#maxinegreene

Maxine Greene passed away yesterday. I had the opportunity to hear her speak at the Imagining Art & Social Change conference in Providence back in 2008 (I was 18 years old). That experience helped me solidify my future goals of working in community arts education. I think "Releasing the Imagination" and "Variations on a Blue Guitar" were also the first books I ever read on art, education, and social change. I am also pretty sure that without hearing her talk at the conference and folks from the Providence Youth Arts Collaborative recommending I read her works -- I would not do what I do today.  “One danger that threatens both teachers and students in [education reform] emphases [on standards] is that they will come to feel anger at being locked into an objective set of circumstances defined by others. Young people find themselves described as ‘human resources’ rather than as persons who are centers of choice and evaluation. They are, it is suggested, to be molded in the service of technology and the market, no matter who they are.”  "Imagination may be a new way of de-centering ourselves, of breaking out of the confinements of privatism and self-regard into a space where we can come face to face with others and call out, ‘Here we are.’" “It may be where the arts in education find their culmination—among “the silent beautiful blossoms,” where the young ones can stand together, arms linked under the dark birds, imagining what might be, acting upon their vision as they begin working to renew.”