Teaching to Transgress

It is amazing (and disappointing) to me that bell hooks wrote this book more than 20 years ago, and so much of it seems like it could have been written today. The subtitle of the book, Education as the Practice of Freedom, is a great summary for the heart of the matter; hooks writes with conviction about the practice that persists of education as maintaining order and the status quo, the concept of education as banking (depositing knowledge into a student) described by Paolo Freire. This system has continued for so many years because it upholds the ruling world order. Educating as the practice of freedom is counter-cultural, and hooks will make you believe in the possibilities. I particularly appreciate that hooks is a critical activist, but she ultimately believes that education is an expression of love. I want to believe that critical perspectives and activism should be centered in love.