Sarah Maxine Greene (née Meyer; December 23, 1917 – May 29, 2014) was an American educational philosopher, author, social activist, and teacher. Described upon her death as "perhaps the most iconic and influential living figure associated with Teachers College, Columbia University", she was a pioneer for women in the field of philosophy of education, often being the sole woman presenter at educational philosophy conferences as well as the second woman elected as president of the Philosophy of Education Society in 1967. Additionally, she was the third woman to preside over the American Educational Research Association in 1981.
Early years and education Born in Brooklyn on December 23, 1917, to Lily Greenfield and Max Meyer, Greene (née Meyer) was the oldest of four siblings. The family owned a successful business, which her father established, named Richelieu Pearls.Gregorio, K., & Hancock, M. (2001). Exclusions & awakenings: The life of Maxine Greene. Hancock Productions. Greene was largely raised in a way which conformed to the cultural expectations of women at that time. From an early age, however, she demonstrated an affinity towards the arts. Describing her family as one who "discouraged intellectual adventure and risk", she disregarded that approach and from the age of 7 regularly attended concerts and plays as a means of escape. Also at that age, Greene began to explore her desire to be a writer. Her pursuit of creative writing continued for many years as she authored novels and stories until attending graduate school when her writing transitioned to nonfiction.Kay, S. (1995). The power of a preposition‐ An interview with Maxine Greene. Roeper Review, 18(1), pages 61–65. She wrote her first novel for her father, who she adored and whose attention was formative for Greene.
As a child, Greene and her siblings attended a local private Episcopalian school, Berkeley School (now Berkeley Carroll School).Maxine Greene. (2018, November 27). From Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College website: https://education.asu.edu/inside-the-academy-of-education/honorees/maxine-greene Having achieved high marks and academic awards, Greene graduated in 1934.Maxine Greene. (n.d.). From Teachers College Press website: https://www.tcpress.com/maxine-greene At a time when only 10-15% of women attended college, Greene enrolled at Barnard College, Columbia University where she received a bachelor of arts with a major in American history and minor in philosophy in 1938.Scanning Maxine Greene. (2017). From Teachers College, Columbia University website: https://www.tc.columbia.edu/articles/2017/november/scanning-maxine-greene/ She was the first in her family to attain a higher education degree.
Greene had not received any encouragement to attend graduate school or to continue her education. Instead, as was a typical path for Barnard graduates of the time, Greene eloped and started a family. She married a doctor named Joseph Krimsley in March 1938,"Maxine Greene." Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2014. Literature Resource Center, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/H1000039380/LitRC?u=coloboulder&sid=LitRC&xid=8c933284. with whom she had a daughter, Linda. In the early years of the marriage, she managed his medical officeGreene, M. (1998). An autobiographical remembrance. In W. F. Pinar (Ed.), The Passionate Mind of Maxine Greene (pages 9–12). London : Bristol, Pennsylvania: Falmer Press. while also pursuing her writing ambitions. She authored several historical and personal novels that despite negotiations with publishers did not go to press. Greene described Krimsley as unsympathetic to her intellectual aspirations and after his deployment and return from the war, they divorced. Greene married Orville Greene on August 7, 1947 and remained married to him until his death in 1997. It was only after this second marriage that Greene entertained the notion of returning to school. In the film Exclusions and Awakenings: The Life of Maxine Greene, Greene recounts that her career in education began largely due to demands of child rearing. When identifying and choosing a graduate program, she needed to find courses offered when her children were at school. For that reason, She enrolled in courses at New York University School of Education taught by Adolphe Meyer, Theodore Brameld and George Axtelle. She remained there and completed her Master of Arts (1949) and PhD (1955) both in the Philosophy of Education.Teachers College, Columbia University. (n.d.). Maxine Greene Collection. Retrieved August 4, 2019, from PocketKnowledge website.
Academic career
After completing her doctorate, Greene's ambition was to become a faculty member of a Department of the Philosophy of Education, which was challenging as a woman in 1950s and 1960s academia.Goldman, K. L. (2010). Maxine Greene: Influences on the Life and Work of a Dynamic Educator. Journal of Educational Controversy, 5(1), page 14. Until she attained that goal, she occupied faculty positions, primarily in English departments, at various institutions in proximity to her New York city home. She taught at New York University between 1949 and 1956 and between 1957 and 1959, Montclair State College as assistant professor between 1956 and 1957, and Brooklyn College as Associate Professor of Education from 1962 to 1965. During the summer of 1960 and 1962, Greene was a visiting lecturer at the University of Hawaiʻi.
In 1965 Greene was invited to become faculty and the editor of the Teachers College Record, a peer reviewed journal published by Teachers College, Columbia University, which she accepted. Facing resistance from the male faculty in the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences that previously had not included any females, she initially became a member of the English Department.Miller, J. L. (2010). Greene, Maxine. In C. Kridel, Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies. Her work was perceived as unsuitable and outside of the dominant philosophy of education disciplinary discourse, as Greene reflected in 2009, "my writing was described as not the writing of a philosopher but of an artist."Lake, R. (Ed.). (2010). Dear Maxine: Letters from the unfinished conversation with Maxine Greene. New York: Teachers College Press. Rules prohibited women from entering the shared faculty club, which further isolated Greene from fellow philosophers. Nonetheless, in a few years time (1967), she secured a faculty position in the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences where she remained until her retirement. Greene broke traditional convention with her narrative and literary form as well as through her philosophical approach, transitioning from analytic to existential schools of thought, that shaped the field moving forward.Kohli, W. (2014). Greene, Maxine. In D. Phillips (Ed.), Encyclopedia of educational theory and philosophy (Volume 1, pages 356–358). Thousand Oaks,, California: SAGE Publications, Inc. She served as the William F. Russell Professor in the Foundations of Education at the Teachers College of Columbia from 1975 to 1998 and was professor emeritus thereafter.
Despite being in the minority as a female, she was elected to several leadership roles within scholarly societies and associations. In 1981, Greene was elected as president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA).American Educational Research Association. AERA Past Presidents.American Educational Research Association. (2014). Past President Maxine Greene Dies. From http://www.aera.net/Newsroom/AERA-Highlights-E-newsletter/AERA-Highlights-May-2014/Past-President-Maxine-Greene-Dies Greene recalls that appointment as one of the most startling events in her career, in part, because a woman had not filled that role in over 31 years. Greene also served as president of the Philosophy of Education Society (1967), American Educational Studies Association (1972),American Educational Studies Association. Past Presidents. From Archives and Documents, AESA website: http://www.educationalstudies.org/PDF/aesapresidents.pdf and the Middle Atlantic States Philosophy of Education Society.Middle Atlantic States Philosophy of Education Society. About. Retrieved from MASPES website: https://philosophyandeducation.wordpress.com/ Additionally, she served on municipal and state curriculum committees as well as consultant to the United States Department of Education from 1965 to 1967.
Selected works Maxine Greene wrote and spoke extensively about aesthetic education, social imagination, wide-awakeness, and educational reform.Camara, K. & May, S. (2014). Arts for learning environments. In W. Scarlett (Ed.), The sage encyclopedia of classroom management (Volume 1, pages 38–41). Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications Inc. For Greene, the inclusion of arts in education was a means to reveal the social conditions that shape schools and to spark imagination that looks beyond current conditions towards future change.Adkins, T. (2014). Critical pedagogy. In D. Coghlan & M. Brydon-Miller (Eds.), The SAGE encyclopedia of action research (pages 212–215). Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications Ltd She was an advocate for approaches to education founded on concepts of freedom and humanity.Abowitz, K. K. (2016). Introduction: Maxine Greene on Democracy and the Social Imagination. Education and Culture, 32(1), pages 1–3. A prolific writer, her works signal an intellectual heritage with existential philosophers: Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Soren Kierkegaard, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. She was also influenced by her contemporaries such as Paulo Freire, Hannah Arendt, and Fritjof Capra.Spector, H., Lake, R., & Kress, T. (2017). Maxine Greene and the pedagogy of social imagination: An intellectual genealogy. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 39(1), pages 1–6. She wrote more than 100 articles and essays, 40 contributed chapters, six books and one edited collection.Imagining Maxine Greene. (2005). Retrieved from Teachers College, Columbia University website: https://www.tc.columbia.edu/articles/2004/june/imagining-maxine-greene/
In 1967, Greene published Existential Encounters for Teachers which marked her move as one of the first educational philosophers to draw out connections between existential philosophy and educational theory. The text was written for practicing teachers and invited their contemplation of teacher identity and authentic relationships with learners by drawing upon the works of existential philosophers. Her second book Teacher as Stranger: Educational Philosophy for the Modern Age was published in 1973 and further explicates Greene's critical existential philosophy as applied to teachers. She challenges teachers to "do philosophy" and to deliberately consider choices and responsibility for a socially just education. Twenty years after its publication, Greene stated that her goal for the book was to instill in teachers the realization that "to help kids shape their identity, we've got to awaken them to their own questions and encourage them to create their own projects. They don't really learn unless they ask."Oringel, A. (2002, April 1). The Power Of One. Education Week. Teacher. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2002/04/01/07greene.h13.html In 1974, the book won the "Educational Book of the Year" award from Delta Kappa Gamma.