Imagine and learn: professor

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An assistant professor at Simon Fraser University has been awarded just shy of a million dollars by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to head a project that will develop an education model to help Aboriginal people achieve greater success in school.

Mark Jettes, a specialist in linguistic ecology, is principal researcher in the project. His group plans to design a model for culturally inclusive schools through the application of what Jettes describes as "imaginative education."

Fettes will be assisted by education professor Kieran Egan, founder of the Imaginative Education Research Group (IERG) at the university, two more professors, graduate students, First Nation leaders and school district officials in Chilliwack, Prince Rupert and the Queen Charlotte Islands.

"We're really in uncharted territory," Fettes said.

The concept is simply that students learn better when subjects are taught to them in a way that appeals to their imagination rather than forces them to memorize.

The group has referenced studies that show only 42 per cent of 18-year-old Aboriginal students complete high school, compared to 79 per cent of non-Aboriginal students the same age. They have also found that so-called "culturally appropriate" curricula don't help more students graduate because they are based on mainstream teaching models.

They want to try out a strategy conceived by Egan to help drop-out students attain academic, social and economic parity with non-Aboriginal youths. It will use progressively advanced strategies that are supposed to aid students' brain development through stimulating their imagination.

Egan's theory is that language and culture influence the way people imagine, which in turn affects learning, relationship-building and identification with a community.

Fettes believes the usual learning strategies don't work with some Aboriginal students because those doing the instructing just assume everyone they teach identifies with the polically and economically dominant culture.