Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom

Every one of us has been a student, and most of us are also teachers (and still students) even if that isn't our job title. In this books hooks gives us the best kind of theory -- passionate, clear, centered, direct -- and shifts our ideas of what the classroom should be and do. While changing the dynamic of the classroom is at the core of the book, in these inter-related essays hooks gracefully and meaningfully weaves in personal experience, trusted sources, race, class, gender, regionalism, and history. While her focus is on the college classroom (and frequently that mid-90s women's studies classroom that is so close to my heart), her lessons apply to parents, librarians, teammates, committee members, and more. And if you are an show more actual classroom teacher? Then, my friend, let me buy you a copy of this book. show less

"Confronting one another across differences means that we must change ideas about the way we learn; rather than fearing conflict we have find ways to use it as a catalyst for new thinking, for growth." -113

I am totally in love with bell hooks. Teaching to Transgress was my reading on the train; back and forth on the way to work, where I am more of a teacher than I have ever been. I especially appreciated "Confronting Class," and the reassurances that someone like hooks is thinking about education and sharing her trials and goals.

This is the first book of hooks' that I've read—a collection of stand-alone essays in which she reflects on the concept of pedagogy as liberation. Essay collections are almost always a mixed bag and there are some in here that didn't work for me—the one that's structured as a dialogue between her and her writing pseudonym, or the rather uncomfortable one on eros in the classroom (that one needed a lot of teasing out and consideration of agape, philia, storge, and a hell of a lot more nuance and acknowledgement of the power differentials and potentials for abuse within what she's advocating). Yet there are other essays here which are powerful and (sadly) still relevant more than twenty years after the collection was first published. show more Definitely recommended for those doing work in the college classroom. show less

In Teaching to Transgress (1994), bell hooks offers her thoughts on an engaged pedagogy that transgresses the assembly line model of education (13) where excitement is seen as disruptive (7). For hooks, pedagogy should be full-bodied and about self-actualization, engaging students as whole beings instead of compartmentalizing them (15). She also offers her thoughts on theory and practice, calling it a "false dichotomy" (65), and claiming that the "contempt and disregard for theory undermines collective struggle to resist oppression and exploitation": theory is "necessary practice within a holistic framework of liberatory activism" (65, 69). She also critiques white feminist and critical pedagogy scholars for leaving out black voices, show more for heterosexist approaches, and for essentializing women's experiences (as the white middle class women's experience). show less

»Teaching to Transgress« hat bell hooks ihr Buch im Original genannt. Es ist der gesammelte Erfahrungsschatz einer kompetenten Lehrperson und Dozentin, die sich mit ganzem Herzen dafür einsetzt, dass Lernen funktioniert. Ihr Hauptanliegen ist es, Bildung als Praxis der Freiheit zu begreifen, als eine Art des Lernens und Lehrens, die jungen Menschen die Möglichkeit eröffnet, rassistische, sexistische und klassistische Barrieren zu durchbrechen und Grenzen zu ›überschreiten‹ – für die Autorin die wichtigste Aufgabe, das vorrangige Ziel des Lehrens.

I bought this book because I was looking for practical guidance for creating liberatory class spaces. Although there are some practical suggestions for doing that in here, most of the book is focused on thinking about education rather than the concrete work of designing education in a liberatory way. Because I have already spent years interrogating traditional U.S. thinking about education and forming ideas about education as the practice of freedom, I found this book didn't really meet my needs. It felt like an introduction to thinking about education as liberation, which affirmed beliefs I already hold but did not push me much further in my thinking about education and liberation as I had hoped it would. I also found some sections of show more the book overly dense and repetitive.

All that being said, I do think this book could be extremely useful to educators trying to do some initial engagement with the idea of education as liberation or trying to expose teachers-in-training to this idea. show less

My first bell hooks: a lot of pedagogical theory which I didn't relate to that much, but from my peripheral understanding of higher ed from my experience 10 years ago today, shockingly relevant for something that was written in 1994. I can see the influence of her work and also the continued pushback to it. I'm excited to read some of her other more universal work, but this was a starting point that I'm very grateful for.