During Black History month, we honor the legacy of the Black feminist scholar, writer, and teacher bell hooks who passed away at her home in Kentucky on December 15, 2021. We share her belief that it is impossible to separate joy and learning.
In this recent Chronicle of Higher Education article on December 22nd, Danica Savonick discusses how the 14 essays in bell hook’s Teaching to Transgress (1994) “raised critical questions about whose voices are heard in classrooms, curricula, and society at large…Education, hooks wrote, was a “practice of freedom,” empowering students to resist and transform injustice…For hooks, challenging social hierarchies required remaking the classroom, too. Drawing on 20 years of teaching at places like Yale University, Oberlin College, and the City College of New York, she argued for the necessity of centering students’ voices, honoring their experiential knowledge, and involving them in determining the shape of their learning. Revisiting her work today, one finds a critical, politicized, and activist version of “inclusive teaching.” She called this “engaged pedagogy.””
bell hooks (1994) drew upon wisdom from Thich Nhat Hanh (RIP Jan 2022) who advocated that students to be active participants and link awareness with practice. He emphasized wholeness, the union of mind, body, and spirit in his way of thinking about pedagogy. bell hooks’ engaged pedagogy call upon teachers “to be actively committed to a process of self-actualization that promotes their own well-being if they are to teach in a manner that empowers students.” (1994, p.15). We’re reminded in this current moment how important it is to foster our own well-being so we can continue to shine as educators.
I find myself reflecting on these critical questions and invite you to do the same:
- How do I build a learning community and mutually construct guidelines for this learning space?
- What opportunities do I have to collaboratively create course components with learners?
- Where is the joy, humor, and pleasure in the learning environment?
- How can I show compassion and respect for learners as they struggle through changing worldviews?
- How do we actively engage learners’ mind, body, and spirit honoring their experiential knowledge?
- How do we foster space for our own well-being?
Please share your thoughts and stories with us at teach@wit.edu.
References:
hooks, bell (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge, NY NY.
https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-pedagogical-legacy-of-bell-hooks