"Teaching to Transgress"

In schools, children discover that they must use their brains mostly for memorizing rather than exploring their interests, expressing their ideas, or solving problems. Even worse, much of what they are asked to memorize is irrelevant to their world. Often, their reaction to this is either social withdrawal or destructive anger. When teachers force students to memorize certain facts, and they replicate those facts on a test, teachers are satisfied that they have successfully controlled them. Just as Bell Hooks notes in "Teaching to Transgress", “The vast majority of our professors lacked basic communication skills, they were not self-actualized, and they often used the classroom to enact rituals of control that were about domination and the unjust exercise of power” (5). Most children are not capable of understanding what is happening to them in our present educational system. They are berated by a constant dialogue of blame and fault. They accept the system as the way things must be; realizing that one either must play the game, or accept the consequences of defying the norm. Many advocate the creation of more options and a greater freedom of choice, though, mainly fail with this idea from school districts. Students require action, movement, and the freedom to explore their own interests. Good education involves far more than test scores. It is at the very heart of character formation. Those who design our educational programs today lack an understanding of the elements that contribute to healthy mindfulness. Educators should not be attempting to change a person’s predisposition. This would be like trying to change someone from being left-handed to right-handed. People remember only what they find interesting and useful. Children want to learn things that will help them make sense out of this often-confusing world. They want to make a valuable contribution to society. We do not need coercive force in order for them to accomplish this. Rather than stress memorization and blind obedience, we must stress self-discovery and exploration.
Hooks explains, “Excitement in higher education was viewed as potentially disruptive of the atmosphere of seriousness assumed to be essential to the learning process. To enter classroom settings in colleges and universities with the will to share the desire to encourage excitement was to trangress” (7). Excitement is vital in the classroom. Without excitement, students will not engage in the learning process, let alone think independently without the teacher telling them what to do and think. Personally, I know that I have retained knowledge/curriculum by pedagogical techniques rather than from the professor lecturing. I completley agree with Hooks opinion that, “It is rare that any professor, no matter how eloquent a lecturer, can generate through his or her actions enough excitement to create an axciting classroom. Excitement is generated through collective effort” (8). I strongly feel that educators need to rethink their traditional teaching practices, and facilitate each and every student’s individualism.