Educator Summer Session 2023: The Power of Imagination in Early Childhood Education

By Adrienne Lomangino, Head Teacher and Pedagogical Specialist, and Emma Vallarino, Head Teacher and Manager of Kordestani Family Program for Parents and Educators

This past July, Bing hosted a three-day session for early childhood educators entitled “Let’s Imagine: Embracing Imagination as the Heart of Education.” As part of the Kordestani Family Program for Parents and Educators (KPPE) at Bing Nursery School, this session was the latest in a long history of offering in-person professional development experiences for early childhood educators—and, with the disruptions caused by COVID-19, this was the first in-person Educator Summer Session since 2019. Thirty educators from California, Arizona, Texas, Virginia, Connecticut, and Georgia gathered at Bing to focus on the topic of children’s imaginations across several days of presentations, a school tour, discussions, classroom observations, activities, and interactive exhibits. The session’s co-creators were Adrienne Lomangino and Emma Vallarino, longtime Bing teachers and the team behind KPPE.

Before diving into the presentations and discussions, the session began with an improvisational group activity called a “stoke,” designed to stimulate the imagination and to get energy flowing, both physically and mentally. We were led by Seamus Yu Harte, a Bing parent and head of learning experience design at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University (commonly known as the d.school). The experience served as a backdrop for Harte to raise important questions over the three-day session: How do we prepare children for their futures in the unknown and rapidly changing world in which they are growing up? How does the way we think and talk metaphorically about children shape how we view them (e.g., the child’s brain as an empty vessel vs. a house being built)? How can we, as adults, open ourselves up to embrace our own imaginative capacities?

Over the course of the summer session, Bing educators shared five presentations related to supporting children’s imaginations. The first day included presentations by Vallarino and Lomangino: The first focused on what the imagination is and the wide range of thinking processes that involve imagination, from basic perception to far-flung fantasy; the second presentation highlighted play and the arts as “wellsprings” for the imagination.

On day two, Bing head teachers Nandini Bhattacharjya and Parul Chandra discussed how the selection and arrangement of materials in the classroom can support children’s use of their imaginations. This session concluded with a focus on “loose parts,” which are materials that are open-ended, can be moved and manipulated in many ways, and can foster the imagination. From bottle caps to pinecones, sticks to pieces of cardboard, these materials come in any size and may be found in nature or manufactured. Bing teachers Marisa Chin-Calubaquib and Andrea Alexander Gorgazzi put together a hands-on experience that allowed participants to play and engage with a variety of loose parts. The participants headed outside to explore various materials typically available to children in the classroom to perhaps test the flow of water, experiment with balance and gravity, and create mandalas, shelters, faces, and more.

Following this experience and a classroom observation period, the day ended with a presentation on storytelling by Bing head teachers Nandini Bhattacharjya and Todd Erickson. They shared many examples from their classrooms about the power of stories and storytelling to nurture and engage children’s imaginations.

In the final presentation, Vallarino and Lomangino returned to focusing on imagination as a fundamental human competence, and explained the link between imagination and developing other vital cognitive capacities such as memory, reasoning, conceptual development, creativity, and perspective-taking. Videotaped remarks by the late Sir Ken Robinson, a respected British educator and advocate for returning imagination and creativity to classrooms, echoed many of the session’s main themes. “There are very few things that set us apart from the rest of life on Earth,” he said. “One of them, I believe, is our inexhaustible power of imagination.”

Interspersed among the presentations were opportunities for educators to observe Bing classrooms, have informal discussions, and exercise their own imaginations. The tour allowed them to take in the classroom environment and selection of materials, but once they devoted time to observing, they noticed more about the interactions, both between teachers and children and among peers. During debrief conversations, teachers commented on the children’s sense of calm, as well as their focus, independence, and willingness to help each other.

Small group discussions touched on the importance of wonder for inspiring imagination. Researchers Kieran Egan and Gillian Judson, who have written extensively about education and imagination, asserted, “The educational challenge is to keep the mind awake, energetic, and imaginative. One of the great tools for doing so is the sense of wonder, the sense that allows us to continue to see the world as wonder-full.”

Educators visited Bing’s “imagination studio” on the second floor of the Tower House, a hands-on space in which to wander, wonder, and create. Bing teacher Kay Erikson had set up a “mini-world” forest scene for teachers to tell stories and an open table for collaboratively creating their ideal early childhood environment with various open-ended materials (corks, wood, wire, cloth). There was also an unusual “gallery” experience with several objects displayed like art pieces and viewers were invited to contribute a title for each. Educators added their wishes to a “wishing tree” and created mandalas with natural materials at a table arranged by Bing teacher Laura Benard.

Continuing up the stairs to the top of the Tower, educators found the windowsills lined with children’s books curated by Bing teacher Mischa Rosenberg. A small bookshelf held academic books and articles about the imagination. Visitors could also add the titles of their favorite books about imagination to a list.

The Educator Summer Session is intended to provide a meaningful opportunity for early childhood educators not only to think deeply about a topic and how it relates to their practice but also to feel valued both as professionals and as people. Feedback from this year’s participants suggested the objective was met, with comments such as “Your workshops make me feel seen and supported in my values as a teacher, and I always walk away having learned so much and with a sense of community.” Embedded in Bing’s mission is to foster a broader community dedicated to improving the lives of young children and their families—a mission advanced by the Educator Summer Session.