We did as the person asked and then, as if by magic, it happened: bell hooks was standing right in front of me.įrozen and starstruck, I did not know what to say. Suddenly and out of nowhere, an administrator appeared and indicated that we had to move back a row because “bell” would be sitting where we were.
Undeterred by this anticlimactic entrance, we set up shop in the front row of the auditorium and waited for the magic to unfold.
Charging into a still-vacant auditorium, we were perplexed to discover that, apparently, the other attendees did not share our same level of enthusiasm. On the day of the lecture, we raced to Penn by regional rail and, determined to get into what we believed would be a packed event, arrived more than two hours early. Amidst an unending queue of readings and discussion circles, activity ground to a halt when someone among us realized that one of our s-heroes, bell hooks, would soon visit the University of Pennsylvania and deliver a lecture a mere ten miles from our dormitories. Nearly fifteen years ago, I was an undergraduate student at Swarthmore College where I was passionately immersed in my studies and making calculated mischief as a cofounder of the college’s extant Women of Color Collective. Beyond the many moments of resonance I experienced while reading her writings over the years, her impact on me is most powerfully encapsulated in an experience I had in 2008 when I met her. "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.Like many people of my generation who cut their teeth on the critical insights of bell hooks, news of her passing in December unleashed a wave of reflection for me about the ways she’s impacted me as a person and public scholar. 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. 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.īell 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?įull 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.
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.
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