Teaching to Transgress: Education As the Practice of Freedom

Rating:
Summary: this book caused me to remember an excellent Professor
Review: 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 ?

Rating:
Summary: absolutely courageous and brilliant
Review: Is there a more gifted writer in the world today? bell hooks demonstrates how white male patriarchy has influenced white feminist discourse, making it difficult for Black feminists to be heard. This is incredibly brave writing, and a must read for anyone interested in subverting the paradigms of the white male agenda of eurocentric patriarchy.

Rating:
Summary: she supports fighting racism?
Review: Ms. Hooks begins this book with a nice account of teaching for freedom. I support her ideas and the notion that classrooms should be places of freedom, where all voices are heard and all experiences are valuable. In this way, she supports the fight against racism and feminism. However, she should have concluded the book after the third chapter. As the chapters continue, she goes into discussions that relay her contempt for those who dominate. She uses the phrase "White Supremist Patriarchial Society" repeatedly and discusses white people as if they are unified in racism. I found her writing one-sided and almost supportive of racism..against white people and against men. Ms. Hooks needs to understand that racism works both ways. Her anger and rage that emits from these pages about being a black female should be dealt with in counseling. Not all white people, especially females, feel or act the way she portrays them in this book. She is quite brave in stating that she portrays the "majority". I found her writing offensive as a white female who has black people in my own family, whom I love dearly. She should engage in "critical thinking" about her own standpoint's relationship with racism and stick to one topic in a novel.

Rating:
Summary: Superficial and contradictory
Review: Ms. Hooks--her affected name which she writes in lower case for reasons left unexplained to readers--shouldn't complain so much about feeling "marginalized" in the "white male academy": this book shows she is deeply embedded in it. She has mastered the old academic game: heavily criticizing "the system" while at the smae time extracting a comfortable living from it. She is indeed "insurgent" if you definite insurgency as holding a job in a prestigious liberal arts college. She is "progressive" if that progress involves studious avoidance of any involvement in organized efforts to change things (she lionizes "theory" in one typically rambling chapter, no doubt seeing her passive, shallow intellectualism as some kind of powerful political movement). All of us who are REALLY interested in political change should abandon the writing of people like Ms. Hooks and listen to people who, rather than simply thinking for a living, actually DO something.

Rating:
Summary: Essential for teaching freedom
Review: 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.