Explicating Maxine Greene’s Notion of Naming and Becoming: “I Am ... Not Yet”

Book excerpt: This volume offers a Naming praxis with which teachers might more closely align with their ethical ideals in the midst of their daily practice and relationships with students. Framed ontologically in Maxine Greene’s existential-phenomenological notion of Becoming, the author explicates Greene’s Naming as a praxis within her own early teaching experiences through the interpretive methods of currere and teacher lore. This study evolves in epistolary conversation with Maxine Greene, teacher colleagues, and new teachers. It demonstrates the possibilities of applying critical reflective and discursive dialogue to the tensions of a teacher’s life of practice in order to identify the obstacles to and the opportunities of the Becoming of the teacher and the student(s) in the educational encounter.