NewsletterFall 2013 • Vol. 1, No. 2Heidi Upton, Amanda Gulla, Holly Fairbank, editors |
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IN THIS ISSUEBOARD REPORT |
"The space of aesthetic education, then, must remain open, even as the spaces of education generally must remain open. We can no more institute an aesthetic experience in another person than we can "learn" another human being. We have to appeal to people's capacities for "choice and valuation," their imaginative capacities, to their ability to take initiatives and attend actively. I trust we can do this in situations where students and teachers both are responsive"
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This coming year we will be developing affiliations with arts organizations, educational institutions and other entities sympathetic to our goals. Lehigh University’s Urban Principal’s Academy @ Lehigh (UPAL) is one example of such an affiliation. This past summer, board members (and teaching artists) Holly Fairbank and Heidi Upton conducted AE workshops for UPAL along with its director Jon Drescher. Maxine Greene was invited to give lectures to another of our affiliates, Lincoln Center Education (LCE), during their Summer Session in July. Greene was honored, in September, by Urban Word, NYC , another affiliate, as they inaugurated a Poet Laureate program in her name. In coming months, the Center will participate in numerous events, and will be hosting our own as we establish our presence in the community. |
The New Board of Directors for The Maxine Greene Center, Inc. is now fully in place. |
To facilitate the activities planned for the near future, the Board has put in place numerous Committees, each chaired by a Board member, including members of our emerging Advisory Board. These committees include an Executive Committee, as well as Archival, Fundraising, PR, Communications/Website, Newsletter, Events and Professional Development/Education Committees. Let us know if you would like to become involved by contacting us through our website. |
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Barbara Ellmann and AN OPEN BOOK
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Is there a better path for emerging school leaders to take than to become aware of how to develop and sustain a true community of learners? My goal is to bring a variety of experiences, many of which are aesthetically based, to my Educational Leadership graduate students. By having experiences, such as our “Art of Observation” classes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or, a seminar on “Collaboration, Improvisation and Connections” at Jazz @ Lincoln Center (JALC) done in coordination with the Maxine Greene Center for Aesthetic Education and Social Imagination, I have seen my students, who are working urban educators, become brilliantly alive in terms of shifting their vision for becoming dynamic and successful school leaders. They have become aware of the importance of self-reflection. They have learned to appreciate the necessity of sharing perspectives and collaborating to bring projects to fruition. Mostly, they have become well fortified, through these aesthetic experiences, to disrupt the stagnation that has engulfed our K-12 schools for decades by inspiring, and supporting, creative teaching to meet the needs of the students within their learning community. |
The Conference Report: |
The opportunity to gather with professionals and students who shared similar philosophies within disparate fields set this apart from other conferences. The day included several sessions that gave attendees the opportunity to consider philosophy and practice together. The tone was set during a keynote address by Anna Deavere Smith, whose speech wove together anecdotes that illustrated the ways that deeply noticing the world around us tends to result in kindness, and how the converse is often true when people fixate on goals to the exclusion of all else. Smith’s stories served as a metaphor for the narrow definitions of success currently occupying the culture. She led the audience to question a worldview in which one may be victorious in achieving a goal while failing in one’s humanity. Her address created a framework to illustrate the social imagination in action; the way we see the world governs the way we are in the world. |
| Finally, there was the panel discussion that featured Maxine Greene and Holly Fairbank, the co-founders of the Center, along with teaching artist Jean Taylor, librarian Alison Lehner-Quam and Professors Jon Drescher of Lehigh University and Ruth Zealand of The College of New Rochelle. Maxine talked about the power of encounters with works of art to change lives. The panel fielded questions from the audience and both panel and audience, members shared experiences of aesthetic education in action in schools and the importance of imaginative teaching and learning. | |
| This message was successfully carried through the day as storyteller David Gonzalez accompanied by composer David Kelly presented the story of Sleeping Beauty. The performance wove together humor, music, and Gonzalez’s magnificent storytelling to demonstrate the arts’ powerful capacity to provoke thought and engage audiences. | |
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For a basic yearly fee of $25 you can become a member of MGC, keep informed of our events, receive monthly quotations, and be a part of the community in our database. Anything above that amount, of course, would be most welcome! |
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E-Mail: contact@maxinegreene.org |
Long associated with Lincoln Center Education (LCE) as well as many other major arts organizations (including Education for the Arts, with whom she partners in this effort), Barbara has developed this exhibition with the intention of making explicit connections between two great loves: art making and aesthetic education. Collaboration is a key element of the exhibition, as Barbara explains: "AN OPEN BOOK is an invitation into the reflexive natures of artistic practice and aesthetic education; instruction and learning; experience and perception; subject and object. In this framework constituent bodies–practical, curatorial, educational, participant–collaborate for a unique exhibition model that serves and enriches each respective body." Indeed, as she states, "the exhibition is meant to be “read” via visual or overall aesthetic language so any narratives will arise from viewer response to, and exchange with, the works." This is a traveling exhibition, so look for AN OPEN BOOK to come to an art space near you sometime in the future! And in the meantime, visit Barbara's wordpress blog!
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