Teaching To Transgress

by bell hooks

It is as though we are to imagine that knowledge is this rich creamy pudding students should consume and be nourished by, but not that the process of gestation should also be pleasurable. As a teacher working to develop liberatory pedagogy I am discouraged when I encounter students who believe if there’s a different practice they can be less committed, less disciplined. I think our fear of losing students’ respect has discouraged many professors from trying new teaching practices. Instead, some of us think, “I must return to the traditional way of doing it, otherwise I don’t get the respect, and the students don’t get the education they deserve because they don’t listen.” When I was a student, I embraced any professor who wanted to create more progressive teaching practices. I still remember the excitement I felt when I took my first class where the teacher wanted to change how we sat, where we moved from sitting in rows to a circle where we could look at one another. That change forced us to recognize one another’s presence. We couldn’t sleepwalk our way to knowledge. Nowadays, there are times when students resist sitting in a circle. They devalue that shift, because fundamentally, they don’t want to be participants.