Barnard
Medal of Distinction Citation for Maxine Greene
Maxine
Greene, educator, philosopher, mentor to untold
numbers of teachers in our public schools, you
exemplify your own belief that freedom means accepting
responsibility both for one's experience of the
world and for the others who share this world.
A
New Yorker from your earliest years, you were
schooled here and spent your professional life
just a few blocks from where we now stand. But
that is only your physical world. You have lived
equally in the world of ideas, reminding us always
that the capability for reflection on our own
actions is what distinguishes us as human beings.
Your belief in the educative value of diverse
cultures is deeply rooted in your commitment to
democracy as a way of life. You have written that
since there are no final agreements, teachers
and students should simply learn to love the questions.
Today,
when our system of public education is challenged,
as never before, by a constantly more culturally
diversified population -- and criticized as never
before too, you remain in your time and ahead
of it. One of your professional colleagues has
described you as "a philosopher who for over thirty
years has reminded us of the reach and power of
the imagination." He adds that "attention to its
possibilities might help us transcend the pedestrian
aims promoted by well-intentioned efforts of those
seeking to remedy the ills of our schools."
Your
own imaginative reach extends beyond classroom
and research and writing. Witness the monthly
"educational salons" in your home for city school
teachers, and your volunteer counseling in a Bronx
high school. And there is your deep understanding
of art in its many forms, interests that have
led you not only to teach courses in aesthetics,
but to donate a collection of art works and books
to the Teachers College Milbank Memorial Library.
You
have said that education at its best teaches people
to embrace ambiguity, to notice the unusual without
fear, and to look upon the ordinary with new eyes.
You are your own best example of that "Maxine
maxim," and it is with admiration and affection
that we welcome you home.
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