Welcome to

Kieran Egan's Home Page


I am primarily interested in education. My work focuses on a new educational theory and its implications for a changed curriculum, teaching practices, and the institution of the school. This site is intended to give information about my books, articles, talks, other scribbling, and related professional bits and pieces.

Schedule of upcoming talks

"Have overheads: Will travel"

Some Books:

The future of education: Re-imagining the school from the ground up

"Kieran Egan is one of the most original ''big picture'' thinkers in education. I always read what he writes. In his latest book, Egan critiques both traditional and progressive education and puts forth his own provocative ideas on how change might be implemented."—Howard Gardner, Harvard University, author of Five Minds for the Future and Multiple Intelligences.


“Egan''s compelling and original approach to much-needed education reform is delivered through a very imaginative and engaging narrative.”—John Willinsky, Stanford University.

Teaching and learning outside the box: Inspiring imagination across the curriculum

"Lively and provocative . . . . I am convinced that the imagination-based approach to education that is addressed in this collection could have a crucial and lasting impact on the way we learn."


Max Wyman, OC, D. Litt (hon), Cultural critic, policy advisor, and author of The Definant Imagination.

 

Teaching literacy: Engaging the Imagination of New Readers and Writers

"A fascinating piece of writing, presenting ideas that are fresh and exciting."
-Taddie Kelly, Literacy Coach and Reading Interventionist
Waco Independent School District, TX.


"Focuses on enhancing students' metalinguistic awareness and not just their intuitive use of words, fostering the development of higher mental functions."
-Elena Bodrova, Senior Researcher, McREL

 

An Imaginative Approach to Teaching.

"As we come to expect from Kieran Egan, this book is imaginative, engaging, wise, and practical. A terrific resource for teachers at every level."
--Nel Noddings, author, Happiness and Education and Lee Jacks Professor of Education Emerita, Stanford University. (Book cover.)

"Kieran Egan’s work on imagination and learning has addressed our needs as teachers to foster more creative thinking within our classrooms. Tapping into this creative energy has added a whole new level of fascination, not to mention fulfillment, to our ‘middle years’ teaching. We encourage all educators to use the book to put this unbelievable theory into practice in the near future!”
--Anne-Marie Dooner, Peter Obendoerfer, Nicole Marie Kerbrat, and Principal Verland Hicks, middle school educators, Ecole Leila North Community School, Winnipeg, Manitoba. (Book cover.)

Getting it Wrong from the Beginning.

"This is an insightful, provocative, and highly readable book. . . . The book is a valuable work that makes a substantial contribution to current debates over educational theory and research. . . . General readers will find the author's argument rich, provocative, and quite likely persuasive. Specialists in education and psychology will find it one that commands their attention and compels serious reflection."Edward A. Purcell, Historian.

"An engagingly-written scholarly treatise. . . . What makes the book relevant to people who are interested in today's educational agenda is that Spencer's theories have been revived and repeated in almost every wave of educational reform. . . . While Getting It Wrong from the Beginning is aimed at education professionals rather than political ones, those who work with education policy could find a bit of ammunition within these pages." Diana West, National Journal
"As we have come to expect from Kieran Egan, this book is full of brilliant insights. He has a great gift for posing fundamental, yet non-obvious, questions in such a way that we find some of our most deeply held assumptions up for grabs." James Wertsch, Washington University. (Book jacket.)

The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding
 

"Kieran Egan has one of the most original, penetrating, and capacious minds in education today. This book provides the best introduction to his important body of work."
Howard Gardner, author of Frames of Mind, Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice, etc. Book cover, hardback.

"A carefully argued and readable book. . . . Egan proposes a radical change of approach for the whole process of education. . . . There is much in this book to interest and excite those who discuss, research or deliver education." - - - Ann Fullick, New Scientist.

"Almost anyone involved at any level or in any part of the education system will find this a fascinating book to read."--Dr. Richard Fox, British Journal of Educational Psychology.

"A new theory of education that is (believe it or not) useful. . . . . 'The Educated Mind' is something very new and different."
C.J. Driver. The New York Times Book Review.

"This is really a very exciting book . . . Readers who feel jaded by the output of recent educational thinkers will be refreshed by this book."
Oliver Leaman, The Lecturer.

 

Children's Minds, Talking Rabbits, and Clockwork Oranges

"Three cheers for this lively collection of essays by one of North America's most respected educators." Philip W. Jackson, University of Chicago. (Book jacket.)

"In an age in which so many people wring their hands about the inadequacies of schools, concerns that typically tend to result in constraining programs even f urther, attention to a more generous conception of mind is to be welcomed. Kieran Egan provides such a conception in his book."
From the Foreword by Elliot W. Eisner, Stanford University. (Foreword.)

Teaching as Story Telling

"Egan's book makes the reader look anew at what is too often taken for granted about the ways in which children learn . . . I am very impressed by the practicality of his introduction of the use of the story-forms in curriculum for young children. His model is fascinating, and its various possibilities in a range of fields makes it worth a good look by many kinds of teachers."

Maxine Greene, Teachers' College, Columbia Univeristy.
Book cover, Chicago University Press edition

 

Imagination in Teaching and Learning

 This book describes "strategies for animating even the most outwardly prosaic of lessons. His prescribed transfusion of imagination into . . .classroom education comes practically packaged and lucidly labelled, with a nice balance between scholarly exposition and constructive suggestion--and lightened by flashes of wit." Alan Klottrup, Journal of Curriculum Studies.

Building my Zen garden.

Some other books

If you would like to hear a radio interview about educational ideas, click here. It runs for 20 mins. or so.

Current projects

The Learning in Depth project

How to educate people

Spirituality, education, and the moral life

Have Overheads: Will Travel.

A cognitive toolkit for adult literacy

Some artichokes:

Here's an immodest proposal: Learning in depth: Knowledge and the imagination

I seem to have become entangled with the Imaginative Education Research Group. One aspect of the group's work is research into imagination and into how one might make everyday teaching and learning more imaginative. Another part of the work involves implementing various of the educational ideas you will find on this site. If you would like to explore these ideas further and in a somewhat different way, you might like to:

 

Teaching & Talks:

    Research semester

    EDUC 823

    I give talks around the galaxy, and have promised occasionally to mount on my website the overheads I have used. So I'll add one set here, and another set here [later]. I'm not sure whether I should be flattered by a recent description of one of my talks: "It was like hearing the most humane educational program, as performed by Monty Python!"

Personal: