Where’s Wonder?

Year 2013, Volume: 9 Issue: 1, 109 - 118, 01.04.2013

Fred Burton

Abstract

After 36 years of working as a progressive educator in American schools, the author notes the near absence of joy, passion, and imagination that today‘s students experience. He asks, ―Where‘s wonder?‖ In this essay, the author makes a case for the role of wonder in learning as he reflects on his work with schools and museum educators at the Columbus Museum of Art‘s Center for Creativity. After sharing his own perspectives on wonder, he further explores and frames the idea by reconsidering two concepts from two major philosophers and practitioners of progressive education: 1) the late progressive philosopher and physicist David Hawkins and 2) educator Eleanor Duckworth. Drawing inspiration from the preschools of Reggio Emilia, the author then makes a special case for wonder as a group endeavor that contributes to something larger than the individual

Keywords

role of play in education, progressive education history, arts in education