythos, and that it will act as a stimulus to further reading. (Maurice Saxby, 1997)

Mauries' words underline the universal search that every human has for meaning that begins right at the beginning of humanity and keeps going through everyone's life journey.

At this point, I'd just like to make a small diversion to say how remiss I think it is that this book is not in print and that the plates are missing. There was an article in the paper this week that stated that more than 20 books that have won the Miles Franklin award are also currently out of print. And that's true of so many books that children should have the opportunity to read. In this day and age we have the technology that should enable us to ensure that this does not happen.

The current context in Australia

The current Australian neo-liberal political context does not often emphasise that search for meaning that Maurie writes about, instead it is dominated by a 'heightened kind of literacy reductivism' (Eisner, 2005), a limited notion of 'evidence based practice' and groundless, continued attacks on critical literacy. External testing has already diluted and will continue to dilute the school curriculum (Darling-Hammond, 2007). We only have to look at NAPLAN and the pressure that teachers are being put under to get a sense of how the quality of learning is being diminished in the classroom. I was talking to a young teacher just a few days ago and NAPLAN in coming she confessed that she was afraid of the NAPLAN results. And she is a wonderful teacher. Why should one snapshot of how children are doing at a particular point in time be dominating the kind of teaching she wants to do in her classroom and the use of real texts? We have a lot of evidence form the UK and from No child left behind in the US to know that going down that path is not going to be useful. It's not going to result in no child being left behind. In fact it's already resulted in some children in the US not even having a school to attend. Again we are in danger of losing our way.

Saxby consistently argues that literature will enable our children to become active, creative, imaginative learners and critical, creative thinkers--creative thinkers that are 'in the flow' (Csikszentmihalyi, (1998) and Martin (2006). It is our responsibility to take up that mantra and to do something constructive about it.

During the writers' festival in 2010 Peter Carey admonished teachers for not reading enough works of literature with their students. He underlined that teachers need to introduce books that are 'works of art' that demonstrated to children the artistry of words. He exhorted us to read aloud and to explore with children the magic of the sound of language and the ability of language to sing to a place within us. Dr Saxby said the same things too, perhaps in not exactly the same words. I've been using Books in the life of the child in my work with pre-service teachers in both the primary and early childhood degrees. It has so much to recommend to today's teachers it is not a book that has lost currency at all.

Using quality literature

One of the things that is really important is the use of authentic literary texts. I've been in trouble from some colleagues for using the word 'authentic' when talking about quality literature. They say surely a book is authentic if it is in book form. Lots of books from reading schemes or part of basal reading programs etc are not real. The language is not real. The language is controlled and while it may make sense at the sentence level it often doesn't make sense beyond that. That is hugely important for teachers. Why would any teacher of young children not read real books to them? Why would they allow children to take home books that make no sense to read with their parents? It is a nonsense and we must do something about it.

Some of the criteria that our students have come up with over the years when thinking about the need to use quality texts. They are

* real not controlled in their use of language: they make sense beyond sentence level

* rich in words and images

* multi-layered

* interpretive, expressive

* intellectually challenging

* provocative of emotional responses

* artistic

* hopeful

There is absolutely no research evidence to suggest that decoding has to come first when a child is learning to read. I didn't say decoding wasn't important but that it doesn't have to be singled out and come first. That's a myth that is perpetuated by teachers and parents and others in the community and leads teachers to say:

I will get to the real literature as soon as they can read or I use real books in the classroom but I send the readers home to use..

If we send real books home, Margaret Meek (1988) says these texts will do the teaching. Stephen Krashen (2010, p.72) has similarly demonstrated that:

The evidence is overwhelming that reading for pleasure, that is self-selected, recreational reading, is the major source of our ability to read, to write ... much of our vocabulary and spelling ability, and our ability to handle complex grammatical constructions....

Somewhere along the way, again, we lost that. We also know from all of the studies that have been done that children who are immersed in arts rich classrooms do better all round:

High arts' students ... earned better grades and scores, were less likely to drop out of school, watched fewer hours of television (I wonder if that means play stations etc), were less likely to report boredom in school, had a more positive self concept, and were more involved in community service (Catterall, 1998).

Surely that's enough evidence alone for immersing children in quality literature.

An increasing amount of brain research also supports a lot of the things we have known intuitively. I won't rehearse all the neuroscientific evidence now (and I'm no neuroscientist) but will just give you a taste of it:

* From enactment to visual representation to written representation is a powerful learning sequence (eg Heath, 2000)

* Experiencing and exploring the strategies of successful authors and illustrators as expert models provide an excellent beginning for our students' own writing (Ewing, 2004)

* Deep engagement leads to deep understanding (e.g. Bruner, 1966, 1986, 1996)

* A safe learning environment is necessary for creative and exploratory thinking (Damasio, 1994, Williams and Gordon, 2007)

* Discussing and representing different perspectives ... explaining your thinking to another leads to deeper cognitive processing (eg, Palinscar, 1998)

* Joint talk about strategies and solutions to shared goals can result in a reorganisation of cognition to sustain learning: many of us need to talk our way into understanding (eg, Vygotsky, 1978, Dufficy, 2005)

* Brain synchrony and change--group activities can lead to bonding that break old patterns (Freeman, 1995)

* Good emotional function is essential for good quality of life (Williams, 2006) and this links to concepts of resilience.

In the words of a child who had been looking at picture books towards the end of primary school:

A picture book opens up new worlds of wonder and magic' letting your mind wander from everyday life. The pictures tell the story. Sometimes complex, they send you mind reeling for answers ...

This underlines that picture books should not disappear from use after the first few years of school.

In conclusion

From Maurie's (2011, p.68) recent work for his family, Growth through literature, I've taken this:

The emphasis of my entire career has been to encourage children to read and read wisely to evangelise parents" and teachers and the sundry gate-keepers to share the fun of reading with their young and to open up the joy, the insights and the self-knowledge that literature can engender ...

The surprised by joy is that joy from reading joy, not necessarily happiness.

I don't think any of us should leave the room without those aims.

Some of the titles that we have given Dr Maurice Saxby:

* the 'guru'

* the pioneer of the academic study of children's literature

* the enthusiastic and skilled teacher

* the fairy godfather of children's literature

* the elder statesman of children's literature

And he is one who is always constantly surprised by the joy and magic that comes from reading, Not necessarily happiness; rather the joy comes from reading something that takes you to a different place. Mauries' sense of humility is underlined here: he would have us believe that all this happened by magic. He never believes he deserves the accolades. We know he does.

In thanking him for his contribution to a 1996 PETA conference, Mandy Tunica wrote:

You are a superb model--loving, enthusiastic and knowledgeable: and you demonstrate the truly admirable qualities" of honesty, humility, humour. We are proud to know you and share your strong beliefs' and attitudes.

I think that lots of us in this room feel exactly the same way. Could I suggest that we all need to live the joy of literature ourselves to make sure that all the children and adults we come into contact with have this opportunity too. In C.S. Lewis' words:

And so we wish you the Joy of literature. When that (joy) happens a child's life will forever be tidier richer and more complete....

Robyn Ewing

Professor of Teacher Education and the Arts

Faculty of Education and Social Work

University of Sydney

(For detailed references used by the author contact Reading Time)