Chapter 8: My Lens, My Landscape

Education cannot take place without the art of learning. Learning should be seen and facilitated like a great art, much like the delicate undertaking of the pristine ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo, known mainly as a sculptor, took this endeavor as an opportunity to learn his craft. His art demonstrates that learning is not a point of no return, but instead an endless quest. In Landscapes of Learning, Maxine Green (1978) prepares the reader for his or her own eternal quest:

Maxine Greene was an educator, philosopher, social activist, and part-time dreamer who writes about the humanistic nature of education and philosophy. In 1955, Maxine received a doctorate in education from New York University (NYU). After going on to teach at NYU, Montclair State College, and Brooklyn College, Maxine was hired as a faculty member at the Teachers College, Columbia University, and quickly became isolated stemming from her strong female voice surrounded by disapproving male colleagues. I appreciate Maxine’s humanistic approach to the curriculum and her emphasis on the importance of wide-awakeness, imagination, social justice, the arts, and the importance of living a meaningful and moral life; that all comes through her book. This curriculum is not only theorized but lived, it was her pedagogy. “Wide-awakeness can play a part in the process of liberating and arousing, in helping people pose questions with regard to what is oppressive, mindless, and wrong” (Greene, 1978, p. 51).