Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope

Bell Hooks

Psychology Press, 2003 - Critical pedagogy - 200 pages

Ten years ago, bell hooks astonished readers with Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Now comes Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope - a powerful, visionary work that will enrich our teaching and our lives. Combining critical thinking about education with autobiographical narratives, hooks invites readers to extend the discourse of race, gender, class and nationality beyond the classroom into everyday situations of learning. bell hooks writes candidly about her own experiences. Teaching, she explains, can happen anywhere, any time - not just in college classrooms but in churches, in bookstores, in homes where people get together to share ideas that affect their daily lives.

In Teaching Community bell hooks seeks to theorize from the place of the positive, looking at what works. Writing about struggles to end racism and white supremacy, she makes the useful point that "No one is born a racist. Everyone makes a choice." Teaching Community tells us how we can choose to end racism and create a beloved community. hooks looks at many issues-among them, spirituality in the classroom, white people looking to end racism, and erotic relationships between professors and students. Spirit, struggle, service, love, the ideals of shared knowledge and shared learning - these values motivate progressive social change.

Teachers of vision know that democratic education can never be confined to a classroom. Teaching - so often undervalued in our society -- can be a joyous and inclusive activity. bell hooks shows the way. "When teachers teach with love, combining care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect, and trust, we are often able to enter the classroom and go straight to the heart of the matter, which is knowing what to do on any given day to create the best climate for learning."

What people are saying

Teaching community: a pedagogy of hope

User Review  - Not Available - Book Verdict

Fans of hooks's earlier works, especially the landmark Teaching To Transgress, will welcome this new collection of essays on combating racism and sexism in education. Drawing extensively on her ...

Review: Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope

User Review  - Randi - Goodreads

I was feeling very angry at the energy in a class of mine last week, and decided to take it as a challenge. I read some more of this book and felt inspired to discuss ideas of community, race ...

Contents

• The Will to Learn The World as Classroom: 1
• Time Out Classrooms without Boundaries: 13
• Talking Race and Racism: 25
• Democratic Education: 41
• What Happens When White People Change: 51
• Standards: 67
• How Can We Serve: 83
• Moving beyond Shame: 93
• Keepers of Hope Teaching in Communities: 105
• Progressive Learning A Family Value: 117
• Heart to Heart Teaching with Love: 127
• Good Sex Passionate Pedagogy: 139
• Spirituality in Education: 157
• This Is Our Life Teaching toward Death: 165
• Spiritual Matters in the Classroom: 175
• Practical Wisdom: 185
• Index: 199

About the author

bell hooks is a writer and critic who has taught most recently at Berea College in Kentucky, where she is Distinguished Professor in Residence. Among her many books are the feminist classic Ain't I A Woman, the dialogue (with Cornel West) Breaking Bread, the children's books Happy to Be Nappy and Be Boy Buzz, the memoir Bone Black (Holt), and the general interest titles All About Love, Rock My Soul, and Communion. Her many books published with Routledge include Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom, Belonging: A Culture of Place, We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity, Where We Stand: Class Matters, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations, and Reel to Real: Race, Sex and Class at the Movies.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope; Volume 36 of La Estrella
• Author: Bell Hooks
• Publisher: Psychology Press, 2003
• ISBN: 0415968186, 9780415968188
• Length: 200 pages