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Maxine Greene Institute Newsletter
Spring 2025
Vol. 11 No. 1
Editors: Barbara Ellmann, Holly Fairbank, Carole Saltz, Heidi Upton
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:
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The Board Report
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International Consortium: Mexico, Ireland
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National Consortium: Advisory Group, Seminar Series
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Website Library: Translations
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Notes from the Field: Sebastian Ruth and Community MusicWorks
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Recent News and Coming Events
The Board Report
The MGI Board has two new members! Please meet them here!
Seungho Moon is a Professor of Curriculum Studies at the School of Education, and Co-Director of Curriculum, Culture, and Communities (3Cs) Ed.D. Program at Loyola University, Chicago. Dr. Moon theorizes transnational curriculum discourses of imagination and the aesthetic experience, self-other relationships, and innovative approaches to community-school-university partnerships. Outstanding publications include: The Flows of Transnationalism: Questioning Identities and Reimagining Curriculum (2022), Three Approaches to Qualitative Research through the Arts Initiative (2019), and The Curriculum Foundations Reader (Ryan, Tocci and Moon) 2020.
Dr. Moon is an associate editor for Multicultural Education Review and a scholar whose work bridges philosophy, theology, and education. Growing up in Korea, he developed a deep interest in the intersections of curriculum and culture, which he pursued through studies in philosophy (with a minor in theology), educational foundations, and curriculum and pedagogy. He earned his Doctorate in Curriculum and Teaching, in 2011, from Teachers College, Columbia University, NY.
Rachel Shapiro is a seasoned arts education leader with over two decades of experience in administration, teaching artistry, performance and community engagement. In her position as Manhattan Borough Arts Director for New York City Public Schools, she has played a pivotal role in shaping arts education programming and practice for pre-K through 12th-grade students by providing direct support to district leadership, principals and arts teachers.
As the first and only individual to hold this position, Dr. Shapiro has focused on addressing issues of equity and access in arts education throughout the Borough of Manhattan. In this vein, her most recent initiative, the Early Childhood Strings Pathway Pilot, is the first of its kind in New York City Public Schools. This collective impact program draws upon public and private streams of support to provide free, classroom-embedded individual and group violin instruction for K-3 and PreK classrooms.
Annually, she produces the Manhattan Borough Arts Festival, showcasing the work of over 1,000 NYC public school students in the Visual and Performing Arts at major venues such as The Shed, the Apollo Theater and the Museum of Modern Art.
She has designed and delivered professional development programs focusing on arts integration, classroom management and new teacher support, developing arts rubrics, and best practices for effective arts programming in schools. Her initiatives foster collaboration between public school arts educators and teaching artists from various cultural organizations, enhancing instructional practices across the educational spectrum.
Prior to her current role, Rachel served as a Senior Teaching Artist with the New York Philharmonic School Partnership Program, where she solidified her practices of Maxine Greene’s approach to Aesthetic Education through direct classroom instruction, as well as professional development and teaching artist training.
An accomplished violist, Rachel was a founding member of Concertante, a string sextet, and for fifteen years led their educational outreach initiatives across the U.S. and internationally.
Rachel holds a Master of Arts in Administration, Leadership and Technology from New York University, and the Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees, in viola performance, from The Juilliard School. She is certified as a New York State School Building Leader.
She lives with her two amazing boys, Saul and Lenny and her husband, Chris, in NYC.
International Consortium
Ever since the MGI International Consortium Conference in 2023 MGI has kept in touch with various institutions, arts organizations, and individuals who were interested in pursuing the conversation in their communities. Here are reports on two developing partnerships
Mexico
In Spring 2025, IMASE and MGI will launch their Second Online Seminar Series. “Approaching the Thought of Maxine Greene” will be open to all Spanish speakers and aims to explore the philosophic foundations of Maxine’s work.
In addition, IMASE will be offering a series of in-person workshops in Mexico City to share the methodology of aesthetic education. On April 11, the 8th edition of the Diploma in Aesthetic Education will begin. This 6-month course was created as an initiative of IMASE to disseminate the practice of Aesthetic Education among teachers of all school levels. It is inspired by the methodology created by Maxine Greene and teaching artists over many years, at Lincoln Center Institute, in New York.
Ireland
In Spring, 2024, Dr. Jane O’Hanlon visited NYC on a Fulbright Scholarship, specifically to meet with members of the Maxine Greene Institute and to learn more about aesthetic education and social imagination. At a meeting at the Maxine Greene High School in Manhattan, she invited a group of MGI Board Members to come to Dublin in June 2025, to lead in-person workshops and a panel discussion.
These Board Members, (Holly Fairbank, Amanda Gulla, Steve Noonan, Susan Thomasson and Ruth Zealand) have been meeting monthly with our Irish counterparts in Ireland to plan this visit, as well as to design a second online Symposium for educators and artists around Ireland. This online Symposium will take place virtually on March 25, 3pm (EST) more details for which will be provided soon. We hope you can join us.
National Consortium
In March 2024, members of the MGI Board met with thirteen members of the National Consortium Advisory Group, from across the United States, to hear their recommendations regarding ways to create a national community focused on promoting Maxine’s legacy. The group agreed that next steps would include developing a four-part Seminar Series, aimed at addressing various aspects of Maxine’s work and history.
The first seminar, “In the Fields with Maxine Greene”, was recorded in August 2024. In this recorded event, invited guests David Gonzalez, Seungho Moon, and Sebastian Ruth, coming from different contexts and fields of study, shared ways that Maxine’s work has inspired and sustained them through their varied careers.
This recorded seminar can be viewed on the Maxine Greene Institute YouTube channel.
Website Library Update
New Translation of Releasing the Imagination
A team of Education and Music Education Professors, Dr. Masamichi Ueno (Sophia University), Dr. Shinko Kondo (Bunkyo University), Dr. Yurie Sonobe (Mie University), and Mr. Keisuke Kirita (Musashino Gakuin University) have recently completed a Japanese translation of Releasing the Imagination, published by Keiso Shobo.
From Dr. Kondo:
We are thrilled to announce that Releasing the Imagination, one of the most significant works from the later years of legendary educational philosopher Maxine Greene, will soon be published in Japanese for the first time by Keisō Shobō. This translation has been supervised by Professor Masamichi Ueno and translated by Keisuke Kirita, Shinko Kondo and Yurie Sonobe. Maxine’s writing is highly complex, and translating her work into Japanese was an immense challenge. As translators, we held regular study sessions - what we called our “Bukatsu” translation meetings - almost every week, discussing and exploring what Maxine truly intended to convey. Throughout 2024, it felt as if we were living each day alongside Maxine herself.
In bringing each chapter to its final form, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Holly Fairbank, Executive Director, The Maxine Greene Institute, the faculty and graduates of Columbia University, Teachers College, and my mentor Jackie Wiggins (Distinguished Professor Emerita at Oakland University),who has great respect for Maxine and taught me about Maxine’s philosophy of music education, as well as many others who shared their knowledge of Maxine’s life and philosophy. I would also like to sincerely thank Mr. Fujio from Keisō Shobō for his support in making this Japanese edition possible.Their valuable advice has been a great support to us throughout this translation
process.
Previously, translations of Releasing the Imagination and Variations on a Blue Guitar have been made into Spanish, Chinese and Hebrew. Currently, Marika Crete-Reizes from Montreal is nearing completion of a French translation of Variations on a Blue Guitar.
Seungho Moon, MGI’s new Board Member, who was also a student of Maxine’s at Columbia Teachers College, translated into Korean Releasing the Imagination (Seoul, Korea: Park Young Story) in 2019, and in 2011 Variations on a Blue Guitar (Seoul, Korea: Da Vinci Press.).
Notes From the Field: Sebastian Ruth
The following profile was contributed by Carole Saltz, MGI Board Member; contributor to PVD Eye. Story excerpted and adapted from the October 2, 2024 Providence Eye and used with permission
Sebastian Ruth is a man who thinks carefully about what he is going to need. When he started CMW, 27 years ago, he was a musician and a student at Brown, looking for something more–a chance to transform lives for the better, his own included. He understood that music can move us to do better but like painting, it is often placed in an imposing space (a museum or concert hall), separated from everyday life. Locked up in intimidating and expensive spaces that many cannot access, how can one experience the power of art? He knew other musicians who felt as he did –uncomfortable with the artificial distance created to keep the arts for some, but not for all.
An unexpected encounter with Professor Maxine Greene of Columbia’s Teachers College (who was at Brown giving a lecture), helped him choose the path he now walks. A philosopher, aesthetic educator and advocate for the arts, imagination, and social justice, Greene’s powerful words inspired the Brown University student to see his ideas as possible. “I am what I am not yet.” Unlock the music in young people, equip them with access and create a space to nurture the process of making music. Teach them music with musicians as their teachers and then teach them so much more: discipline, patience, problem-solving, critical thinking, respect and community. This, at a time when arts education was being cut from programs across the US.
Ruth continues:
[We are] a group of musicians, living, working, teaching, performing in the neighborhood…. A professional music ensemble, searching for its own voice in the world and working on our practice. For young people to see that, to come alongside it and be influenced by it, inspired by it – that’s what we’re trying to do.
In 1997, Ruth and his group of professional musicians, along with a handful of students, began the unorthodox storefront strings education program while also giving a home to a professional string quartet, which eventually became the MusicWorks Collective (CMW’s resident professional chamber group).
Today, more than two decades later, there are 130 students, with staff musicians, a fellowship program for alumni, and more. Ruth (the recipient over the years of numerous honors and award, including a MacArthur Genius Grant) understood that CMW’s growth required a building that would hold to the ideals that were intrinsic to the original mission: a community space for neighbors and friends to gather to make music and change the world. A plan was formulated and the building’s goals were prioritized by listening to ideas that came from all directions: students, parents, teachers, artists, a power Board that worked hard and listened and raised the money to make this rising Center real. Everyone trying to get it right, for the good.
Ruth had waited to make this move, hesitant to proceed with a new building before he understood its purpose and its soul. He is a man who will quietly but inexorably assess until he understands. Perhaps, now, the greatest challenge for CMW may be reinventing itself anew; taking the wisdom, experience and hope of its own past and finding a new path with its powerful original ideas: to create urban community through the making of music, to do purposeful work for others with practice and joy, to allow children to search for and find experiences that transform them into young artists and good people, and to give musicians a chance to give back to the local community as teachers, while continuing their own musical journeys.
Our Mission:
To create cohesive urban community through music education and performance that transforms the lives of children, families, and musicians. Our model is centered around the teaching, mentoring, program design, and performance actions of our musicians-in-residence, the MusicWorks Collective.
Recent News
Maxine Greene inspires two Guinness World Records!
MGI received an email from an interesting person with an extraordinary story about how the words of Maxine inspired her to break two world records! Here is her story:
My name is DonnaJean Wilde and I live in Welling Alberta, Canada. I am writing to you hoping that you can help me find out if it is possible to receive permission to quote Maxine Greene’s inspiring quotes. I will explain: While completing my Masters of Education Degree at the University of Alberta, a few years ago, I was blessed to have studied a bit about her life, her work and philosophies. Her words have inspired me through the years of teaching and grandparenting, as well as preparing for World Record Attempts!
In March of 2024 I broke the Guinness World Record for the longest time in an abdominal plank by a female. I am attaching the link to the Guinness Story here.
In September 2024, I broke another Guinness World Record for the Most Push-ups in an Hour by a Female. I have attached the link here
DonnaJean's book From Minutes to Hours has recently been published.
Upcoming Events
March 20th, 2025: National Consortium Seminar #2 recording session. We will announce when the recording will be available on the Maxine Greene YouTube Channel.
May 20, 2025: MGI/Ireland Collaborative Symposium #2. Please look for invitation coming soon.
June 13-14, 2025: MGI/Ireland Collaborative Workshops in Dublin, Ireland
June-December, 2025: IMASE/MGI Seminar Series
For more information on any of these events, please contact us at info@maxinegreene.org
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