bell hooks(Gloria Jean Watkins)

presented by Saby Labor 4/21/11

Teaching to Transgress

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Overview• Objectives• Community Guidelines• Who is bell hooks?• Activity: What is engaged pedagogy?• Applying a Sociological Lens• What does engaged pedagogy look like?• What does it Mean to Be a Critical Educator?• Evaluation

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Objectives• The students will…• Apply concepts of engaged pedagogy and multicultural

education to their own experiences.• Engage in self-reflection of their educational journey and

its influences on their role as educators/learners.• Understand education from a critical sociological

perspective.

• The instructor will…• Gain an understanding of the course material through

dialogue, shared narratives, and shared power.• of shared power and recognize individual student voices.

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Community Guidelines(this example established by diverse undergraduate student group)

• Use “I” statements• 1 diva, 1 mic (one voice at a time)• Assume good intent• Use inclusive language• “don’t yuck my yum”• Confidentiality• Meet them where ‘they are’• Mutual respect• Step up, Step back

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bell hooks• Context of my personal educational experience with bell hooks• Black feminist critic of "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy“• A writer, a feminist theorist, and a cultural critic• Known as one of the most accessible academics in feminist

writing• Her pseudonym, her great-grandmother's name, celebrates

female legacies and is in lower case because "it is the substance of my books, not who is writing them, that is important."

• “Feminist movement created a revolution when it demanded respect for women’s academic work, recognition of that work past and present, and an end to gender biases in curriculum and pedagogy.”• Feminism is for Everyone: Passionate Politics, 2000

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Questions bell hooks raises• Why is it necessary to talk about race?• It is inherent within traditional models of

education that teachers have power…The question is how will you use it?

• How does our own processes of self-awareness and self-reflection influence engaged pedagogy?

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Activity: What is engaged pedagogy?

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Applying a Sociological Lens…“White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy”

• Video: cultural criticism and transformation pt 2 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ-XVTzBMvQ

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Applying a Sociological Lens…College as a Total Institution• Revealed features of college society that are similar to mental hospitals• Total institution- self-contained societies that are designed to service all

the needs of the people residing within their boundaries• All aspects of life conducted in same place under the same authority• Authority figures have tremendous power within the institution's

confines• Total institutions are also largely self-contained and are designed so day-

to-day interaction can occur independent of outside society• A consequence of building structures into college society, students are

structurally discouraged from interacting with people outside of its confines

• Strongly imposed division of power lends to superiority and ability to structure encounters

• How is the classroom a total institution?

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What does engaged pedagogy look like in practice?Teaching Theories of Difference Through Popular Culture

video: cultural criticism and transformation pt 1• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQUuHFKP-9s

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In an education system which…• Denigrates notions of wholeness and upholds idea

of mind/body split• Encourages students and teachers to see no

connection between life practices, habits of being, and the roles of professors

• Reinforces existing systems of domination• Positions learning as a rote assembly-line based

on coercion

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…then we have a lot to think about as educators and learners• Education reinforces systems of domination. What

are other systems of domination?• How is the college a “total institution”? How will

you use the power assigned as an educator to facilitate critical dialogue and learning environments?

• What role will self-actualization and reflection play in your institutional pedagogy?

• How will you facilitate unlearning as a platform for holistic and critical learning?

• How will you integrate shared narratives and shared voices in your classroom?

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Transformative Practices• “Building common ground” or creation of collective

guidelines to build community• Teaching gender using itunes

• Article: http://www.sociologysource.com/home/2010/9/12/teaching-gender-with-itunes.html

• Teaching hegemony• Article in handout: http://

www.sociologysource.com/home/2010/9/27/teaching-hegemony.html • Adjust your rubric to reflect emphasis on participation

to encourage student voices• Using autho ethnography to teach multiculturalism• See handout• http

://naha1.edublogs.org/2008/03/07/auto-ethnography-an-empowering-methodology-for-educators/

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What does it mean to be a critical educator?• http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaTQ5g8Prog&feature=related

• “I entered the classroom with the conviction that it was crucial for me and every other student to be an active participant, not a passive consumer...education as the practice of freedom.... education that connects the will to know with the will to become. Learning is a place where paradise can be created.”• hooks

• Sites for critical education• Feminist classrooms• Childrens’ literature• Colleges and universities?

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Evaluation• An email will be sent out with

a short online evaluation form (or you can follow the link below)

• https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGNVTHJzeFZScXQ5WlNoS2liTnU3MGc6MQ

Thank you