In Teaching Critical Thinking, renowned cultural critic and progressive educator bell hooks addresses some of the most compelling issues facing teachers in and out of the classroom today.

Introduction

1. critical thinking

2. democratic education

3. engaged pedagogy

4. decolonization

5. integrity

6. purpose

7. collaboration (written with Ron Scapp)

8. conversation

9. telling the story

10. sharing the story

11. imagination

12. to lecture or not

13. humor in the classroom

14. crying time

15. conflict

16. feminist revolution

17. black, female and academic

18. learning past the hate

19. honoring teachers

20. teachers against teaching

21. self-esteem

22. the joy of reading

23. intellectual life

24. writing books for children

25. spirituality

26. touch

27. to love again

28. feminist change

29. moving past race and gender

30. talking sex

31. teaching as prophetic vocation

32. practical wisdom

In Teaching Critical Thinking, renowned cultural critic and progressive educator bell hooks addresses some of the most compelling issues facing teachers in and out of the classroom today.

In a series of short, accessible, and enlightening essays, hooks explores the confounding and sometimes controversial topics that teachers and students have urged her to address since the publication of the previous best-selling volumes in her Teaching series, Teaching to Transgress and Teaching Community. The issues are varied and broad, from whether meaningful teaching can take place in a large classroom setting to confronting issues of self-esteem. One professor, for example, asked how black female professors can maintain positive authority in a classroom without being seen through the lens of negative racist, sexist stereotypes. One teacher asked how to handle tears in the classroom, while another wanted to know how to use humor as a tool for learning.

Addressing questions of race, gender, and class in this work, hooks discusses the complex balance that allows us to teach, value, and learn from works written by racist and sexist authors. Highlighting the importance of reading, she insists on the primacy of free speech, a democratic education of literacy. Throughout these essays, she celebrates the transformative power of critical thinking. This is provocative, powerful, and joyful intellectual work. It is a must read for anyone who is at all interested in education today.