Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom

In Teaching 1, hooks outlines a definition for critical thinking as a form of radical openness. She suggests that critical thinking is an action during which students engage with wonder and challenge their own beliefs and ideas. hooks suggests that all children innately participate in critical thinking, but dominator culture quickly teaches them to submit and conform. Within hooks’s definition, critical thinking helps students to see the world from the perspectives of others and enables them to live a life of learning and self-reflection. Critical thinking leads students toward self-actualization.

Engaged pedagogy is central to the theme of Engaged Pedagogy and a Community of Learning. hooks defines engaged pedagogy as a teaching practice that invites students to participate in a learning community with the teacher. Engaged pedagogy moves beyond rote memorization and regurgitation of material by requiring students to think critically and collaboratively about the material. Engaged pedagogy invites students to bring their personal experiences and stories to the classroom and encourages teachers to view learning as a shared experience with students. In the engaged classroom, both teachers and students learn from one another and build community on a foundation of love. hooks views engaged pedagogy as a challenge to traditional pedagogies built by dominator culture.

Hegemony is defined as dominance. hooks uses the term to unpack white hegemony and patriarchal hegemony within society. Often referring to dominator culture, hooks explores how white patriarchal society shapes and informs education. Teachers are often unaware of how their practices support white supremacy and patriarchal ideologies. For example, the authoritarian style of teaching is representative of a system of oppression that places people into hierarchical categories.

hooks defines integrity as the point at which one’s actions and one’s beliefs are in alignment. She suggests that the term “wholeness” is synonymous with integrity. Her work expands on the idea that education is in a crisis of integrity. She argues that dominator culture emphasizes freedom while dehumanizing and oppressing marginalized groups. Attacks on Women’s Studies and critical pedagogy continue to threaten the integrity of education. hooks explains that teachers can fight back against this threat by utilizing engaged and critical pedagogy in the classroom.

Pedagogy is defined as the methodology and practice of teaching. It encompasses the science of learning and teaching. Pedagogy considers the psychology and sciences of how students learn and engage with material. For example, a teacher who believes in monitoring students’ understanding of the material throughout the lesson is modeling a pedagogical principle. There are many pedagogical philosophies, including bell hooks’s methodology of engaged pedagogy presented in this work. hooks presents engaged pedagogy as a counter approach to traditional methods of teaching.

Considered by many to be the goal of education, self-actualization describes the point at which a student achieves full potential. Others define self-actualization as a feeling of self-worth and self-fulfillment. hooks contributes to the understanding of self-actualization by viewing it as a point of radical openness. She believes educators have a role in guiding students toward self-actualization, and that when enough students are radically open and utilizing critical thinking, then society at large can begin to move toward self-actualization.