Analysis Of Greene's Wide-Awakeness And The Moral Life

Without knowing, one could assume Greene’s “Wide-Awakeness and the Moral Life” and “The Art of Being Present” were written modern times. In fact, I thought they were recent articles. In a world that is constantly changing, there are few things that stay the same. And although sameness is the exact thing that these articles argue against, as educators we can use that sense of stalemate to continue to push ourselves and our students.

Dewey’s philosophy of pragmatism and his creation of progression education, simply emphasize the need to learn by doing (Rivera-Castro). His idea that children learn best by doing and exploring the environment around them plays well into Greene’s idea of being wide-awake and allowing teachers and students to create

and imagine possibilities. But that can only happen if they are aware of their surroundings.

In her article, Greene reflects on Alfred Schultz’s idea of wide-awkeness as a “sense of achievement, a type of awareness” (Greene, 1978). She goes on to explain that as teachers and students we must be aware of our surroundings. The habits we submerge ourselves in as human beings become mundane. I think about our morning routine: alarm goes off, shower, get dressed, makeup, hair, wake up kids, a couple of “hurry up get your shoes on”, get into car, drive for half-hour, drop off at daycare, arrive at school, proceed through the day. This happens every single morning. We rarely deviate from our routine and it is exactly what Greene calls “habitual activities” (p. 42).

The same thing can happen and does happen within our classrooms. Often, teachers are put under pressure to follow strict curriculum and pacing

guides that remove the autonomy teachers once had. Reading curriculums are now scripted and teachers are discouraged from “going rogue.” Greene states teachers are used to, “watching schedules, curricula, and testing programs” (p. 44). Because most of these directives come from the upper part of the hierarchy, teachers have become used to taking the directives as is - never questioning, just accepting that it is a part of the job. The article mostly refers to wide-awakeness in terms of morality and choosing right from wrong, but I think it is important to recognize awakeness in all aspects of education. I think about my senior English class, British Literature. This class was very hard to motivate. As a teacher, I tried to make lessons as fun and engaging as I could. The students, who were very used to the habitual routine of “read the story, do the questions” from the previous years, were extremely resistant to my project based style of teaching. They didn’t want to do projects. They didn’t want to do presentations. They didn’t want to do anything that required them to change – to get out of their comfort zone of text questions and apply their learning in a different perspective. So, we took it slow. Over the next few units, I incorporated less questions and more projects and presentations and eventually they “woke-up” or at least they stopped hitting the snooze button. In our last unit, we held a discussion without the prompts of pre-made questions. It was huge progress from the beginning of the year.
In her other article, “The Art of Being Present” Educating for Aesthetic Encounters,” Greene also argues the value of process and choice making.

She says, “No longer is there talk of what is not yet, of imagined possibility. Along with this comes a sense of petrification” (Greene, 1984). This scared to make changes is often the result of being “half-asleep.” When routine becomes the norm, humans get comfortable. It is easy to establish what works and keep it that way until it works no longer. She says we need to think about “creation of situations in which preferences are released, uncertainties are confronted, desires giving voice […] students must be brought to understand the importance of perspective, when it comes to interpreting their lived worlds” (p. 123). I believe this is what was happening with my senior class. They were afraid to try something new because of the uncertainties contained within the projects and presentations. It was uncomfortable for them, but it also brought them out of the routine. It is important

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Dewey was considered ahead of his time. He thought students learned best by doing and believed in a democratic approach to the classroom - giving students an opportunity to voice their opinions and providing choice in the curriculum and learning process. At the time, Dewey was introducing a model that went against the norm. Teachers had been the keepers of knowledge. Students sat in rows and listened to the teacher give out information in hopes that the students learned it and could regurgitate the information in forms of tests. He suggested that students work in groups rather than individually in straight rows, to enhance their understanding. His analysis of learning suggested that much of a child’s learning must do with the external stimulus and the context of the learning environment which includes not only the child’s past experiences, but the environment in which the child learns and the level of engagement. How true is this for today’s learners! With new techniques, such as Problem Based Learning (PBL), interdisciplinary approaches, and student-centered programs, I believe administrators and teachers are becoming more aware of what students want and need in terms of education and learning.
As Greene said, “We have to keep celebrating and arguing for alternative modes of knowing or understanding […] to provoke increased attentiveness to the concreate and the lived” (Greene, 1984). Education and the future will be in good hands if we keep acknowledging change as a good thing. We must keep habitual routines to a minimum and push for “wide-awakeness” across the board, from students, to teachers to administrators.