Teaching to Transgress
bell hooks
About Teaching to Transgress
bell hooks (yes, all lowercase!) was a groundbreaking writer, feminist, cultural critic, and educator who believed that education could—and should—be a powerful act of liberation. In her work, especially Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, she challenges the traditional classroom dynamic and calls for something way more radical: education as a space for growth, justice, and joy.
For hooks, real learning isn’t about memorizing facts or sitting quietly while the teacher talks. It’s about students and teachers showing up as whole people, with their identities, emotions, and experiences all being part of the learning process. She calls this “engaged pedagogy.” It’s about care, connection, and mutual respect. No more “sage on the stage”—hooks wants education to be a dialogue, not a monologue.
She also talks about how race, gender, and class affect what happens in classrooms. She speaks from experience, growing up in segregated schools in the American South and later teaching in mostly white institutions. hooks knew what it meant to feel silenced—and she refused to let her classroom be a space where anyone felt invisible. She fought for classrooms where everyone had a voice.
In Teaching to Transgress, hooks blends personal stories with powerful ideas, inviting both students and teachers to push back against systems of domination and imagine new ways of learning together. Her message? Education should not just fill your head—it should free your mind.
Before You Read
Think about a class where you really felt seen. Or maybe a class where you didn’t. What made the difference?
bell hooks wants us to ask those kinds of questions. She believed that education isn’t just about learning facts—it’s about becoming more fully yourself. She invites students and teachers to bring their real lives, emotions, and even struggles into the learning space.
Before diving in, consider this: what would school look like if it felt like a community? A space where listening, vulnerability, and justice were just as important as textbooks and tests? hooks challenges all of us—not just teachers—to make education more inclusive, empowering, and human.
Guiding Questions
- What does bell hooks mean by “education as the practice of freedom”?
- How does she describe the difference between traditional classrooms and “engaged pedagogy”?
- Why does hooks believe it’s important to bring personal identity and experience into the learning process?
- How do her ideas challenge or support your own experience of education?
Teaching to Transgress-
Where to find this reading
This contemporary text is not in the public domain or shared with a creative commons license. Your college or university may have access to this reading through these different source
