The lecture by Greene, 95, who served for 25 years as Philosopher in Residence at the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education, will open The Preemptive Education Conference, an annual four-day event that explores spoken poetry and hip hop as a lens for teachers of urban youth to consider issues of language and privilege. This year’s conference will focus on creating connected learning environments in the classroom.

The conference is the result of a collaboration that includes TC’s Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME), El Puente (a Brooklyn-based community human rights organization), and three organizations within New York University: the Center for Multicultural Education and Programs, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, and the Hip Hop Education Center.  

 Greene, the author of books such as Variations on a Blue Guitar and The Dialectic of Freedom (both published by Teachers College Press), has championed the notion of promoting “wide awakeness” to the human condition through art.  She founded the Maxine Greene Foundation for Social Imagination, the Arts, and Education at Teachers College in 2003. She was a founding member and is current president of the Maxine Greene Center for Aesthetic Education and Social Imagination.

 Greene  will be joined by Meghan McDermott, former executive director of The Global Action Project.

 Register for The Preemptive Education Conference.

Check out Greene's interview from TC’s Mini Moments with Big Thinkers series.

Published Wednesday, Sep. 25, 2013