World Imagination Day
On World Imagination Day, it has never been more important to celebrate humanity's greatest faculty
Asked to define imagination, one might think of daydreaming, letting your mind wander, or the fantastical world of make-believe. Probably, you would think of it as intangible and a bit woolly. While you would be right in these assumptions, would you also think about resilience, innovation, and problem-solving?
Imagination is humanity’s greatest faculty. It defines us from any species on the planet. Before it was invented, every human endeavour, from medical breakthroughs to landing on the moon, began with a leap of someone’s imagination. And yet, in a rapidly evolving world, the time to nurture it, particularly with children and young people, is being squeezed out of our busy lives.
That’s why we set up The Institute of Imagination to create the space, tools, and opportunities for imagination to thrive and for children and young people to build resilience and the skills to respond to the challenges of a changing world.
But what do we mean by Imagination? First, it’s important to focus on creativity. The Institute of Imagination’s founding patron, Sir Ken Robinson, talked about creativity being our application of imagination. Through creativity, we can bring our ideas to life, make them tangible, and realise their potential. We can have incredible imaginative thoughts, but they don’t become real until we create them.
But being creative can also alienate people; perhaps some shy away from it because they don’t think they are particularly creative. It has strong connotations with arts, crafts, and design. However, creativity is relevant to everything we do. Great scientific discoveries, for instance, rarely got it right with their first experiment; they iterated their thinking, problem-solved, and were creative in their approach, sometimes finding the answer by accident (Penicillin was found in a mould growing on a staphylococcus plate).
That’s why The Institute of Imagination sees creativity as key, particularly in global education systems. The OECD recently launched the results of its Creative Thinking Assessment, which now sits on the Programme on International Student Assessment (PISA) alongside assessments for numeracy, literacy, and scientific thinking. If you haven’t heard of PISA before, think league tables; it’s the assessment that global education policies are modelled on. The results revealed some interesting outcomes, including students from disadvantaged backgrounds scoring lower than advantaged students in creative thinking skills.
The Institute of Imagination is part of a renewed movement of organisations advocating for the importance of creativity in education and learning. Working in partnership with organisations like CCE (Creativity, Culture and Education) , we are strengthening the case for a world where creativity should be at the heart of all learning.