Newly Published - "Dear Maxine: Letters from the Unfinished Conversation"

In our winter 2010 issue of the journal dedicated to the life and work of Maxine Greene, we announced that a new book was about to be published in the fall by Teachers College Press. The book, Dear Maxine: Letters from the Unfinished Conversation, is now available. Readers can find information at the Teachers College Press website.

From the website:


This collection brings together a prestigious group of individuals who have wondered, looked at, revised, acted, questioned, and changed their world because of their connection to American philosopher Maxine Greene. Teachers, students, colleagues, artists, and others, such as Gloria Ladson-Billings, Herb Kohl, Mike Rose, Deborah Meier, and William Ayers, have written edgy, thoughtful letters addressed to Greene about her work, their own, and the spaces in between. Rather than just thanking this master philosopher/teacher, each sets out to discover what they have learned from Maxine Greene and to discuss the continued relevance of her work in aesthetics, education, and social imagination.

Maxine Greene has been referred to as “the most important American philosopher [on education] since John Dewey.” This wonderful collection continues the unfinished conversation that is her work.
Contents:
Foreword, Sonia Nieto
Acknowledgments
Publisher's Note, Carole Saltz
Prologue, Michelle Fine
Introduction: Maxine Greene and Human Freedom, Nel Noddings


1. The School and Society: Imagining and Reshaping Public Spaces
Imagining the Possible, Mike Rose
Walking the Dialectic of Freedom, Jim Garrison
Imagining Things Being Otherwise, Patty Bode
Stargazing, Wide-Awakening, Cultural Imagining, Ming Fang He
Living Beyond Walls, Robert Lake
The Consciousness of Possibility, Susan Mayer
Imagining Peace, Nonviolence, and the Life of the Mind, Rikki Asher
On Being Wider-Awake in the World, Kathy Hytten
Hiding in the Text: Body and Emotion, Donald Blumenfeld-Jones
We Who Are Not Yet, Jennifer Milam
Confronting Exclusion and Racism, JoAnn Phillion
Daring to Dare: Teaching for Wide-Awakeness, Pamela K. Smith
Not Turning Away, Julie Searle
Free People Need Public Spaces, Deborah Meier


2. “The Self: In a Tune Beyond Us and Yet Ourselves”
On Not Being Directed, Optimism, Nancy Lesko
Teaching Heaven and Earth: Beyond Philosophy, Roslyn Arnold
The Audacity of Eros, Nina Asher
Seeing the Darkness, Louise Berman
Fully and Profoundly Engaged, David Flinders
The Miracle of Authorship as a Moment of Truth, Glenn Hudak
Philosopher, Educator, Author, Friend, Linda Lambert
How Can an Educational Philosophy Withstand the Test of Practice?, Heidi Miller
Breaking Through the Crust, Wendy Kohli
An Anxiety of Influence, William Pinar
Negotiating Freedom, Shaireen Rasheed
Compassion in a Chaotic World, Teresa Rishel
Flunking Retirement, Barbara Thayer-Bacon
Channeling Maxine's Hillbilly Younger Brother, Shirley Steinberg
Lived Imperfection, Lynda Stone
You Are Our Muse, Leonard Waks


3. Strangers, Others, and Friends: Expanding the ConversationDown the Same Roads for Many a Year, Elliot Eisner
Accompanying the Artists as They Choose What to See, Peter Appelbaum
Big Maxine and little maxine, Suzanne de Castell
Burdening Aesthetics, Greg Dimitriadis
The Uncanny Legend of Maxine Greene, Noreen Garman
Learning Quality and Becoming Human, James Giarelli
The Dialectical Diva, Chris Higgins
An Interview that Never Began: An Afterword to Maxine Greene, Clyde Coreil
One of the Conditions of Happiness, Craig Kridel
24/7, William Ayers
The Slow Fuse of the Gradual Instant, Rebecca Luce-Kapler
A Conversation Over Time, Lorraine Kasprisin
A Gifted Teacher, Martha McKenna
An Unabashed Confession of Love, Herb Kohl
Being and Becoming, Maureen Miletta
Academic Courage and Grace: A Case Study from Maxine Greene, Eugene Provenzo
With Relentless Possibility, William Schubert
On the “Verge” of Possibility, Molly Quinn
Eleven Kind Words, William Reynolds
The Day Maxine May Have Bombed, George Willis
Our Imaginarium, Gloria Ladson-Billings


4. Blue Guitar Lessons: The Arts and Keeping Wide-Awake in the WorldWhat If?, Cathryn Williams
Keeping Wide-Awake, Jacqueline Ancess
Agradecida, Gene Diaz
Maxine and the Furry Blue Guitar, Bernadine Dohrn
Attention to Wonder, Kieran Egan
From Critical Awareness to Wide-Awakeness, James Henderson
Summer at the Park with Maxine, Roger Dell
The Point of Release, John Holyoke
Time with You, Madeleine Fuchs Holzer
Living in the Amber: Conversations Between Red and Greene, Pauline Sameshima
Questions, Anyone? Let's Hope So, Julie Teel
Maxine Says, Nick Sousanis
Awakening and Choosing, Sue Stinson
When Teaching Becomes Reaching, Graeme Sullivan
And the Stage Belongs to . . . the Philosopher, Scott Noppe-Brandon
A Performance for Maxine, Jean Taylor, Barbara Ellman, and Hillary Easton
Learning to Learn, John Toth


Epilogue: “Coming Together to Act on the Possibility of Repair”: Conversations with Maxine Greene, Janet Miller
References
About the Editor and Contributors

Robert Lake is an assistant professor at Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA


“Robert Lake has brought together the various pieces of Maxine Greene’s life in these pages: Here are teachers, dancers, graphic artists, educational philosophers, and others. No one in these pages is content with things as they are; we have learned from life and from Maxine that there are always unanswered questions.”
—From the Foreword by Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

“Within the context of letters to a dear and esteemed colleague, the contributors to this book expand their readers' and their own perspectives on the complexity and the promise of teaching, learning, and living a generous life.”
—Karen Gallas, teacher and researcher

“For nearly sixty years, Maxine Greene has inspired us to question, to express ideas and insights, and to see past calcified logic and stunted expectation by valuing the necessary role of art, inquiry, democracy, and dialogue in education. These letters give the reader a renewed appreciation of her passion and energy, and of those who have learned from her.”
—A. G. Rud, Washington State University

Maxine Greene Tribute Now Online

The Journal of Educational Controversy is pleased to announce that the winter 2010 issue on “Art, Social Imagination and Democratic Education” is now online. This issue is dedicated to the life and work of Maxine Greene.


We would like to draw the readers’ attention to an innovation that we introduced in this issue. In place of one of the printed articles, we are providing the reader a slide show of a child’s artistic drawings, with the author’s voice describing to the readers the significance of what they are viewing in the child’s work. The author traces the motifs found consistently in the child’s drawing over the course of several years so the reader/viewer can gain insight into the child’s imaginative communities, values, and dreams.


We invite readers to contribute formal refereed responses to our Rejoinder Section or more spontaneous responses on our journal’s blog.


Next Issue: The Role of Professionals in the Public Square


Future Issues:
The Education our Children Deserve
The Modern University in Turbulent Times
The School to Prison Pipeline
The Effect of Cultural Diversity on the Schools across the Globe: A Comparative Look

From Poetry to Praxis—Even in Public Schools

A POST FROM AUTHOR, MAXINE GREENE, Teachers College, Columbia University

From Poetry to Praxis -- Even in Public Schools

That amazing Tuesday night not too long ago showed us a variety of human responses—all triumphant, but diverse and different. We were not seeing a mere crowd (massive as it was) but looking at-or looking with—and feeling our hearts go out to individuals. The young, shouting and waving their arms, resembled a rock concert audience, caught up in rhythms, in communal delight. The older people—John Lewis, Ophra Winfrey, Jesse Jackson, the hundreds whose names we could not know—were caught up in their memories. They were memories of marches, dogs, police clubs, fire hoses, beatings, moments of civil disobedience and the sound of "I have a dream." The poetry of the moment, the sense of possibility, even in a Birmingham jail. Dr. King said that he might not be with them when they reached the top of the mountain with its view of freedom beyond the gathering clouds and the deaths and suffering. There was the death of Dr. King, and the song that kept sounding; "Deep in our hearts we are not afraid; we shall overcome some day."

How little has been taught in most schoolrooms. How seldom has the very word "overcome" been heard? Teachers and their students may know the words, but the throbbing meanings are too often lost. Few have been freed to feel the histories embedded in those words or to consider what they have been called upon to do.

Too few have been awakened enough to think about playing a part in the "community in the making" Dewey called "democracy." I refuse to attribute this neglect to any sort of determinism, although I am aware of the corporate interests, the "buy out" deceptions, the stiffening "power elite." There are a range of contingencies, many of them dehumanizing. There are cultures of silence, "savage inequalities." President-elect Obama spoke eloquently of change and left its direction and particulars for us to define. "Yes, we can---" This is surely a responsibility of educators, those committed to enabling the young, through dialogue, through shared action, to choose themselves as persons, as members, as people with a sense of agency with a sense of new beginnings. "Becoming different," as Dewey said, "becoming human," Freire said, urging learners to name their worlds, to engage in reflective praxis—to transform, to change.

Editor: Many of you will remember our journal's very first prologue, "From Jagged Landscapes to Possibilities," that marked the inaugural issue of our journal in 2006. The article was written by Maxine Greene, who was the inspiration for this journal. We are pleased to announce to our readers that our upcoming winter 2009 issue will be dedicated to Maxine's life and work. The theme for the issue is: "Art, Social Imagination and Democratic Education."

From our first editorial:

"As my mentor and teacher at Columbia University, Maxine taught me to confront the complexities and contradictions of life with all our human capacities. Not only reason and rational inquiry but imagination, poetry, humane impulses, empathy, and the courage to choose and act in a context of uncertainty were all important in keeping our ideals and humanity alive. As the authors for this journal tackle individual controversies and dilemmas in future issues, Maxine gives us a larger framework within which to see the meaning of our work and writings. How do we live a life in a world of uncertainty, ambiguity and contradictions? What life are we preparing the young to live? How do we help the young to live a life of agency in a world of uncertainty? How do we help them to confront the inevitable controversies that life in a pluralistic, democratic society will present without falling into despair, apathy, or nihilism, or alternatively, clinging to a comfortable but illusionary certainty? Perhaps, in some small way, our journal will provide a forum for examining the complexities of teaching, learning, and becoming in the modern world."
Lorraine Kasprisin