"The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy." p. 12
hooks Introduction narrates her personal history that underlies her philosophy. From a young age, people had believed that she would become a teacher, but her personal experience with education made her reluctant to accept the mantle.
hooks remembers her time in segregated schools fondly, pointing out that Black educators got to know their students and challenged them to incorporate their education into a philosophy about how to live. After integration, though, white schools smothered this passion in search of obedience. Going away to college and graduate school, hooks hoped that she would experience a liberatory environment akin to that of her youth. She found, instead, traditional classrooms based on a knowledge-banking system, where students who memorize best were rewarded. Her professors often tended toward authoritarian control and she found herself deeply alienated.
The work of Paolo Friere and her experience in feminist class rooms helped hooks to cultivate her teaching philosophy. She believes that the classroom should be an exciting place where each student is valued for their unique viewpoints, personal experience, and engagement with the subject matter. It is a communal place led by a self actualized leader who facilitates collaboration and the co-creation of knowledge by being open and vulnerable.
Engaged Pedagogy delves deeper into the theoretical underpinnings of her philosophy, the tensions she sees in classrooms, and what educators should begin to consider if they want to become progressive educators.
Two of hooks biggest influences are Brazillian scholar Paolo Friere and Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nat Hanh. Friere's work on education as freedom encouraged her to develop education strategies that encourage students' conscientization—a combination of critical awareness and engagement—and to work on developing a communal classroom. Thich Nat Hanh's work on engaged buddhism reinforced these notions, as well as introduced her to the importance of self actualization. Healers, teachers, etc. who did not work to understand themselves and integrate the different parts of themselves were less effective than those who focused on their total-well being.
In hooks experience, academia often emphasized a mind/body split that forced educators to compartmentalize themselves. Many professors have embraced this notion that none of their outside experiences, biases, or shortcomings impacted their work. While it might encumber them in the "real world," their best minds would still show through their academic work. It has created a coersive system where educators must give up wellness if they hope to be successful.
Students more and more require that their knowledge be meaningful and have a clear connection to their life. This demand is challenges the traditional "Knowledge for knowledge's sake" approach, and threatens professors, as many have not been required to consider how their work connects to wider aspects of identity and self. This exchange and practice is liberatory because it forces students and professors to engage and share critical reflection on how we relate to ourselves, each other, and our systems and how we can work together to live more deeply.
hooks first chapter introduces the classroom as a dangerous place:
a. In a positive sense, it is "a place of ecstacy—pleasure and danger," (p. 3) where students can not only learn ideas, but have those ideas change their understanding of the worlds they inhabit and their roles within them. If we create these opportunities for students, what is our responsibility to them knowing that they will enter a traditional world that opposes this kind of transformation?
b. In a negative sense, is is dangerous because traditional academia can become "a place of punishment and confinement rather than a place of pleasure and possibility." (p. 4) How is the traditional classroom and knowledge banking system dangerous to white students, as well IBPOC students?
hooks mentions that people were surprised at her announcement that she was writing a collection of essays focused on teaching (p.12). She believes this is because people see teaching as a lesser, duller aspect of academia. In your mind, what role does teaching play in relation to learning and education? How are the three concepts connected?
Engaged pedagogy is more demanding on educators because it requires them to adopt certain behaviors. These include:
Do you believe any of these behaviors are more important than the others? Which behaviors do you think you already engage in? Which behaviors need more cultivation?
What do you think of hooks concept of engaged pedagogy and how do you see it related to freedom?