Teaching to Transgress - Introduction - Chapter 7

5. Sentences Regarding the Overall Statement
In the book Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks writes on her experiences as a black student in the American public school system as well as her position as an African American schoolteacher. She shares her thoughts regarding how different methods of teaching combined with various attitudes towards not only education, but towards students. She writes to inform teachers of the nation how to teach children to transgress in life. She wants students to feel passion for school and power in knowledge in a multicultural world.

4.Key Quotes
1.“To begin, the teacher must genuinely value everyone’s presence. There must be an ongoing recognition that everyone influences the classroom dynamic, that everyone contributes. These contributions are resources.” – page 8
2.“In the effort to respect and honor the social reality and experiences of groups in this society who are nonwhite is to be reflected in a pedagogical process, then as teachers- on all levels, from elementary to university settings – we must acknowledge that our styles of teaching may need to change.” – page 35
3. “Not only did it require movement beyond accepted boundaries, but excitement could not be generated without a full recognition of the fact that there could never be an absolute set agenda governing teaching practices. Agendas had to be flexible, had to allow for spontaneous shifts in direction. Students had to be seen in their particularity as individuals (I drew on the strategies my grade school teachers used to get to know us) and interacted with according to their needs (here Freire was useful).” – page 7
4. “Many professors have conveyed to me their feeling that the classroom should be a ‘safe’ place…It is the absence of a feeling of safety that often promotes prolonged silence or lack of student engagement.” – page 39
3. Key Terms
1. “Liberatory practice” – page 59
* a form of teaching that will allow children to find power in knowledge and set them free from society’s unfair separation of classes.
2. “Paulo Freire” – page 45
* a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of critical pedagogy
3. “”transgressions” – page 12
* movements against and beyond social boundaries

2. Connections
1. “And I saw for the first time that there can be, and usually is, some degree of pain involved in giving up old ways of thinking and knowing and learning new approaches. I respect that pain. And I include recognition of it now when I teach, that is to say, I teach about shifting paradigms and talk about the discomfort it can cause. White students learning to think more critically about questions of race and racism may go home for the holidays and suddenly see their parents in a different light.” – page 43
* This passage reminds me of our own Social Issues class. Weekly, I feel that Dr. Talbert pushes our limits, makes us think, and introduces us to subjects that we may never have looked deeply into without his aid. Sure, there are times in class where we feel uncomfortable or even ashamed of what we want to say, but that’s what makes the class so insightful. Observing what those around us think and hearing what they have experienced helps us to know what we may face in the future as teachers.
2. “The unwillingness to approach teaching from a standpoint that includes awareness of race, sex, and class is often rooted in the fear that classrooms will be uncontrollable, that emotions and passions will not be contained.” – page 39
* So many teachers in high school were afraid of losing control of our classroom. In English class, especially, we would read works that particular students may feel passionate about, but if a religious belief or any other value that was not standard in the classroom was brought about, it was quickly avoided. Unfortunately, I saw so many students in my class become discouraged with their lack of opportunity to express themselves and share what the book had done for them and their own emotions. Dr. Talbert, however, does the exact opposite. He encourages us to lose control (to an extent) and to let our emotions and passion run unleashed. I feel that an uncontained classroom such as his has allowed me to connect with how I feel about society and the educational world, as well as about myself as an educator, more than any other course I have taken part in throughout my school career.

1. Question
* As a future educator, how do you plan to conduct your classroom? Will you incorporate liberatory practices? If so, how? If not, why not?