Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom

As a child, bell hooks attended segregated schools in Kentucky in the 1950s. Her teachers cared about their students and the quality of their education. hooks was inspired by their example. Her teachers modeled the belief that education was a pathway to freedom, and they expected their students to continue their education after graduation. hooks attended Stanford University to become an educator but was shocked to find the teachers there did not share the same educational attitude as those from her childhood. She was confronted with educators who exercised authoritarian power and dehumanized their students: “Imagine what it is like to be taught by a teacher who does not believe you are fully human” (2). hooks’s professors were outwardly racist and sexist, entrapping their students in a cycle of fear.

hooks was determined to reject their example and become a teacher like the ones she had as a child. She learned to love teaching, and she wanted to write about the type of education she aspired to provide. She wrote two books about teaching before Teaching Critical Thinking, each exploring education as a form of liberation. This final installment serves as a response to the topics that emerged during her conversations with students and other educators.