Teaching to Transgress—bell hooks

I was so excited to see we were reading this piece this week because I am an avid fan of bell hooks…she is awesome in my eyes!

 

I found it interesting to read because in the beginning of the piece she talks about the fear of being trapped in the academy forever leading her into this deep, life-threatening depression once she had received tenure and a part of me has had an opposite fear. I have tried to be so diligent about what to do my master's work in because I want to have several avenues to pursue…I know one day I want to be the academy and teaching, but I also want to be a part of a field where I can gain expertise and knowledge to bring to the classroom. As much as I love writing, pedagogy, English, etc. I have since decided not to do my master's in that area because of other passions that I have within me, but I also know these passions and following these pursuits will allow me to come back to the classroom and then I will be able to impose some of these methods that we are learning about composition in my classroom to get students to open up and be honest about their experiences and journey's.

 

With all of that said, I whole heartedly agree with hooks when she talks about writing being about private longing and personal glory and teaching is about the service, giving back to a community. I believe that following where my passion truly leads will allow me to do the writing that I love, but then I will get to come back and service a community. I believe that if we looked at so many of our professors we can see this is how they operate, many of them work on research that is self-gratifying, but yet they teach because they are giving back to what they love. We may not know what our professors are researching or writing about because is something that is personal to them, but at some point this is going to come back into the classroom, so hopefully the torch can be passed on to someone else to pick up that light and continue on with that pursuit. This is how our professors nurture us, etc. is by having their own passions and bell hooks talks about how teachers in her life were so important in nurturing her into the scholar she is today…lets continue that in the classroom and then the passion of composition, writing, rhetoric, pedagogy, etc. will continue to strive and will continue to transgress and progress. After all according to hooks is transgression is a movement against and beyond boundaries…we have to continue pushing these boundaries so we are able to find the place that makes us happy when it comes to teaching our future students and classes. Finally, her statement at the end, it is a movement which makes education the practice of freedom…how true…education is supposed to be about freedom, but we have to continually find a way to make it this way!