Imagination Is More Important than Knowledge
You may recognize the title of this post as a quote from Albert Einstein. Things we know don't contribute much to new ways of living or new contributions to the world. Imagination does produce such new beginnings. Everything in our world is created twice. First it is imagined by an individual, and if pursued, the thing imagined becomes a reality in the outside world. Yet children are discouraged from having imagination. They are discouraged from daydreaming--which is the same thing as imagining. Michael Flatley, the creator of Lord of the Dance , said in an interview that he was always getting in trouble in school for daydreaming, but the things he was dreaming about became his production of Lord of the Dance , which earned him millions of dollars. Sir Ken Robinson has pointed out how schools destroy creative thinking in children by emphasizing critical thinking and suppressing imagination. One of my granddaughters recently said to me, "I can dream," when she expressed...