Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (Harvest in Translation)
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (Harvest in Translation) book cover

Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (Harvest in Translation)

by
Price
$11.99
Format
Paperback
Pages
216
Publisher
Routledge
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0415908085
Dimensions
6 x 0.51 x 9 inches
Weight
12 ounces

Description

From Publishers Weekly Cultural theorist hooks means to challenge preconceptions, and it is a rare reader who will be able to walk away from her without considerable thought. Despite the frequent appearance of the dry word "pedagogy," this collection of essays about teaching is anything but dull or detached. hooks begins her meditations on class, gender and race in the classroom with the confession that she never wanted to teach. By combining personal narrative, essay, critical theory, dialogue and a fantasy interview with herself (the latter artificial construct being the least successful), hooks declares that education today is failing students by refusing to acknowledge their particular histories. Criticizing the teaching establishment for employing an over-factualized knowledge to deny and suppress diversity, hooks accuses colleagues of using "the classroom to enact rituals of control that were about domination and the unjust exercise of power." Far from a castigation of her field, however, Teaching to Transgress is full of hope and excitement for the possibility of education to liberate and include. She is a gentle, though firm, critic, as in the essay "Holding My Sister's Hand," which could well become a classic about the distrust between black and white feminists. While some will find her rejection of certain difficult theory narrow-minded, it is a small flaw in an inspired and thought-provoking collection. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. "Passionately defines the Black feminist point of view that needs to be reflected upon in classroom discussions." -- Contemporary Education " Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks is a book that I not only love, but assign every semester to my Introduction to Women's Studies class. It is one of the best descriptions of the purpose and function of education and the educator that I've ever read. And students love it. So if you know any professors or students who aren't familiar with it, recommend it highly." -- Feminist Bookstore News " Teaching to Transgress is useful as a platform for a critique of current notions and practices of teaching and learning." -- Canadian Home Economics Journal "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 "Passionately defines the Black feminist point of view that needs to be reflected upon in classroom discussions." -- Contemporary Education " Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks is a book that I not only love, but assign every semester to my Introduction to Women's Studies class. It is one of the best descriptions of the purpose and function of education and the educator that I've ever read. And students love it. So if you know any professors or students who aren't familiar with it, recommend it highly." -- Feminist Bookstore News " Teaching to Transgress is useful as a platform for a critique of current notions and practices of teaching and learning." -- Canadian Home Economics Journal bell hooks is a writer and critic who has taught most recently at Berea College in Kentucky, where she is Distinguished Professor in Residence. Among her many books are the feminist classic Ain't I A Woman , the dialogue (with Cornel West) Breaking Bread , the children's books Happy to Be Nappy and Be Boy Buzz, the memoir Bone Black (Holt), and the general interest titles All About Love,xa0Rock My Soul , and Communion .xa0Her many books publishedxa0with Routledge include Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom, Belonging: A Culture of Place , We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity , Where We Stand: Class Matters , Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom , Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations , and Reel to Real: Race, Sex and Class at the Movies . Read more

Features & Highlights

  • "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 of emotions and feelings.  This is the rare book about teachers and students that dares to raise questions about eros and rage, grief and reconciliation, and the future of teaching itself.
  • "To educate is the practice of freedom," writes bell hooks, "is a way of teaching anyone can learn."
  • Teaching to Transgress
  • is the
  • record of one gifted teacher's struggle to make classrooms work.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
60%
(639)
★★★★
25%
(266)
★★★
15%
(160)
★★
7%
(75)
★
-7%
(-75)

Most Helpful Reviews

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this book caused me to remember an excellent Professor

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 ?
148 people found this helpful
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Hooks and Hate Speech

We read this book in class at the graduate level and her ideas caused a great deal of controversy. Some loved her and others were sure she was radical with no agenda except for blaming others for her anger. I thought that her book was non-academic because it was not an academic piece of writing. Color or gender have nothing to do with it. I was not impressed by her ranting against white middle class educational values because she was a beneficiary of a scholarship that helped her achieve her education. Besides, at least in this book, she can't get past her anger to give real examples of transformative education in the classroom, except to assure the reader she practiced it. Not good enough. Playing the race-card, flagrant self-promotion and hate speech is not enough. Being a revolutionary requires more than a polemic against the things you don't like. I wasn't impressed.
35 people found this helpful
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Explanation for Lower Case Letters

FYI: bell hooks writes her name in lowercase letters because it is a pseudonym. Specifically, it is her grandmother's name. She uses lowercase letters to show honor and respect to the original Bell Hooks, as she pays homage to her by using her name.
21 people found this helpful
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Excellent colletction of essays

I couldn't put this book down! The essays were very thought provoking and interesting. The only section I skipped was the one on Paulo Freire. It was a little too dry from the beginning. I feel that the only people who won't like this book are the ones who choose to judge hooks on her word choice and try to read her words with their own connotations rather than the way she intended. Yes, she uses terms like "white supremecist" a lot. If you take that in the way we tend to use it in common language, you would think she believes that white people knowingly have some sort of racist agenda against other people; to draw that conclusion, you have to assume that she's just another black person blaming white people for their situations. It is clear that hooks is not at all playing a blame game, but is instead just calling it how she sees it. You have to read the book in its entirety to grasp the points she's trying to make. I also really liked how she included little stories from her own personal experience. She also attempts to explain her theory with support from events in history. Overall, I thought it was a great book. The vocabulary wasn't extremely difficult, so it could really be read by anyone, yet the points are very difficult to understand if you come to this book with preconceived ideas of how black women think or believe that your own life experience is the only truth. I would recommend this book to ANY college student, anyone interested in education, and also people who enjoy thinking. Definitely not a book for someone who doesn't want to have to think as they read.
11 people found this helpful
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Itai Cardona highly suggests this book

bell hooks is an amazing writer. Some of the chapters in this book will make you think, cry, pray, and work for a better tomorrow. While her focus is on the African-American community, one can apply what is learned from this book to any culture, minority, classroom, or group. An absolutely wonderful and easy read. You will not want to put this one down!
9 people found this helpful
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Harsh and Hard to Track

I was assigned this book as part of my seminary studies and I’m not exactly sure why. This collection of essays assumes that the reader is, not only familiar with, but is conversant with feminist theory. The book strikes a very adversarial tone, and I’m not sure there remains a demographic that the author did not attack in this book. In addition to her harsh (and arrogant?) tone, it reads very much like a work written in the ivory tower.

I just read the book over the last 3 evenings and am still processing the content. It was helpful to read and hear a different perspective concerning sexism, class, and racism. I just am not sure a book from 1994 still is relevant to today’s culture and classrooms. Of course, I’m a middle class white male so the author would dismiss my concern because I’m an oppressor, and, as a dominator, I wouldn’t recognize the system of oppression that is in play.

I appreciate the author’s insistence on practicing “engaged pedagogy”, and that is perhaps the main point of the book. (The author does not use a linear writing style and is all over the place—so this is what I perceive to be the main point). As I mentioned before, I’m still processing the content of the book. But my immediate takeaway is that I can use the theory and practice of engaged pedagogy to create a learning community where both I and the students are growing.
8 people found this helpful
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If you need practical advice on teaching, look elsewhere.

Book of dreamy, "feel-good" philosophy. The type which postmodern radicals like because of its ambiguity. I love radical ideas, but not if written this way. Even her "Postmodern Blackness" is less pomo-riddled and more practical than this book. But that's the plight of the humanities nowadays anyway. The moment you start saying things which make sense, they think you're not smart. We need concise and to-the-point radicals, like Noam Chomsky, please!
5 people found this helpful
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Page printing out of order.

I love Ideas and books and often collect them long before I make time to read them. That habit has never been a problem, before this purchase. I picked up Teaching to Transgress after it sitting on my bookshelves for a year or more. I love the content. But it’s a frustrating read because the pages are NOT in chronological order. A reader needs some predictability. At first, I thought it was just a few pages. However, the mismatch order of pages occurs throughout.

#disappointed #frustratedreader
4 people found this helpful
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Should be required reading for every educator

This book should be required reading for all educators. It was the only assigned reading that I read front to back in all of graduate school. I felt it filled in huge gaps left by my undergraduate Education program. I’ve now read it twice, given away a copy and purchased it for three other educators.
4 people found this helpful
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Five Stars

Every educator / progressive human needs a copy. A bible.
3 people found this helpful

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