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What are "Big Ideas"?

From The Arts and the 21st Century Curriculum by Arnold Aprille

What are Big Ideas? We haven’t been very good at explaining what we mean by the concept, though like the 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on obscenity, we think we know it when we see it.

But that is not good enough. Many of us who are working to understand the role of contemporary arts in contemporary education are putting a lot of thought into how we best describe and document what we know to be powerful in practice (and to be weak in scaling up and in pleading its case at the education policy level).

Here are some first attempts at a description:

Big ideas usually reflect upon processes, typically have both metaphoric and concrete elements, and as American arts education activist Eric Booth points out, usually have the quality of verbs rather than nouns. Of something happening, or something transformed or transforming, encountered or encountering. Relational. They contain a bit of poetry and mystery, but are not so abstract that they can’t be investigated.

Not every idea is a Big Idea. Little Ideas are just that. Little ideas. Big Ideas are intriguing. They invite questions and multiple answers. They create a spirit of inquiry.

CAPE classrooms have investigated such Big Ideas as..

  • Structure (“How are such different things as governments, bodies, buildings, and dances structured?”),
  • Harmony (“How do different elements work with each other in satisfying ways?),
  • Scale (“When is something big and when is something little? Compared to what?”), Shape (“What are the shapes in our world, and how do they fit together?”),
  • Mapping (“How do we make symbols of how our world is arranged?”),
  • Stewardship of the Earth (“How can we take better care of the planet?”),
  • Captivity/Freedom(“How did Japanese Americans maintain hope in WWII internment camps?”), etc.

A laundry list of types of ancient Native American dwellings is not a Big Idea, but an investigation of what made each of those houses homes is. Naming the names of dinosaurs is not a Big Idea. Developing theories of dinosaur extinction is.

Big Ideas like these have activated enthusiastic teachers and learners and produced extraordinary art in CAPE classrooms. But our partners have tended to either love the idea of Big Ideas, or else found the whole concept to be impenetrable. What we lacked was a workable definition. And that’s where our colleague Catherine Main, Director of the Early Childhood Program in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago (and a CAPE parent) has come to our rescue, sharing a definition of Big Ideas that may save us from our tongue-tied enthusiasm:

“A big idea is an overarching idea that unifies, inspires, and resonates with children, an idea that is rich with possibilities and permits teachers and children to work together in many ways.” - Chaille, C. (2008). Constructivism across the Curriculum in Early Childhood Classrooms:  Big Ideas as Inspiration.

Unifies. Inspires. Resonates with children. Rich with possibilities. Permits collaborative work. Simple, elegant, accurate, and USEFUL. Just what a definition should be.