Special 2018 Edition From the new Introduction by Michelle Fine, Graduate Center, CUNY : "Why now, you may ask, should I return to a book written in 1988? Because, in Maxine's words: 'When freedom is the question, it is always time to begin.'" In The Dialectic of Freedom, Maxine Greene argues that freedom must be achieved through continuing resistance to the forces that limit, condition, determine, and—too frequently—oppress. Examining the interrelationship between freedom, possibility, and imagination in American education, Greene taps (...) the fields of philosophy, history, educational theory, and literature in order to discuss the many struggles that have characterized Americans’ quests for freedom in the midst of what is conceived to be a free society. Accounts of the lives of women, immigrants, and minority groups highlight the ways in which Americans have gone in search of openings in their lived situations, learned to look at things as if they could be otherwise, and taken action on what they found. Greene presents a unique overview of American concepts and images of freedom from Jefferson’s time to the present. She examines the ways in which the disenfranchised have historically understood and acted on their freedom—or lack of it—in dealing with perceived and real obstacles to expression and empowerment. Strong emphasis is placed on the focal role of the arts and art experience in releasing human imagination and enabling the young to reach toward their vision of the possible. The author concludes with suggestions for approaches to teaching and learning that can provoke both educators and students to take initiatives, to transcend limits, and to pursue freedom—not in solitude, but in reciprocity with others, not in privacy, but in a public space. (shrink)

Special 2018 Edition From the new Introduction by Janet L. Miller, Teachers College, Columbia University: "Maxine Greene never claimed to be a visionary thinker. But forty years later, her trepidations detailed throughout 1978's Landscapes of Learning now appear unnervingly prescient. Witness and treasure Landscapes as evidence of her matchless abilities to inspire myriad educators and students worldwide." “I would suggest that there must always be a place in teacher education for ‘foundations’ people, whose fundamental concern is with opening new perspectives (...) on the many faces of the human world.” —Maxine Greene The essays in this volume demonstrate clearly that Maxine Greene is herself an example of the kind of “foundations” specialist she hopes to see: someone who can stimulate, inform, and bring new insights to teachers, students, curriculum planners, administrators, policy-makers—indeed all those concerned with education in its broadest sense. These essays, a number of them based on lectures presented to various professional organizations, reveals her dedication to learning and teaching, as it reveals her belief in the potential of each individual person. A philosopher whose orientation is largely existential and phenomenological, she seeks to demystify aspects of today’s technological society, to question taken-for-granted notions of social justice and equality, and to elucidate conflicts between youth and age, the poor and the middle class, people of color and Whites, male and female. As a humanist, she calls for self-reflectiveness, wide-awakeness, and personal transformation within the context of each person’s own lived world—each one’s particular landscape of work, experience, and aspiration. Recognizing the multiple realities that compose experience, the many landscapes against which sense-making proceeds, the essays are grouped in four sections: intellectual and moral components of emancipatory education; social issues and their implications for approaches to pedagogy; artistic-aesthetic considerations in the making of curriculum; and the cultural significance of women’s predicaments today. All are richly illuminated by examples; all are written with grace and passion; all will help readers achieve greater self-understanding and critical consciousness. (shrink)

A Light in Dark Times features a list of contributors who have been deeply influenced by Professor Greene's progressive philosophies. While Maxine Greene is the focus for this collection, each chapter is an encounter with her ideas by an educator concerned with his or her own works and projects. In essence, each featured author takes off from Maxine Greene and then moves forward.

Abstract Ethical action takes place when spaces are opened for concrete choices made by situated human beings. Enmeshed in relationships and projects, such human beings must attend to the impinging social and political contexts and attempt to overcome the carelessness, systematization, and neglect that stand in the way of morality. Unable to depend on abstract formulations or ahistorical norms, they must continue clarifying their experience and creating their values by means of continuing dialogue. Carried on in the clearest language possible, (...) conducted against backgrounds of intersubjectively lived life, the dialogue must be governed by agreed?upon rules of civility and friendship. The ethical commitments that arise out of communication of this kind must be marked by passion, by an attentiveness to the deficiencies, the particularities, the possibilities of the world. They must be part of a community in?the?making, with more and more persons included, all articulating visions of still untapped possibility. (shrink)

The educational philosophers who wrote in The Social Frontier dealt unabashedly with problems arising out of the social conflicts of their time. Their universe of discourse opened outward to the turbulent domains of politics, economics, and the ideational changes occurring all·around. Fundamental to their concern was the question of liberty in its relation to equality and social control. Rejecting 18th century atomistic notions, persistent dualisms, and the association of liberalism with laissez-faire ideas, they sought a view that “combined equality and (...) liberty as coordinate ideals...”1 Because this placed them in a position of opposition to what they called “finance-capitalism,” they then had to confront the... (shrink)

Maxine Greene, one of the leading educational philosophers of the past fifty years, remains “an idol to thousands of educators,” according to the New York Times. In The Public School and the Private Vision, first published in 1965 but out of print for many years, Greene traces the complex interplay of literature and public education from the 1830s to the 1960s—and now, in a new preface, to the present. With rare eloquence she affirms the values that lie at the root (...) of public education and makes an impassioned call for decency in difficult times, once again a key theme in education circles. A new foreword by Herbert Kohl shows how the work resonates for contemporary teachers, students, and parents. (shrink)

Volatile Knowing refers to the positive change that can result when parents and teachers talk together about the politics of school reform. Based on a study of teachers and parents who researched aspects of the accountability movement typically censored in mainstream media, Volatile Knowing reveals the hidden power behind current reform efforts that serve private, not public interests. It is aimed at provoking a new, child-centered movement for accountability and creativity in the nation's schools.

Volatile Knowing refers to the positive change that can result when parents and teachers talk together about the politics of school reform. Based on a study of teachers and parents who researched aspects of the accountability movement typically censored in mainstream media, Volatile Knowing reveals the hidden power behind current reform efforts that serve private, not public interests. It is aimed at provoking a new, child-centered movement for accountability and creativity in the nation's schools.