Running head: EXPLICATION PAPER 1

Explication Paper

Chelsie Pringle

University of Northern Colorado

EDF 685-901

Spring 2021
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Explication Paper

When beginning this final project, I felt unsure and very overwhelmed. I have a hard time

thinking in the abstract and find that I struggle with more open-ended directions. Yet those

pieces of this project challenged my thinking about my chosen philosopher and challenged my

own views on what school looks like.

I first approached this project by choosing my philosopher. I was intrigued by two

philosophers, Paulo Freire and Maxine Greene. Freire’s philosophy of a pedagogy for the

oppressed drew me, but ultimately the ideas of arts integration and using imagination to imagine

possibilities from Maxine Greene interested me the most. Likewise, over the summer I took the

class Perspectives of Curriculum in which I chose Maxine Greene as a theorist to study. I loved

the idea of using this project as a way to extend my knowledge about her philosophy and

challenge myself to take her abstract ideas and apply them to the creation of a school designed as

a reflection of her philosophy.

To help me organize my ideas, I used Elliot Eisner’s school ecology to break down

Greene’s ideas and apply the abstract philosophy to a concrete school design. The breakdown of

these ideas helped me see how Greene’s thinking would translate to a school. From there I was

able to think about how the different parts of a school design would be created, such as the staff,

school day, community relations, and curriculum. Once I began thinking about the specific

aspects of a school design, the ideas came easily and I was able to connect the dots to create a

whole concept of a school designed on the ideas of wide-awakeness, imagination, and the

possibilities of students.

While creating my school design, there were a few challenges I encountered. The biggest

challenge I had was changing my mindset and allowing myself to forget everything I know about
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traditional schooling. After being a student myself and teaching in a school system for the last

six years that has the normal hours of 8:30am-3:30pm and the core academic classes, I had a

very difficult time allowing myself to imagine a school differently. Once I allowed myself to

forget what I know and what I am comfortable with, the design of my school became much

easier. Another challenge I had was visualizing how art integration, wide-awakeness, and

imagination could all be integrated into academics in a fluid and meaningful manner. I do

believe that students do need instruction in the core subjects that we teach students in traditional

schooling, and I wanted to use Greene’s ideas alongside those subject areas as a way to awaken

students to their reality as well as ignite their imagination and lead them to their possibilities.

Once I was able to determine this and reimagine how school should look I was able to put the

pieces together into a school day that I believe reflects Greene’s philosophy.

Although this project was initially difficult, it did push my thinking about education. The

process I went through to create my project reflected Greene’s philosophy. I was pushed out of

my comfort zone and made to question what is. I had to view schooling from another viewpoint

and imagine the possibilities of what could be. I read through a poem, "The Man with the Blue

Guitar" to draw inspiration as Greene once did, I created my own drawing to help myself better

reflect on Greene's philosophy, and I watched a video put together by my school to better

understand a school's community. Just as Greene describes, the integration of art helped me view

the realities of education, myself, art, and Greene's ideas in a new light while also helping me

reflect on my own learning. Within designing my school around Greene’s ideas I was becoming

and becoming wide-awake to the realities of education today.

This project also pushed my thinking in that it gave me so many questions and answered

very few. Why do we have school from 8:30am-3:30pm? Why do we focus on the core subjects
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of literacy, mathematics, science, and social studies? Why do we have standards that instruct

teachers about the content to teach? Why do students have assigned classrooms with students of

the same age? Why do we assess the students all the same, even with their different perspectives

and understandings? All of these questions came about while I tried to imagine the answers to

these same questions and tried to think about these answers from Greene’s philosophy. I still

have yet to find the answers to most of my questions, but now that I know these questions are

there, this is something that will guide my thinking and my own teaching in the future.

Although I can’t control everything that happens in my classroom due to constructs put

on me by my state, district, and school, how I teach or integrate these required aspects is up to

me. After being awakened to the different perspectives of education and the limitless amount of

possibilities, my thinking has been pushed into how I want to teach. As an educator, I learned

that there is not a cut and clear, right or wrong way to teach, but so many options and paths that I

could take as an educator. What is important though is that I do continue to push my thinking,

look at the possibilities, and continuously consider the vast amounts of knowledge waiting to be

learned. Greene’s idea of possibilities has encouraged me to not just teach the content, but teach

the students and supply them with the tools they need to see their own possibilities.

As abstract as philosophy can seem, philosophy plays an important role in education.

After five years of teaching fifth grade, I felt confident in my teaching and felt sure that I knew

what needed to be taught to my students and how to successfully do it. Yet, through learning

about all the different philosophies that are out there, my views were challenged and my beliefs

were spun on their head. All of these different philosophies I have read and learned about have

opened my mind to all the perspectives of education that were just lying in wait, waiting to be

discovered, considered, questioned, and applied. Whether it is Freire’s thoughts on banking

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education, Greene’s theories about freedom and the arts, or Dewey’s emphasis on quality

experiences, there is always so much more to learn and consider. These different theories have

taught me to question what I am told to do and question what I thought I knew about education.

I am very much a concrete learner who likes clear directions and expectations, yet each

new philosophy I encountered forced me out of my comfort zone by forcing me to think about

my philosophy of education in order to apply these abstract ideas to my own experience and

teaching. As an educator, I learned that there is not a cut and clear, right, or wrong way to teach,

but knowing different philosophies is important as there are so many options and paths that I

could take as an educator. It is important to know my options and it is important to have a

foundation of beliefs in order to build my own philosophy. As educators, we have the unique

position to guide our students’ learning and create an environment in which our students learn.

As Maxine Greene said, "A teacher in search of his/her own freedom may be the only kind of

teacher who can arouse young persons to go in search of their own" (Greene, 1988, pg. 14).

Philosophy is an important part of education in that it helps educators become awake to the

realities of education and helps educators imagine the possibilities of their philosophy of

education which in turn will help ignite their students' imagination of possibilities.