Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom

This book is essential for faculty who believe in libratory education. When I got my first job as an instructor I read a few books on college teaching and they were fine for nuts and bolts like how to plan a syllabus. However, hooks writes about heart-matters that really affect teaching and learning like engagement, multiculturalism, theory, feminism, community, class, and eroticism. For example, she discusses teaching which engages the learner (why is this taken for granted preK-12 but abandoned at grade 13?) and being a diverse teacher with diverse classes in a predominantly white male academy (if you're female, or not white, or not straight, or 'political', this is you), and other topics essential to understanding the undercurrents which happen every day in lectures across the country. I must say that I am struck by the strongly negative reactions of some reviewers. For me this book was an oasis in the desert.

hooks does an exemplary job of illuminating, in accessible language, the ways in which race, class and sex intersect in "the academy" and in the classroom. I highly recommend this book to anyone who teaches -- in higher ed or K-12.If you are White and/or middle class and are willing to *listen* to what hooks offers, you may well say, after reading her book: "I was blind, but now I see."hooks may not cater to a middle-class, white readership (nor should she), but those of us who fall into those categories certainly can learn from her experiences and from her critical analysis.Open your mind. Let your defenses down. And sink into a book that can change the way you approach classroom instruction -- and, perhaps, the way you live your life.

In reading this book, I was reminded of a wonderful Professor of Humanities at the university that I attended. He taught in just the style that hook's describes in her text: democratic and liberatory. He was a white man who taught a course on African-American culture. At the time my classmates and I were too busy being angry, sometimes very vocally, about the fact that the course was being taught by a white man as most such courses were (can I say are ?) at that institution, which is not to say that our concern was/is unfounded or illegitmate. What we didn't do was understand the place where he was coming from. He was genuine. A very sincere teacher who would always make time for students and was always working to help more people of colour advance themselves. His classroom was also a very open and safe place. We were encouraged to discuss and challenge ideas, and we did. The way that this man taught was so obviously a labour of love that five years after taking the course, and while reading Teaching To Transgress, is when I could actually recognize the value in what I was given in that classroom by that teacher. He is one of two professors that were transgressive teachers in my 4 1/2 years of undergraduate study, both of whom were white (one man, one woman) and quite obviously believed in a liberatory pedagogy. I never had a black professor during my entire recently-concluded undergraduate career. Which I think still speaks to the concern had by myself and my peers in our first year of university. However, "education as the practice of freedom" is a view that can be held by anyone who believes in it and transgressive teaching can be done by anyone who is committed to working with students to transform the limiting structures that form the basis of our society and, consequently, the foundation of our institutions, which are in and of themselves problematic, aren't they ?

bell hooks challenges the economically and educationally advantaged white feminists who would conduct their discourse amongst themselves rather than allow a Black woman to offer her own ideas. In fact, ideas are the purpose of this book, allowing ideas to proliferate in the classroom instead of allowing racist stereotypes prevail. This is a courageous and brilliant book, and something of a threat to the institutionalized and priviledged feminism of white women, particularly at the universities of this country. White feminists ignore this book at their peril, and should read it immediately.