Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom

The landmark 1954 Brown vs Board of Education Supreme Court case made racial segregation in public schools illegal. As a result, students such as bell hooks had to leave their familiar schools and move to previously white schools. While this decision to eliminate the unequal education standards that existed under the previous “separate but equal” segregation system was hailed by many civil rights activists, for hooks, this was a painful experience because she had to give up an education where her black teachers had taught her and cared about her. Her identity was central to the classroom.

In the newly integrated classroom, hooks felt herself to be an Other. Her experience was no longer central to the classroom but was marginalized. While the classroom was ostensibly a more diverse setting with white and black students learning together, the racism of the setting ensured that only the white students were seen as central to the classroom. She learned to hate school.

Forty years after this transitional, turbulent time, hooks has seen that, while much has changed, much has stayed the same. Many students still feel like a marginalized Other in the classroom due to their experiences of racism, sexism, classism, and colonialism.