What do we gain from wonder? What can imagination teach us? How do we think about these concepts in a world that puts increasing emphasis on the concrete and the tangible elements of life, especially in education?These questions were central to the Second Annual Symposium on the Pedagogy of Imagination.

Held on April 1 in the Lois Foster Wing of the Rose Art Museum, the symposium provided a forum to discuss the abstract elements of life: how our imagination works, why it is so difficult to understand, what creates wonder and how the abstract can be used to create in an educational setting.

Prof. Dirck Roosevelt, an assistant director of the Education program, director of the Master of the Arts in Teaching program and assistant professor of education, was the keynote speaker of the event.

However, there were many other speakers, including graduate students and other professors. The event was co-sponsored by the Master of Arts in Teaching program, the Philosophy department, the Cultural Production program, the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education and the Rose Art Museum.

The theme of this year's event, titled "Arresting Moments: Wonder and the Pedagogy of the Imagination," focused on the position of wonder in education institutions and pedagogic endeavors.

In the symposium, participants considered the "drop-dead" moments of wonder felt in the face of a great work of art or performance. How are these moments to be understood usefully, framed and built upon?

The audience, which was composed mostly of adults, heard presentations from Brandeis professors and graduate students as well as scholars from the greater artistic community.

Emily Mello, director of education for the Rose, said, "I think that wonder is a huge motivator, and I think that you can't have true education without wonder. You can have memorization, you can have training, but you can't have the kind of deep learning that involves critical thinking, that involves letting things slowly unfold in the mind."

Mello began the evening by introducing the topics to be discussed and the role that the Rose had played in advocating creative instinct and the importance of imagination on the Brandeis campus. She also said that there has been some confusion since the announcement was made in January about the planned [closing] of the Rose and the plans to liquidate its collection. She took a moment to clarify that the final day for the staff of the Rose is still set at June 30.

"There are no exhibitions currently planned beyond the exhibitions that are up now, which close May 17, . and there are still ... plans to go forward to sell some of the art in the collection," Mello said.

After Mello's introduction, Roosevelt, one of the original minds behind the Pedagogy of Imagination symposium, quickly remarked on the theme of the evening. He said, "We meet in the Rose Art Museum, and it's hard to imagine what would be a more appropriate setting than this for consideration of the most precious human capacity, the capacity of 'what if?'"

As Roosevelt introduced the human propensity to wonder, Prof. Andreas Teuber (PHIL) described his interest not in wonders but in the power that wonder has as a teaching tool.

This was the central theme of the symposium: how the feeling of wonder can be understood and to some extent be used in an educational setting.

Teuber spoke of the abstract nature of wonder.

He said, "there was a distinction between miracles and the marvelous. . Miracles were things that defied the laws of nature and were really, truly, incomprehensible. Therefore, you would be struck by a miracle, but you couldn't get it, and the fact that you couldn't get it confirmed the existence of some supreme being. . The marvelous were something in between the ordinary and the miraculous but something that was accessible to human faculties and could be opened up and maybe understood."

The presentations that followed focused on examples of imagination and wonder as well as their effects in real-life scenarios from housing developments to the Rose itself.

Professor Mark Auslander (ANTH) and a group of students from his class "Engaged Anthropolgy" presented what they had achieved through their work with the Waltham Family School, an Even Start Literacy program that improves educational opportunities by combining childhood and adult education in literacy as well as parenting activities.

Auslander and the students had been working with immigrant women in an anthropological context discussing the meaning of clothing and human appearance. This process involved the women creating images of clothing as well as visiting the Rose and discussing what they saw.

Finally, Roosevelt gave the keynote address.

He explained that "making art . is a structured experience for elementary-age youngsters, who come here [to the Rose] for five sessions, . and discussions are designed to combine looking at, thinking about and discussing one or more of the current exhibits and making their own art and thinking about and discussing that art."

Although the symposium ran well beyond the scheduled time, it seemed to take on the very sort of nature that infuses imagination: a process of thinking and wondering about things that can never be truly understood but is immensely powerful and can achieve amazing things.