Teacher's Bad Rowling Advice

[Nogrod]

I'm only catching up slowly as there seems to be too many things to make a comment on. But this for starters.

So going a bit back with this discussion…

The educated people in the middle ages – and indeed long forwards to the modern age (before the advent of romanticism) thought that imagination was something where human mind broke apart that which was indeed one in the world and put together those which were separate things in the world. Like a fork. There were a lots of thorns in nature as well as stems but only human imagination could bring forwards a fork combining the two! (Nicolas Cusanus, 15th century – at that time many people thought forks devilish inventions…).

Even in 1757 Charles Batteux who coined the word ‘art’ insisted that human imagination can only operate with things it has experienced and all the monsters and fairies are the result of putting together or cutting away of the characteristics of things perceived in real life (like unicorns, centaurs or hydras).

This view was held up to the romanticism era, when people suddenly got a boost to their egos and started slowly thinking that their personal or “own” imaginations could be greater than the world as it is. Goethe was one of those who got in the middle of this then current dispute when he answered the inquirer whether his appreciation of the beautiful sunset on the mountains were lessened because he knew of the science of colours and how they behaved. Goethe scorned the question, of course it was even heightened experience when he knew how the rays of light acted!

I think Tolkien was torn in between the thin line between the earlier times he admired and the newer romaticism he belonged to - and finally gave up and fell to romanticism (because of the war-experiences, his love-affair etc.).

So as davem asked in his first post,

Originally Posted by Davem

Shouldn't teachers be encouraging children to use their imagination to the full?

So how are they using it in the first place and how they should use it? What is the role of our personal imagination in the first place?

As an anecdote I should point to this. The pope Gregorious (Gregorius the Great, on 7th century) decided to establish a canon of Christian music while so far people in different parts of the world had praised God in very different manners. He had only one requirement to the people who would accomplish this task leading to what is nowadays known as gregorian chant: keep it simple so as a layman standing in the backrow could easily sing along after hearing it once.

Now put your hand in your heart and say whether you can follow a gregorian melody after one hearing?

So are we the ones who can say that the greatest stories and the most imaginative things come from within our individual selves today?

"Inspiratrion" in roman latin meant in-spirare - breathing in. So taking in something outside us not bringing forwards our outstandingly differentiated individuality. Romanticism brought forwards the idea that the genius is innate and personal.

While the class-structure was breaking down and the elite were not any more seen as born to that higher recognition there was a chance for the poor intellectuals to claim their place... As we know that never happened in a grander scale even if some flourished.

I'm a bit lost about this overall...

What would be the full imagination then the teachers should encourage? Aren't the prevailing theories of the universe by physics imaginative enough? Which one is more imaginative and more awesome: the pantheon of the early Greeks or the universe of the quantum-physics?

I love the Greek mythology and understand barely nothing of quantum physics, but still I think this begs the question as I myself am quite ready to accept my knowledge is shallow... and maybe Goethe had a point?