For Maxine Greene: The Teacher's Responsibility, the Flesh, and Aesthetic Meaning

To me, Maxine Greene is a friend, a muse, and the flesh-and-blood embodiment of the moral teacher. My tribute to her shows a convergence with the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty's construct of the flesh. Specifically, Mme. Greene's work emphasizes the teacher's moral responsibility to the student. A recurring imperative is that the student be caught up in a heightened consciousness, engaged with others, and wide awake to personal possibilities. But she also argues that the student may see the teacher as The Other. Sartre (1948) defined The Other as one who is dominated and subservient to another. De Beauvoir (1949) saw Otherness as women's lot in sexist culture. For the student, ethnic, religious, and cultural differences may ignite the tension of Otherness in the classroom.