Teaching To Transgress

Education as the Practice of Freedom

216 pages

Published Nov. 18, 1994 by Routledge.

ISBN:
978-0-415-90808-5
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4 stars (9 reviews)

"After reading Teaching to Transgress I am once again struck by bell hooks's never-ending, unquiet intellectual energy, an energy that makes her radical and loving." -- Paulo Freire

In Teaching to Transgress,bell hooks--writer, teacher, and insurgent black intellectual--writes about a new kind of education, education as the practice of freedom. Teaching students to "transgress" against racial, sexual, and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for hooks, the teacher's most important goal.

bell hooks speaks to the heart of education today: how can we rethink teaching practices in the age of multiculturalism? What do we do about teachers who do not want to teach, and students who do not want to learn? How should we deal with racism and sexism in the classroom?

Full of passion and politics, Teaching to Transgress combines a practical knowledge of the classroom with a deeply felt connection to the world …

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Review of 'Teaching To Transgress' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Been wanting to read more material from Bell Hooks and got this on loan from the library. It is an outstanding view on education and intersectionality in the classroom. She makes it very clear how the complexities of power, class, gender, race and even language generate a dynamic environment that should not be ignored and assumed to be neutral in the classroom. She tells her own experiences as a student and a teacher and links them to the needs of nurturing young souls.
She also talks about colonisation and its legacy and the fact that the very language we use is a tool of oppression, that needs to be owned and wielded by the powerless to reclaim their very humanity. She sums it up and elaborates from this phrase from a poem by Adrienne Rich: “This is the oppressor’s language yet I need it to talk to you.”
Powerful thoughts …

Review of 'Teaching To Transgress' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

“Engaged pedagogy does not seek simply to empower students. Any classroom that employs a holistic model of learning will also be a place where teachers grow, and are empowered by the process. That empowerment cannot happen if we refuse to be vulnerable while encouraging our students to take risks.”

Review of 'Teaching To Transgress' on 'GoodReads'

3 stars

I particularly enjoyed the dialogue around "building a teaching community," which prompted me to think critically about my own actions and how they reinforce or transgress against existing power structures. Overall this book did not feel revelationary to me but provided another perspective on power, on teaching, and on critical thinking. My biggest beef would be that I don't feel like I understand what she meant specifically by "liberatory practice" or "education as the practice of freedom." Does she mean that, by encouraging students in their development as whole human beings, you are freeing them from... something? Freeing them to be their best selves? Given how central that is to the book maybe I should have a better understanding after finishing it. Maybe the next time I encounter this idea, this book will have given me a good foundation for "getting it."

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