Implementing a Liberatory Feminist Pedagogy: Bell Hooks's Strategies for Transforming the Classroom

Feminist educator and cultural critic bell hooks has dedicated much of her career to the development of a truly liberatory feminist pedagogy. Her first book, Ain't I a Woman, which appeared in 1981, made a groundbreaking contribution to the newly forming canon of black feminist thought. Since that widely influential debut work, she has continued to publish prolifically. The articulation of her feminist theory is almost always linked with her pedagogical practice. Some of her most exciting and inspiring ideas for transforming the classroom have appeared in a collection of essays entitled Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (1994). Hooks zeroes in on some of the major concerns in academe today: implementing multicultural curricula, dealing with apathy on the part of students and teachers, introducing one's politics into the classroom, and confronting issues of race, class, and desire with students. Building the Foundation: The Importance of Literacy One of the major influences in the development of hooks's pedagogical philosophy has been Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. Freire's work, especially Pedagogy in Process: The Letters to Guinea-Bissau, offered hooks a "crucial example of how a privileged critical thinker approaches sharing knowledge and resources with those who are in need" (Teaching 53). In speaking about the plight of the marginalized peasants of Guinea-Bissau, Freire recognized "the subject position of those most disenfranchised, those who suffer the gravest weight of oppressive forces" (53). Reading Freire's words affirmed hooks's own "desire to work from a lived understanding of the lives of poor black women" and greatly influenced her decision to commit herself passionately to the promotion of literacy as a major component of her feminist agenda. In Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, published more than a decade ago, hooks first expressed her concern that feminists were ignoring literacy as a part of their agenda. Basic literacy is often taken for granted by feminists, she alleged, because many of the women engaged in the production of feminist theory have always been white and middle class and their concerns often fail to address the circumstances of women from poor or underprivileged groups. She expressed particular concern regarding the fate of women of color, who constitute a majority of these poor and underprivileged groups and often lack basic reading and writing skills. In another early essay, "Educating Women: A Feminist Agenda," hooks pointed out that most information about feminism has been circulated in written form in such materials as books, pamphlets, and flyers. However, there are many women and men who are denied a means of access to feminist consciousness because they are illiterate. Feminist activists, she wrote, "have not explored deeply the connection between sexist exploitation of women in this society with the degree of women's education, including a lack of basic reading and writing skills" (107). Despite the fact that hooks has been speaking out for years about the desperate need for white, middle-class feminists to get involved in the fight against the illiteracy that continues to plague many of their less fortunate sisters, there has been little improvement in the literacy rate among women of color. In fact, the problem seems to be getting worse. In an interview with Gary A. Olson and Elizabeth Hirsh, "Feminist Praxis and the Politics of Literacy," she laments this fact because she staunchly believes that "if we truly want to empower women and men to engage in feminist thinking, we must empower them to read and write" (124). Hooks offers several suggestions concerning the eradication of illiteracy in this country. She advocates feminist-organized literacy programs in communities where there are a number of women and men who lack basic writing, reading, and critical thinking skills. Since hooks realizes that funding is always a factor in the success or failure of such endeavors, she recommends the implementation of small programs in poor and working-class neighborhoods that would be staffed by committed volunteers. …