American educational philosopher, author, social activist and teacher who values experiential learning in its "entirety", Maxine Greene has influenced thousands of educators to bring the vitality of the arts to teachers and children. For Greene, art provided a conduit to mean-making, a way of making sense of the world. For more than 30 years she has been Lincoln Center Institute (LCI) philosopher-in-residence.
Maxine Greene earned her PhD. (1955) and M.A. (1949) from New York University and a B.A. from Barnard College, Columbia University (1938). She taught at New York University, Montclair State College and Brooklyn College. In 1965, she joined the faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University.
As Philosopher-in-Residence of Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education since 1976, Maxine conducts workshops (especially in literature as art) and lectures at LCI's summer sessions.
In 2005, she inspired the creation for the High School of Arts, Imagination and Inquiry in association with LCI and New Visions for Public Schools. The school encourages students to expand their imaginative capacities in the arts and other subject areas.
In 2003, she founded the Maxine Greene Foundation for Social Imagination, the Arts, and Education. The foundation supports the creation and appreciation of works that embody fresh social visions. Its goal is "to generate inquiry, imagination and the creation of art works by diverse people." Grants of up to $10,000 are awarded to educators and artists.
Greene is past President of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Philosophy of Education Society, American Educational Studies Association (AESA), and the Middle Atlantic States Philosophy of Education Society.
She is the recipient of honorary degrees in the Humanities from Lehigh University, Hofstra University, the University of Colorado at Denver, Indiana University, Goddard College, Bank Street College, Nazareth College, McGill University, College Misericordia, and Binghamton University.
She was awarded the Medal of Honor from Teachers College and Barnard College; Educator of the Year Award from Phi Delta Kappa; the Scholarly Achievement Award from Barnard College; AERA's Lifetime Achievement Award; and received a Fulbright Program fellowship, which took her to New Zealand.
In 2004, the Teachers College Trustees created the Maxine Greene Chair for Distinguished Contributions to Education.
Critical Literacy: Politics, Praxis, and the Postmodern (State University of New York, 1993)
Existential Encounters for Teachers (Random House, 1967)
The Dialectic of Freedom (Teacher's College Press, 1988)
Landscapes of Learning (Teacher's College Press, 1978)
A Light in Dark Times: Maxine Greene and the Unfinished Conversation (Teachers College Press, 1997)
The Public School and the Private Vision: A Search for America in Education and Literature (Jossey Bass Publishers, 1965)
Teacher as Stranger: Educational Philosophy for the Modern Age (Wadsworth Publishing, 1973)
Variations on a Blue Guitar: The Lincoln Center Institute Lectures on Aesthetic Education (Teacher's College Press, 2001)
Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change (National Association of Independent Schools, 2004)
Other important works include:
Arts and the Search for Social Justice (Lecture at The Maxine Greene Foundation for Social Imagination, The Arts & Education, 2003)
Active Learning and Aesthetic Encounters (Talks at the Lincoln Center Institute, National Center for Reconstructing Education, Schools and Teaching, 1994)
Education, Freedom and Possibility (Russell Lecture, 1975)
Lending the Work your Life: A Celebration with Maxine Greene (Lincoln Center Institute, 2006)
Naturalist-humanism in eighteenth century England: An Essay in the Sociology of Knowledge (Thesis, 1956)
A Teacher Talks to Teachers: Perspectives on the Lincoln Center Institute (Lincoln Center, 1980)
