Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom is a collection of 14 essays and interviews examining how to transform the multicultural classroom into an inclusive space dedicated to the practice of freedom for all students. Writing under the pen name, “bell hooks”, Gloria Jean Watkins is an acclaimed feminist scholar, cultural critic, writer, and educator. This collection of essays, focuses on the classroom and the power of education to transgress boundaries that often alienate students. Throughout the book, hooks uses her personal experiences as a student and teacher to show how students can become marginalized and silenced in the classroom. Chapters 1-5 in Teaching to Transgress focuses on the power of “engaged pedagogy,” the radical vision of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’s, emphasizing that every student in the classroom must be an active member of the classroom to fight oppression and work toward freedom.
Discuss the following questions with your peers:
hooks emphasizes that the theory of “engaged pedagogy”, which draws heavily on the work of Paulo Freire, must be tied to praxis, or practice. In what specific ways does hooks advocate praxis in the classroom?
Although hooks has taught in the university classroom, how can her ideas be adapted for K-12 classrooms to reflect engaged pedagoy?
Read textbook: bell hooks. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Ch. 1-5
Watch: Unearthing Genius and Joy with Gholdy Muhammad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asItQUf_pl8Links to an external site.
