Teaching to Transgress Education as the Practice of Freedom

1. Teaching to TransgressEducation as the Practice of Freedom bell hooks

2. bell hooks

3. bell hooks: Using Popular Culture in Education

4. Biography • Born Gloria Watkins on September 25, 1952 • Author of many books including: Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, Talking Back • She is a distinguished professor of English at City College in New York

5. Paulo Freire “Perhaps the most influential thinker about education in the late twentieth century, Paulo Freire has been  particularly popular with informal educators with his emphasis on dialogue and his concern for the oppressed.” -http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-freir.htm

6. Paulo Freire as an Inspiration • In chapter 4, bell hooks engages in an inner-dialogue with herself (Gloria Watkins) in which she discusses her “intimacy” with Paulo Freire • Freire acted as a “challenging teacher whose work furthered my own struggle against the colonizing process” • Colonizing herself as a black female into a patriarchal society

7. VATE: Bridging the Gap • Bridging the gap between class, gender, and race was not addressed during the session. • However, Teaching to Transgress gives more insight into how to do so and provides some significant information. • Essays focus on college classrooms • Does not give a lot of explicit direction, but provides examples of hooks’ experiences

8. Engaged Pedagogy • “To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can learn. That learning process comes easiest to those of us who teach who also believe that there is an aspect of our vocation that is sacred; who believe that our work is not merely to share information but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students” (13).

9. Engaged Pedagogy (cont.) • Holistic education • Emphasizes well-being of students • Teachers must be actively committed to a process of self-actualization • Helps to empower themselves as well as their students • Promotes teacher growth

10. A Revolution of Values • “If we examine critically the traditional role of the university in the pursuit of truth and the sharing of knowledge and information, it is painfully clear that biases that uphold and maintain white supremacy, imperialism, sexism, and racism have distorted education so that it is no longer about the practice of freedom,” (29).

11. Teaching to Transgress • Hooks incorporates many theories into her teaching • She combines feminism with engaged pedagogy • “Reflecting on my own work in Feminist Theory, I find writing –Theoretical Talk- to be most meaningful when it invites readers to engage in critical reflection and to engage in the practice of feminism. To me, this theory emerges from the concrete, from my efforts to make sense of everyday life experiences, from my efforts to intervene critically in my life and the lives of others. This to me is what makes feminist transformation possible,” (70).

12. Ideas on Feminism • Teaches a Women’s Studies class • Most Women’s Studies classes are predominantly white • Problems arise because these classes do not work with black females • Teachers are often threatened by diversity because they are not prepared to teach in diverse classrooms • bell hooks struggled with this herself

13. Practical Applications within the Classroom • Never call on a student to act as a representative of their race, class, or gender • Teach more literature than what is written by white males throughout history • Don’t pretend that race, class, or gender does not exist • Embrace it and work with it