Stefan Vater (Verband Österreichischer Volkshochschulen, Lehrbeauftragter im Masterstudium Genderstudies der Universität Wien)

bell hooks. >Engaged Pedagogy<

>Education as a Practice of Freedom<

Stefan Vater (Verband Österreichischer Volkshochschulen, Lehrbeauftragter im Masterstudium Genderstudies der Universität Wien)

My hope emerges from those places of struggle where I witness individuals

positively transforming their lives and theworld around them. Educating is always a

vocation rooted in hopefulness. As teacherswe believe that learning is possible, thatnothing can keep an open mind from seekingafter knowledge and finding a way to know.

(hooks, bell (2003) Teaching Community. A pedagogy of hope, New York: Routledge. 160 pages. p.xiv)

>to build a world of cooperation, solidarityand love< Jamarillo/McLaren 2009, 32

>one cannot see those who are in the dark<>feminist praxis makes it necessary to bring

the repressed and socially „invisible“aspects of female experience into the „full

daylight<Jamarillo/McLaren 2009, 19; 21

VO Gender und Unterricht

bell hooksaus Wikipedia, der freien Enzyklopädie

25. September 1952 als Gloria Watkins in Hopkinsville, Kentucky) ist eine afroamerikanische Philosophin und Verfechterin feministischer und antirassistischer Ansätze.

Ihr Pseudonym ist der Name ihrer indigenen Großmutter.

hooks wurde als Arbeitertochter geboren und studierte in Stanford (B.A. 1973) und University of Wisconsin-Madison (Magister Artium 1976). Ihre Promotion hat sie an der University of California, Santa Cruz 1983 abgelegt. Nach Lehraufträgen in Yale und am Oberlin College ist sie seit 1994 Professorin für Englische Literatur am City College of New York. Sie ist für ihre Vorlesungen, Reden und öffentlichen Auftritte berühmt.

VO Gender und Unterricht

#Video#

Die Themen ihrer Schriften sind weit gefasst: besonders beschäftigt sie sich mit Feminismus und Gender-Fragen, Antirassismus, Klassismusund Kulturkritik. (gender, race, class, culture)

Dabei geht sie von einer Verknüpfung der verschiedenen Machtmechanismen, insbesondere Rassismus, Sexismus und Klassismus aus, die sich in ihrer Kritik immer wieder als Trinität von „weißer Vorherrschaft, Kapitalismus und Patriarchat“ bezeichnet.

Diesen Komplex gilt es für sie zu überwinden, wobei nicht auf die Privilegierung durch eine der Herrschaftsformen zurückgegriffen werden könne. So erscheint ihr auch die Integration in einen weißen Mainstream als Assimilation nicht anstrebenswert. Stattdessen sucht sie Wege zu einer widerständigen Kultur.

aus Wikipedia, der freien Enzyklopädie

VO Gender und Unterricht

„Antirassistische Arbeit, deren Strategie darauf zielt, daß diese Personen sich als 'Opfer' von Rassismus sehen, und dabei auf eine einschneidende Wirkung bei den Betreffenden setzen, ist fehlgeleitet. Wir müssen einfach zur Kenntnis nehmen, daß Personen mit vielen Privilegien, die in keiner Weise Opfer sind, sich aufgrund ihrer politischen Entscheidung für die Unterdrückung einsetzen können. Diese Solidarität muss nicht unbedingt auf gemeinsame Erfahrung beruhen. Sie kann sich auf das politische und ethische Verständnis von Rassismus und die Absage an Dominanz gründen. Daraus läßt sich ersehen, wie wesentlich die Erziehung zu einem kritischen Bewußtseinist, einem Bewusstsein, das Mächtige und Privilegierte in die Lage versetzen kann, sich der Herrschaftsstrukturen zu entledigen, in denen sie verwurzelt sind, ohne sich als Opfer fühlen zu müssen.Mit dieser Einschätzung wird nicht notwendigerweise die kollektive Erkenntnis negiert, dass eine Dominanzkultur darauf ausgerichtet ist, sich völlig verwirrend und verzerrend auf die Psyche der Menschen auszuwirken, oder daß diese Pervertierung verletzt.“

aus Wikipedia, der freien Enzyklopädiehttp://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_hooks

VO Gender und Unterricht

>When school integration was introduced in the 1960s, bell hooks transferred to an integrated school that was the completeopposite of her first school.

Here she was confronted with an institutionof all-white teachers who she judged werenot interested in transforming the minds of their pupils but simply transferringirrelevant bodies of knowledge.

She writes that the knowledge they weresupposed to soak up bore no relation to howthey lived or behaved. ‘Bussed to whiteschools’, bell hooks recalls, ‘we soonlearned that obedience, and not zealous(eifrig) will to learn, was what was expected of us’.

Too much eagerness to learn she regarded as something that could easily be seen as a threat to white authority (see hooks 1996a and 1996b)

(vgl. Artikel INFED: www.infed.org/thinkers/hooks.htm)

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>To educate as the practice of freedom isa way of teaching that anyone can learn. That learning process comes easiest to those of us who teach who also believethat there is an aspect of our vocationthat is sacred; who believe that our workis not merely to share information but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students. To teach in a manner that respects and cares for thesouls of our students is essential if weare to provide the necessary conditionswhere learning can most deeply and intimately begin< (hooks, teaching to trangress 1994: 13)

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bell hooks on education

bell hooks' first major book on education, Teaching to Transgress, was published in 1994. It is a collection of essays exploring her ideas. She writes in a very personal style, often anecdotal giving examples from her ownexperiences. This is quite deliberate as she intended thebook to be read by a diverse audience coveringanyone interested in the practice of education.

VO Gender und Unterricht

bell hooks on education

She argues for a

- a pedagogical process which is characterized through reflection and action, and a problem centered account (cp. Freire /meaningfulness) and inspired by hope, love and respect.

- a process that should open a space for critical reflection and consciousness, transformation of the self à identity formation -> raising of critical conscioness (cp. Freire)

- a process to repair the wounded self-esteem: teaching as healing(cp. Spivak: Neuverweben zerstörter kulutreller Netze)

-a process regarding the interconnectedness of people and theinterconnectedness of the forces of opression (Race, Class, Gender)(dialogic and aware of triple opression)

VO Gender und Unterricht

bell hooks on education

She argues for a

-engaged pedagogy: situated pedagogywhich starts from the personal experience (of females), as an objectiveplace from which to start to interpretthe social world and develop criticalconciousness

->For hooks every reflection, analysis, personal story, or anecdote encompasses(umgeben) broader relations of racial, class and sexual exploitation< (Jaramillo/McLaren 2009,18)

VO Gender und Unterricht

bell hooks on education

She argues for

- a teaching praxis of authenticity and commitment (Hingabe), vulnerability and respect for the learners as subjects in a dialogic process, where both teachers and pupils/students arelearner

Progressive, holistic education, "engaged pedagogy" is moredemanding than conventional critical or feminist pedagogy. For, unlike these two teaching practices, it emphasizes well-being. That means that teachers must be actively involved and committed to a process of self-actualization that promotestheir own well-being if they are to teach in a manner thatempowers students. (hooks 1994: 15)

Gender Aspekte PH Feldkirch

bell hooks is heavilyinfluenced by Paulo Freirewhom she met and worked withon a number of occasions. She uses a quote from him at the beginning of TeachingCommunity to illustrate itssubtitle.

VO Gender und Unterricht

hooks and Freire

‘It is imperative that we maintain hope even when the harshnessof reality may suggest the opposite’bell hooks

She claims that she was like a person dying of thirst when shefirst encountered Freire and although she did not agree witheverything he said, she maintains that ‘the fact that there was some mud in my water was not important.’ (concerning thefeminist critique of freire)

Freire has had a profound effect on her thinking and on bell hooks' practice, particularly around the concepts of literacyand consciousness raising.

KEYWORDS Freire: Liberation, consciensation, humanisation, reflection-Action, problemcentered vs. bankingsystem education, empowerment, dialogic process, education is never without a position, is never neutral!

Gender Theorie: Judith Butler, Gayatri Chakravortry Spivak

Revolutionary critical pedagogyoperates from an understandingthat the basis of education ispolitical and that spaces need toBe created where students canimagine a different world outsidethe social form of patriachalorder of society and capitalistlabor organisation… (cp. Jaramillo/McLaren 2009, 31)

„Literature can train theimagination of other worlds“

Gayatri Spivakhttp://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri

/Spivak.html

Gender Aspekte PH Feldkirch

Ende

VO Gender und Unterricht

hooks is a feminist and for her, literacy is essential to thefuture of the feminist movement because the lack of reading, writing and critical skills serves to exclude many women and menfrom feminist consciousness. Not only that, it excludes many from the political process and thelabour market. She regards literacy as more than being able to read and write, however. For her, it allows people, particularlythose who are marginalized and discriminated against in society to acquire a critical consciousness. Freire’s concept of criticalconsciousness has been particularly important to her work. Shealso promotes a notion of praxis in a similar way to Freire i.e. a combination of reflection and action and regards her notion of ‘engaged pedagogy’ as one which requires praxis on the part of notonly students but also teachers. Teachers must be aware of themselves as practitioners and as human beings if they wish to teach students in a non-threatening, anti-discriminatory way. Self-actualisation should be the goal of the teacher as well as the students.bell hook’s pedagogy is one that is responsive to the specificsituation of each particular group of students and she seeseducation as taking place not only in the classroom but also wherever people are. She refers in her new book to ‘communities of resistance’ as places where democratic educators can work.