Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change (Jossey-Bass Education) [Paperback]

Maxine Greene (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 13, 1995 | ISBN-10: 0787900818 | ISBN-13: 978-0787900816 | Edition: 1

Now in Paperback

"This remarkable set of essays defines the role of imagination in general education, arts education, aesthetics, literature, and the social and multicultural context.... The author argues for schools to be restructured as places where students reach out for meanings and where the previously silenced or unheard may have a voice. She invites readers to develop processes to enhance and cultivate their own visions through the application of imagination and the arts. Releasing the Imagination should be required reading for all educators, particularly those in teacher education, and for general and academic readers."

--Choice

"Maxine Greene, with her customary eloquence, makes an impassioned argument for using the arts as a tool for opening minds and for breaking down the barriers to imagining the realities of worlds other than our own familiar cultures.... There is a strong rhythm to the thoughts, the arguments, and the entire sequence of essays presented here."

--American Journal of Education

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This remarkable set of essays defines the role of imagination in general education, arts education, aesthetics, literature, and the social and multicultural context.... The author argues for schools to be restructured as places where students reach out for meanings and where the previously silenced or unheard may have a voice. She invites readers to develop processes to enhance and cultivate their own visions through the application of imagination and the arts. Should be required reading for all educators, particularly those in teacher education, and for general and academic readers." --Choice

"Maxine Greene, with her customary eloquence, makes here an impassioned argument for using the arts as a tool for opening minds and for breaking down the barriers to imagining the realities of worlds other than our own familiar cultures.... There is a strong rhythm to the thoughts, the arguments, and the entire sequence of essays presented here." --American Journal of Education

"Releasing the Imagination gives us a vivid portrait of the possibilities of human experience and education's role in its realization. It is a welcome corrective to current pressures for educational conformity." --Elliot W. Eisner, professor of education and art, Stanford University

"Releasing the Imagination challenges all the cant and cliche littering the field of education today. It breaks through the routine, the frozen, the numbing, the unexamined; it shocks the reader into new awareness." --William Ayers, associate professor, College of Education, University of Illinois, Chicago

From the Inside Flap

It is imagination, says Maxine Greene, that opens our eyes to worlds beyond our experience--enabling us to create, care for others, and envision social change. In Releasing the Imagination, this renowned educator and philosopher reveals the critical role of imagination in cognitive and other modes of learning.Ruminating on themes such as literacy, the arts and aesthetics, pluralism, multiculturalism, and the tensions and passions of caring, Greene carefully considers both the realities of hard economic times and the human requirement for expressiveness. She shows that, while today's economic realities require an inevitable emphasis on vocational and technical training, this focus must be counterbalanced by an emphasis on the release of the human imagination and the cultivation of new visions. Greene explains how the arts play a key role in building understanding across differences and in stimulating the capacity to break with the habitual and the taken-for-granted--counteracting the sometimes pervasive sense of futility that overwhelms many of our youth.From an account of school restructuring to a rendering of the shapes of literacy, Greene's essays examine the potential releases of imagination in a variety of contexts--in connection with the arts, and in connection with the community that, she hopes, "will some day be called democracy."

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (July 13, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787900818
• ISBN-13: 978-0787900816
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,329,665 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pedagogically provoking but also repetitive, August 23, 2007

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S. Eberhard "perpetual student" (New York, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change (Jossey-Bass Education) (Paperback)

This was a required text for a literacy studies graduate class. The context was pedagogically provoking along the threads of progressive modern education standards that are taught to budding teachers. Some repetition was present as it is a lengthy text with a primary focus and one author. My classmates and I were a bit disappointed with the lack of example and proposals for the curriculum/pedagogy changes being presented. This is a text to be read for establishing perspective not for quick tips or golden ticket ideas.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to really reform education, March 9, 2011

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Melissa J. Javors (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change (Jossey-Bass Education) (Paperback)

Maxine Greene is an articulate advocate both for the Arts in Education and for Social Justice. She describes how encouters with literature, art, dance, and music can inspire young people to inagine a better future for themselves as individuals, and for all of us. To accomplish real social change we need enough empathy to enter conversations with those who hold many diverse points of view and to use our common ground as a place to re-create our shared reality.

15 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most important books I've ever read, January 8, 2004

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Argus Human Rights "sagacityfilms" (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change (Jossey-Bass Education) (Paperback)

Maxine Greene defends the role of the arts as social medicine and advancement. She brilliantly argues for maintaining art in curriculum. Art often requires of us to imagine things which do not exist in reality. This excercise is vital in creating social change. In order to create a new and better world, we must first imagine it. We must encourage our children (and adults for that matter) to imagine. That's the first step and I feel society becoming less imaginative and more homogenized. PLEASE READ THIS BOOK!!! AND BUY A COPY FOR A TEACHER.