Jeremy's Reviews > Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom

2.5 stars overall, but 4.5 stars for intentional accessibility (p. 71). This review is helpful.

"bell hooks" is the writing voice name of Gloria Watkins.

It was interesting for me to read this book after having heard much of this kind of thinking at Baylor. I wonder how much of hooks's pedagogical theory (e.g., requiring student participation) is shaped by her being an English teacher. In other words, would a math professor have the same pedagogy? hooks seems to act as something of a therapist for students, who often come to her with issues regarding family, race, class, gender, etc.

I appreciate parts of hooks's pedagogical theory, including an avoidance of an exclusive banking system of education, a desire for student engagement in the classroom, a desire for learning to be exciting, and the hope that classes will be places of student transformation. But one of the ironies of hooks's work is that as an alleged victim of racism, sexism, classism, and probably a bunch of other things, hooks comes across as a lecturer—a knower who is sometimes pleading, sometimes demanding that others rise to her level of righteous understanding about how everything in life is about unjust power plays. Like most critical theory out there today, hooks's theory often has a tone of scolding self-righteousness, which is rarely persuasive.

Introduction: Teaching to Transgress
When hooks was in school, black girls were expected to marry, become a maid, or become a teacher—not become a tenured professor. For hooks, bussing (forced integration) turned learning into more about obedience/information rather than zeal/transformation/freedom. Like Friere (whom hooks admires and who is the source of the book's epigraph), hooks hates the banking system of education. Feminist scholars were viewed suspiciously because they openly critiqued pedagogical traditions. hooks insists that learning should be exciting. Radical pedagogy needs to recognize students' presence (everyone should contribute and be active in the learning process, even students who are resistant at first). [I wouldn't want to force students to be vulnerable in class; in fact, I was the kind of student, I think, who eagerly listened to lectures and felt more at ease because I knew I wouldn't be put on the spot.]

Ch. 1: Engaged Pedagogy
Friere is the source of the "banking" terminology. Students shouldn't be exclusively passive consumers—receptacles for information. hooks wants student "self-actualization" and "wholeness." Professors, too, should be vulnerable in the classroom (again, see here).

Ch. 2: A Revolution of Values: The Promise of Multicultural Change
This chapter doesn't have much about pedagogy. hooks provides more details about integration and bussing (e.g., arriving early and waiting in a gym to prevent incidents, segregated reunions). hooks mentions her friendship with a white male (Ken). hooks is against the patriarchal family and Clarence Thomas, and she is pro-LGBT. She connects MLK and Rom. 12:2.

Ch. 3: Embracing Change: Teaching in a Multicultural World
hooks discusses the politics of curriculum choices and mentions Cornell West on "decentering Western civilization." [See Cornell West as of 2021: "Academia’s campaign to disregard the classics is a sign of spiritual decay and moral decline. Those who commit this terrible act treat Western civilization as irrelevant or harmful and worthy of condemnation."] Tokenism isn't the kind of multiculturalism that hooks is looking for; she wants equal value given to marginalized writers [which seems impractical at best and racist at worst]. Changing curriculum content (without being overtly political and talking about race, gender, etc.) isn't good enough. On the one hand, hooks insists on the importance of student visibility/engagement, but on the other hand, she is the knower who persists despite the "bitch[ing]" of students, because she knows what's best for them (p. 42). Multiculturalism > whiteness. [44: I'm not sure why it's unfair for professors to ask students who complain about a lack of diversity to provide options.]

Ch. 4: Paulo Friere
This chapter is a dialogue with herself. hooks is anti-capitalism. Friere is sometimes accused of sexism.

Ch. 5: Theory as Liberatory Practice
There is often a gap between theory and practice, but theory should be about action, not just words. hooks tells some stories about encountering resistance from black women.

Ch. 6: Essentialism and Experience
This chapter is basically a book review of Diana Fuss's Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature and Difference. hooks is concerned that white feminists were defining womanhood without including the black experience.

Ch. 7: Holding My Sister's Hand: Feminist Solidarity
This chapter continues some thoughts from previous chapters by discussing the fear and mistrust between white and black feminists.

Ch. 8: Feminist Thinking: In the Classroom Right Now
hooks observes that intersectional folks (e.g., gender, race, etc.) don't always get along. [It seems like for hooks, everyone else is guilty except her. As a black woman, she is the epitome of oppression, and therefore has the most claim to moral rightness and certainty.]

Ch. 9: Feminist Scholarship: Black Scholars
hooks wants to see more scholars writing from both a feminist and a black perspective. [If we're just throwing around preferences, I'd like to see more scholars writing from a Christian perspective.]

Ch. 10: Building a Teaching Community: A Dialogue
This chapter is a dialogue with one of hooks's white male colleagues whom she sees as a ally. She wants "to show that white males can and do change how they think and teach." [Heaven help the white male who says something similar about black females.] It's not enough to change the content of one's course (e.g., different readings); one must also teach differently (see Ch. 3). What hooks means by this is that adding a book by Toni Morrison isn't enough; a professor must intentionally raise questions of race, gender, etc. in the class discussions. hooks is unhappy with Bloom's and D'Souza's critiques of progressive pedagogy [probably Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind and D'Souza's Illiberal Education]. hooks emphasizes the importance of listening carefully to students.

Ch. 11: Language: Teaching New Worlds / New Words
"It's difficult not to hear in standard English always the sound of slaughter and conquest." Broken English reflects the broken world of the slave. Rap potentially trivializes black English when white kids appropriate it or mock it.

Ch. 12: Confronting Class in the Classroom
Feminists addressed class issues (when others wouldn't) because of the disenfranchisement of women. Class isn't just economics. There's an expectation of conformity to a bourgeois behavioral norm, which can be difficult for lower class students who feel torn between conformity to academic expectations and loyalty to their roots. hooks used to think that power was evil, but she realized that it was a mistake to think that she didn't have power as a professor, and she determined to use it for good. [Alan Jacobs heard Cornell West say something like this at Wheaton when a white male student asked about white privilege.] hooks's democratic ideal is "[higher?] education for everyone."

Ch. 13: Eros, Eroticism, and the Pedagogical Process
hooks wants to avoid the mind/body split. Eros isn't exclusively sexual.

Ch. 14: Ecstasy: Teaching and Learning Without Limits
Fellowship and openness in teaching lead to ecstasy, paradise, and freedom.