Teaching Community. A Pedagogy of Hope

Teachers of vision know that democratic education can never be confined to a classroom. Bell Hooks shows the way. Ten years after Teaching to Transgress comes Teaching Community—a powerful and heartfelt book that will enrich our teaching and our lives. In Teaching Community, Bell Hooks looks at what works. Writing about struggles to end racism and white supremacy, she reminds us that "no one is born a racist"— everyone makes a choice.
But the pervasiveness of racism in society—the "worship of whiteness"—devalues us all. To "teach community" means, for example, to work against the effects of such socialization and to resist even the subtle ways in which racism is reinforced. Teaching can happen anywhere, any time—not just in college classrooms but also in churches, in bookstores, in homes, and any other place people get together to share ideas.
Teaching Community encourages us all to embrace the values that motivate progressive social change—spirit, struggle, service, love, the ideals of shared knowledge and shared learning.