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The Maxine Greene Institute Newsletter
March 2020
Vol. 6 No. 1
Heidi Upton, Holly Fairbank, Barbara Ellmann, editors
The Mission
The Maxine Greene Institute promotes the philosophy of Maxine Greene and the practice of aesthetic education and social imagination.
The Vision
The Institute provides community activities and a virtual space for dialogue and reflection among educators, teaching artists, scholars, students, and those interested in related philosophies and practices.
In This Issue:
The Board Report
Recent Events and Updates
Highlights from the Field
Board Report
Welcome a New Board Member: Carole Saltz is a publisher of graduate texts and professional development works in education. She was Director of Teachers College Press, the university press for Teachers College, Columbia University, retiring January, 2019 after 35 years. In her role as Director, she oversaw operations and staff with a special concentration in acquisitions. During her tenure, TC Press achieved both academic and financial success, becoming widely recognized in the field of education for texts that blend the best of theory and practice. Teachers College Press has published the finest scholars in the field (both national and international), winning many awards over the years, including AERA, FOREWORD, NAEYC division and book of the year awards and the prestigious
Grawemeyer Award, multiple times. Her work with staff, authors, board members, and advisors supported the Teachers College Press mission: to contribute to the development of ideas that can make a difference in the world. Her ‘beautiful’ friendship with Maxine Greene, which blossomed from their editorial relationship begun 3 decades earlier with the Dialectic of Freedom and continuing through Variations on a Blue Guitar, served to shape that vision for TC Press. She was a founding board member of the Maxine Greene Foundation for Social Imagination, the Arts, and Education in 2003. We welcome her now to the Board of Maxine Greene Institute.
Board Members at Work
In this new Board Report section, we intend to share with the MGI community the work of specific members of our Board. We begin with the work of Jon Drescher:
U*PAL at Lehigh University- An Ongoing Conversation with Maxine Greene
The best we can hope for, I believe, is the creation of a culture within a school or community organization, sustained by principles that suggest the ways the individuals involved choose to live together-principles like regard for truth-telling, a concern for listening to the other, freedom of speech and expression, mutuality…What follows is not a final solution, but a release of new questions that might move those able to pay heed to new modes of reflectiveness, new imaginative possibilities, a new awareness of the phenomenal world.
-Greene, Variations on a Blue Guitar, 2001
The Urban Principals Academy at Lehigh University, known as U*PAL, is a 13 month Educational Leadership graduate program led by Professor Jon Drescher, a member of the MGI Board of Directors. He relates:
So much of the inquiry-based, creative work we do at U*PAL is directly influenced by the work of Dr. Greene. By practicing the Art of Observation, a seminal part of our curriculum, and having direct encounters with works of art, with teaching artists trained in aesthetic education, our students learn the value of careful observation, authentic questioning, risk-taking and teamwork in art venues in a way that profoundly impacts their perspective on leadership in educational settings.
Professor Drescher first encountered Maxine Greene’s work in aesthetic education in 2007 when he was the Associate Director of the Summer Principals Academy at Teachers College. Inspired by this methodology that was developed by Greene at what was then called Lincoln Center Institute and integrated into the work at TC, he has continued to incorporate aesthetic inquiry into his course design.
Since 2012 Prof. Drescher has designed and led the U*PAL graduate program at Lehigh incorporating the aesthetic philosophy of Greene into the overall framework of the U*PAL. Now in its 8th year, each cohort of 15-20 students travels to NYC during their two summer semesters to participate in workshops held at Jazz at Lincoln Center and at the MET Museum to work with teaching artists such as Holly Fairbank, Heidi Upton and John Toth.
Last year after leaving the MET my biggest take away was the concept of perspective…It taught me that perspectives are continuously shaped and how to listen to others’ perspectives…The Art of Observation has taught me that as a leader one needs to establish a culture where sharing and listening to perspectives is a common habit. In order for this to occur a safe space needs to be created… As a future leader. I hope to create a SPACE like this so that my colleagues feel empowered.
Rebecca
In addition to direct engagement with works of art embedded in the curriculum Prof. Drescher includes readings of Greene’s work, a writing component that encourages ongoing reflection, and classes in improvisational theater technique that encourage risk taking and collaborative problem solving. Participants in the program are recruited from cities around the country including the Lehigh Valley, Philadelphia, Detroit, Houston, New York, and Chicago. This Ed. Leadership Masters Program at Lehigh exemplifies Greene’s philosophy of aesthetic education and brings it to life in the hearts and minds of future educational leaders, inviting them into the conversation and empowering them to put her words into action.
Recent Events and Updates
Peggy Ann Richards Lectures
Jazz and blues musician Eli Yamin presented reflections and activities echoing Maxine Greene’s legacy in his work as jazz and blues musician, educator and author, and manager and artistic director of Jazz Power Initiative. Playing his own music and sharing videos of his amazing work worldwide with jazz and youth, he gave evidence of how Maxine's words and energy have provided him with inspiration and guidance in the work he does today.
Matt Green, walker extraordinaire, shared with the MGI community photographs and tales from his walking project that has appeared in the documentary The World Before Your Feet, now in international distribution. Our enthusiastic audience was treated to evidence of his careful noticing of the smallest details of our city's streets, shorelines, cemeteries and beyond.
Community of Learners
Community of Learners is an ongoing MGI event that invites participants to gather together, guided by teaching artists proficient in the methodology of aesthetic inquiry.
In July, 2019 friends of MGI gathered at the MET Museum to explore how asking questions about works of art helps viewers to engage more deeply, see with more nuance and become aware of the ever-expanding possibilities for meaning making.
The I-4 Conference
The Fifth Annual I- 4 (Institute for Imagination, Inquiry and Innovation) took place on March 30th, 2019 at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York. It was Entitled “Look Again: The Art of Multiple Perspectives”. The goal of the conference was to bring together representatives from various disciplines to explore the following questions: What does it mean to look again-reflect on our actions, our presumptions, our conventions or to review our perceptions? What benefits come from taking a second glance, a deeper look, another point of view? The conference asked presenters across disciplines to explore and persuasively demonstrate how reflective practice can lead to meaningful discoveries.
The keynote speaker was Heidi Latsky and the conference included several performances including a dance performance by Claire Porter and Susan Thomasson, a poetry reading by Linda Michelle Baron and the Nir Naaman Quartet.
Seven colleges were represented at the conference: Manhattan College, The College of New Rochelle, Lehman College, Borough of Manhattan Community College, Hunter College, Rutgers University, and St. John’s University. We also had participants attend from The Lab School of Washington, Delta ARTS, The Maxine Greene Institute, The Center for Arts Education, Cooke SKILLS Institute, and Public Voice Salon TV Show. Attendees came from New York, Washington, D.C., New Jersey, Arkansas, Canada, and Virginia.
Greene Fields: Social Imagination in the World
In this new inititative, Maxine Greene Institute seeks to highlight and bring attention to those in the world who are carrying on Maxine's ideas in their own work. We will share the work of such individuals on our website, inviting readers to engage in conversations around the work and inspiration such work gives us.
As a beginning, please meet Jethro Gillespie, high school art teacher in Utah. He describes himself here:
I am not a politician or a businessman or a real estate guy. I am not in charge of policy decisions. But I am a teacher, and I am in charge of helping young students learn, grow and expand their awareness of and build connections to their place in the world.
Jethro contacted us at MGI, telling the story of how his experience with Maxine and her writing inspired this work, and how Maxine continutes to inspire and support his own social imagination. His recent work, called Pencil Effigy, was an event that called attention to the plight of arts education funding in his home state. Again, in his own words:
I became aware of Maxine Greene and her work during my graduate studies. I felt especially tuned-in and connected to her work because of her advocacy of the arts within the context of general education. As a public school art teacher for the past 13 years, I've always felt like the arts curriculum I designed contained a special capacity to engage students in a meaningful way.
Many of my colleagues who teach other subjects are not positioned to enjoy this capacity the same way I do--I feel very lucky to be an art teacher. I had always felt a special kinship with Dr. Greene, and then I found out she would be at the symposium at NYU (which I mention in my pencil effigy speech), the "mindful glance" she gave to me was truly thrilling, and I will always regard that transformational moment in my career with deep and sincere respect.
As I was reflecting on my own educational journey, it hit me like a "eureka" moment to include that memory as a central aspect of this project, especially as it relates to what I refer to as "Utah's ugliest statistic" (ranked 51st in the nation in per-pupil spending for public education).
Join the conversation around Jetho's work on our website now!
Message from the Board
At this difficult and, in our lifetime, unprecented and unsettling period, let us remember to keep Maxine and what she believed in our hearts and minds. No matter who we are, or where we are, no matter what is happening in the world, we can still experience life with eyes and minds wide open, and with a sense of agency. May each of you be well, and may all be well.
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