hooks – “Holding My Sister’s Hand: Feminist Solidarity”

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hooks, bell. “Holding My Sister’s Hand: Feminist Solidarity.” Teaching to Trangress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routlege, 1994. 93-110. Print.

In this essay, hooks examines issues of race and gender within the feminist movement. She is careful to put relations between black and white women in the U.S. within the context of racial oppression under the institution of slavery and beyond where black women were still subservient to white women as domestic servants. hooks maintains that the strained and distrustful relationships between black and white women then continues to have an impact on relations between these groups within feminist movements.

hooks stresses the importance of women of color and white women confronting and addressing racism in feminist settings (109-110). Collective, honest confrontation and dialogue about race and reciprocal interaction and the willingness to deal with racist assumptions, and mutual fears are key factors in establishing positive relationships between the groups (108).

hooks insists that even in the midst of racism in feminist settings, women of color should actively try to find ways to take part in discourse. [How does this mesh with issues of distrust and fears about appropriation 104-105.]

If revitalized feminist movement is to have a transformative impact on women, then creating a context where we can engage in open critical dialogue with one another, where we can debate and discuss without fear of emotional collapse, where we can hear or know one another in the difference and complexities of our experience, is essential (110).

hooks – “Theory as Liberatory Practice”

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hooks, bell. “Theory as Liberatory Practice.” Teaching to Trangress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routlege, 1994. 59-75. Print.

In this essay, bell hooks challenges the perceived dichotomy between theory and practice or lived experience. hooks attributes the unnecessary disinterest in feminism and feminist theory by women to this dichotomy. According to hooks, feminist theory presented as mysterious and/ or disconnected from real life experiences and concerns beyond the classroom “assaults the fragile psyches of women struggling to throw off patriarchy’s oppressive yoke” (65). This type of theory edifies academic departments, but undermines liberatory movements.

Theorizing must be connected to action, practice, critical reflection, and/ or lived experience:

This is what makes feminist transformation possible. Personal testimony, personal experience, is such fertile ground for the production of liberatory feminist theory because it usually forms the base of our theory (70).

hooks – Teaching to Trangress: Education as the Practice of Freedom

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hooks, bell. Teaching to Trangress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routlege, 1994. Print.

bell hooks’ Teaching to Trasngress speaks to educators and students in the U.S. academy about what it is to embrace education as the practice of freedom. She describes her collection of essays as an “intervention” to counter the devaluing of teaching and the disinterest in teaching and learning. hooks shares teaching practices that she asserts are critical and encourage the interrogation of biases in curricula that “reinscribe systems of domination (such as racism and sexism) while simultaneously providing new ways to teach diverse groups of students” (10). hooks pedagogical approach also appreciates the need for passion and pleasure in the classroom which necessitates the consideration of not only students and teachers’ minds, but their bodies and spirits as well.

hooks shares knowledge based on her lived experience as both a student in a predominantly Black school as well as the work of Paulo Freire on critical pedagogy. This knowledge in addition to her classroom experience provides the basis for what she considers a “testimony” for the power of liberatory education.

The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy… Urging all of us to open our minds and hearts so that we can know beyond boundaries of what is acceptable, so that we can create new visions, I celebrate teaching that enables transgressions — a movement against and beyond boundaries.It is that movement which makes education the practice of freedom (12).

Essays of particular interest:

  • “Engaged Pedagogy”
  • “Embracing Change: Teaching in a Multicultural World”
  • “Paulo Friere”
  • “Theory as a Liberatory Practice”
  • “Holding My Sister’s Hand”
  • “Language”

hooks – “Paulo Freire”

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hooks, bell. “Paulo Freire.” Teaching to Trangress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routlege, 1994. 45-58. Print.

This is a “playful dialogue” between Gloria Watkins, bell hooks’ government name, and her writing voice (bell hooks) about Paulo Freire, his work, and the impact they’ve had on her approach to teaching. hooks discusses the relationship between Friere’s term “conscientization” and the process of decolonization:

And so Friere’s work, in its global understanding of liberation struggles, always emphasizes that this is the important initial stage of transformation…Freire has had to remind readers that he never spoke of conscientization as an end itself, but always as it is joined by meaningful praxis (47).

She also addresses the sexism in the language o fhis earlier works and the feminist critique of it. While hooks says Friere is among other critical thinkers that have constructed a phallocentric paradigm of liberation (where freedom is linked to patriarchal manhood) (49), she maintains that that the value of the insight Friere provides (especially for feminists) should not be forsaken (49): “Freire’s own model of critical pedagogy invites a critical interrogation of this flaw in the work. But critical interrogation is not the same as dismissal (49).

hooks – “Embracing Change: Teaching in a Multicultural World”

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hooks, bell. “Embracing Change: Teaching in a Multicultural World.” Teaching to Trangress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routlege, 1994. 35-44. Print.

This essay addresses the need for adopt democratic  teaching practices compatible with multiculturalism as well as the fears and challenges that teachers and students face in the multicultural classroom. In such a democratic setting, hooks states that it is the goal of transformative pedagogy to give students and faculty a sense of responsibility to contribute to learning (39).

While hooks says there is more tension in diverse classroom settings where critical pedagogy is practiced, there is also more opportunity for community building and freedom to “talk–and talk back” (42):

When we, as educators allow our pedagogy to be radically changed by our recognition of a multicultural world… we can teach in ways that transform consciousness, creating a climate of free expression that is the essence of a truly liberatory liberal arts education (44).

hooks – “Engaged Pedagogy”

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hooks, bell. “Engaged Pedagogy.” Teaching to Trangress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routlege, 1994. 13-22. Print.

In this essay, hooks emphasizes the importance of the self-actualization of professors in order to best create teaching practices that engage students. This approach goes beyond the “banking” model of education and the transfer of information to include students as participants and not passive consumers (14). In hooks’ model of engaged pedagogy, students nor teachers should be objectified and perceived in part, specifically the mind, but should include body and spirit as well:

Progressive, holistic education, ‘engaged pedagogy’ is more demanding than conventional critical or feminist pedagogy. For, unlike these two teaching practices, it emphasizes well-being. That means that teachers must be actively committed to a process of self-actualization that promotes their own well-being if they are to teach in a manner that empowers students. (15)

Souto-Manning – Freire, Teaching, and Learning: Culture Circles Across Contexts

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Background/ Context:

Author Mariana Souto-Manning approaches Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy f the Oppressed from a place of lived experience and knowledge. Being steeped in Brazilian education both as a student and educator and having attended workshops with Freire, she says “critical pedagogy has long been a reality for me” (1). As a former teacher and current teacher educator who has worked in educational institutions in both Brazil and the United States, Souto-Manning is able to theorize based on data from her own professional experiences in a variety of contexts and speak with fellow educators.

Purpose/Objective/Research Questions/Focus of Study:

In Freire, Teaching, and Learning: Culture Circles Across Contexts, Mariana Souto-Manning breaks down the theory behind Paulo Freire’s culture circles, first designed by Freire as a means to promote adult literacy in Brazil, and demonstrates how they work in practice and can be used to bring about democratic education in a multitude of contexts. In her introduction, she states her purpose is to make the process of implementing culture circles clearer and more real and applicable particularly for teachers and teacher educators. Souto-Manning seeks to arm educators with “theory-informed examples” of Freirian culture circles and problem-posing techniques across a variety of educational so that they can recreate culture circles in their own contexts thereby promoting critical, transformational, and democratic education.

Setting:

Souto-Manning takes her data from several different settings and groups of people in Brazil and the United States – an American first-grade classroom, a Brazilian adult education program, an American university group of pre-sevice early childhood education teachers, a group of American public school elementary school teachers, and a lead teacher and teaching assistant in an American university college of education. Souto-Manning offers adaptations of culture circles in and out of Brazilian contexts in order to show the portability of Freirian critical pedagogy theories and methods.

Research Design: 

Souto-Manning presents five case studies of culture circles enacted in different contexts. The data were collected from ethnographic observations. At times Souto-Manning used a combination of Critical Discourse Analysis and Conversational Narrative Analysis in order to employ Critical Narrative Analysis (Souto-Manning, 2005). “Critical Narrative Analysis mirrors the process whereby teachers engage in questioning their generative stories and locations in society” (134).

Conclusions/Recommendations:

From the beginning Souto-Manning is clear that education is not culturally or politically neutral. Thus, critical pedagogy is necessary in order to honor the humanity of all students and their cultural backgrounds, but this is particularly important for the oppressed. One way that critical pedagogy honors the oppressed is by focusing on generative themes that are significant to those who have been marginalized instead of the information or “deposits” from the oppressors. Culture circles, Souto-Manning says, “are based on two basic tenets: the political nature of education (Feitosa, 1999a; Freire, 1985) and dialogue in the process of educating” (18) emphasis mine. Culture circles, first conceptualized by Freire in the 1950s, are fueled by dialogue and the generative themes that come from the participants in the process:

By documenting the most urgent struggles experiences by many of the participants of a culture circle and codifying those experiences in a generative theme (e.g., a case, story, photo, drawing, document), facilitators open up opportunities for students to name, problematize and deconstruct issues which are paramount in their lives (31).

The five phases to the critical cycle in culture circles are:

  • generative themes
  • problem (or question) posing
  • dialogue
  • problem solving
  • action (32).

While this cycle alone serves to disrupt hierarchies  found in traditional classrooms, other features, such as circular seating further goes against the banking concept of education and promotes dialogue.

In addition to codifying and decodifying specific challenges faced by participants in culture circles, participants also become more aware of how their social realities are constructed. Souto-Manning says, “this process of identifying and deconstructing institutional discourses within personal narratives (Souto-Manning, 2007) makes social interaction a space for norms to be challenged and changed” (41). She gives an example of this challenge/ change and how it can translate into individual and collective agency in chapter six on culture circles in in-service teacher education. Souto-Manning shows elementary school teacher, Shante, sharing the influence of the culture circle/ teacher study group: “Something needs to change, but I can’t be the one responsible, you know. Maybe I’ll leave. But then… I had a renewed sense of purpose… We knew that we could change anything if we stuck together” (136).

On Praxis…

Souto-Manning embodies praxis; reflection and action upon the world with the goal of transformation (Freire, 1970) in Freire, Teaching, and Learning by integrating theory, her practices and observations, and the reflections of her culture circle participants. Although Souto-Manning mainly gives examples that feature childhood education and teacher education, educators across geographic locations, institutions, and disciplines are prompted and given a road map to  enact liberatory pedagogies by incorporating culture circles.

We must ask ourselves whether schools geared to preparing loyal subjects or obedient workers also build thinking, literate, active, fully developed and morally sensitive citizens who carry out their democratic responsibilities to one another, to their communities, to the earth – William Ayers, “Afterword” (194).

Freire – Pedagogy of the Oppressed

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Purpose/Objective/Research Questions/Focus of Study:

This work blends theory and methods to emphasize the necessity for alternative pedagogies for and by groups of people that are oppressed by larger power systems.

Conclusions/Recommendations:

Friere’s main recommendation is that his pedagogy not be merely imitated and adopted as is, but that his practices be embraced and rewritten, recreated, and re-situated in different contexts.

Chapter 1

In chapter one, Paulo Freire establishes the need for a pedogogy of the oppressed that differs from tradition pedagogies formed and implemented by those in power which serves as a tool of dehumanization and oppression. Freire is clear that both those who exploit and those who are exploited are dehumanized in the process. Freire asserts that it is the oppressed that have the power to liberate themselves and their oppressors from an unjust social order through praxis (44, 51). This praxis can be summarized as “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it” (51).

On page 68, Freire explains why a humanizing pedagogy is required:

The struggle begins with men’s recognition that they have been destroyed. Propoganda, management, manipulation – all arms of domination – cannot be the instruments of their rehumanization.

A humanizing pedagogy is one in which the teacher and the student (revolutionary leadershers and the oppressed) are both Subjects who are co-intent on collective reflection of reality as well as collective action in order to create new knowledge (69).

Chapter 2

This chapter details the inherent difference between “banking” and “problem-posing” education models and how they either work to oppress or liberate the masses. Freire stresses the importance of humanist, revolutionary educators not using what Audre Lorde would call the Master’s Tools of the “banking” concept, but insists that revolutionary educators begin with problem-posing techniques so that they co-create knowledge with the people. Any other way, Freire says would only further sustain dehumanization and oppression (75).

Banking education resists dialogue where problem-posing necessitates it. Banking education mythicize reality and conceals certain facts, while problem posing seeks to demythologize reality. The banking model inhibits creativity and severs people and their ways of being from the world, while problem-posing is based on creativity, reflection and action. On page 84, Freire says that in sum,

…banking theory and practice, as immobilizing and fixating forces, fail to acknowledge men and women as historical beings; problem posing theory and practice take the people’s historicity as its starting point.

Problem-posing praxis provokes the question “why?” and therefore necessarily goes against the purposes of the oppressor. This dialogical pedagogy requires the oppressed act as agents on behalf of their own emancipation.

Chapter 3

This chapter details dialogics as the essence of liberatory education as opposed to rote memorization. Dialogue is based on the word which is also praxis in that it must balance reflection and action in order not become mere verbalism or activism (87-88). Freire suggest that there must be an agreement of intent in order to have dialogue. Other qualities necessary to sustain dialogue are: profound love of the world and of people, humility, faith, hope, and critical thinking (89-92).

A dialogic approach is necessary in critical pedagogy at every turn as a safe guard against the banking model, where the teacher brings the agenda, content, and/or knowledge to the student(s). Instead, Freire says that a dialogic methodology is needed to explore the people’s “thematic universe” and to develop “generative themes” (96). Revolutionary educators must engage with the people in order to unearth the areas of focus, problems, and questions that the people want/ need to pose and have resolved. Through this process a much richer and more relevant understanding is realized by all parties. Working in “culture circles” to engage in dialogue about these “generative themes” is in fact generative in that group members then have the opportunity to build off of those discussions and suggest more themes for inquiry. About this, Freire says:

The important thing, from the point of view of libertarian education, is for the people to come to feel like masters of their thinking by discussing the thinking and views of the world explicitly or implicitly manifest in their own suggestions and those of their comrades (124).

Chapter 4

In this chapter, Freire builds upon the previous discussion of dialogics and contrast it with it’s oppresive counterpart of antidialogics. Antidialogics works to maintain dichotomies that separate the ruling minority from the majority and establishes the minority as the standard and justification for the other groups oppressed situation. He lists the four main characteristics of antidialogics as being: conquest, divide and rule, manipulation, and cultural invasion (138-160). All of these characteristics employed by the minority in power work to further oppress the majority.

Richardson – ‘She was workin like foreal’: critical literacy and discourse practices of African American females in the age of hip hop

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In a semi-structured group interview with three middle-class African-American young women (one East Coast, 2 Midwestern), Elaine Richardson uses critical discourse analysis to explore ways that the young women negotiate stereotypical and hegemonic representations of black men and women. Richardson presents an analysis of her conversation with the young women about the video for Midwestern rapper Nelly and the St. Lunatics’ song “Tip Drill.” The controversial song and video portrays the commodified images of hypersexualized women of color and hypermasculine black men: ” The song could be considered a strip club anthem replete with signs of carnality and status, attractive young black women wielding their power signs – their beautiful shapely bodies…; virile men flashing their black men’s power signs – cash money…” (791)

Richardson’s primary question is: “How do young African American females negotiate stereotypical representations of African American culture, gender, labor, and sexual values in rap music videos?” (791) Through her conversation and critical discourse analysis, Richardson shows the “special knowledge” that the young women have about themselves, other black women and men, and their position in the racist, global, capitalistic system of the United States.

Richardson finds that the young women use Black and Hip-hop discourses, “smart talk” (Van Dijk 1997), and African American female literacies to understand and articulate their positions which are at times complicated and conflicted. One notable example of this is when one of the participants “represents” for the men in the video and their lived experience. “Representin'” as a part of Hip-hop discourse is a concept and practice that is “a part of the larger black discourse practice that emerged in the slavery experience and is akin to fictive kinship, wherein enslaved African devised a way of surviving, achieving prestige and creating a black human identity apart from dehumanized slave,” (797) Participants “BE” gives rapper Nelly the benefit of the doubt arguing that he would not talk to a woman of “class” the way he speaks to “Tip Drills,” women who are strippers, or opportunistic women that do not have class. This notion that implies that there is a category of black women unworthy of respect.

Richardson concludes that young people, like those in her study, are aware of the dominating forces that perpetuate stereotypes about African Americans, but they do not possess all of the necessary critical tools to “escape internal victim blaming for their predicament.” (806) She advocates for critical pedagogies that go beyond challenging to changing systems that allow for inequality, sexism, and racism. Of course, we can add a host of other “isms” based on social divisions.

Majors – “‘I wasn’t Scared of Them, They Were Scared of Me’: Constructions of Self/ Other in a Midwestern Hair Salon

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Majors, Yolanda J. “‘I Wasn’t Scared of Them, They Were Scared of Me’: Constructions of Self/ Other in a Midwestern Hair Salon.” Anthropology and Education Quarterly. 35.2 (2004): 167-188.Print.

In this article Yolanda Majors applies the theoretical frameworks of critical discourse analysis, critical race theory, and Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) to ethnographic data from an African American hair salon in the mid-West. In her analyses, Majors shows the ways in which African American women use African American women’s literacies and Black discourse practices to individually and collectively negotiate and create meaning, construct and read social texts, construct their own counter-texts that challenge dominant narratives and beliefs, and create dialogic spaces for themselves to engage in these practices.

She uses data from the salon that features a narration from Darlene who assumes several roles – “counselor,” “teacher,” “master stylist,” and “storyteller.” Majors focuses on the ways that Darlene’s narration of a social text helps her to forge her own identity in the midst of a cross-cultural interaction. Darlene’s talk reflect’s her racialized, gendered, and social class position.

The dialogic interaction created between Darlene, her employees, and her clients as she tells her storyis in line with Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1981) view of dialogicality where readers are considered authors and reading is a dialogue between a previously created text and a reactive text created by the reader (182). On this point, Majors says,

Such a perspective transforms the traditional concept of reading into a contingent dialogic process, in which the reader becomes a border-crosser in doing her/ his imaginary scholarship in the process of reading. (182)

Majors asserts that her analyses provides a insight as to how educators can make room for the literacies and discourse practices that African American women use in community-based settings in “academic” settings as well:

The identities people construct through their adoption of these language varieties are viewed as impediments to their academic learning – as personal skins to be shed in acquiring passports to success. This illustration of Shoptalk disrupts such assumptions and offers a more grounded view of the role of language variation in achieving literate skills (Lee and Majors 2003).