Dewey And Experience By Bell Hooks

“Teaching is a performative act”, and it is for that reason that it is crucial that teachers teach beyond the textbook (hooks, 11) . The textbook merely supplies the student with information, data, and serve the core curriculum agenda that has been set up by the state or district. The teacher’s job is not to reiterate what the textbook says, although there is a responsibility upon the teacher to ensure that students understand the assigned readings, but the teacher’s job is to relate the text to the real world around them. The teachers role is to take what is in the text and perform what is presented, to translate it so that it is compatible to each child’s life, and to allow students to think critically both about their own understandings and the understandings of those around them.
As a future English teacher that shares a similar perspective, I find it pivotal that students are exposed to differences of opinion, and are able to recognize their own stances in comparison to that of society. Comparing and contrasting essays, and effectively analyzing them allow students to see past certain obstacles society imposes upon them, including racial differences. In this paper, I explore the ways in which “Individuality and Experience”, as authored by John Dewey, and racism as presented by bell hooks in Teaching to Transgress: Education as the practice of Freedom, play a pivotal role in the lives of students. The paper goes further to explain how comparing and contrasting texts can be used to allow students to understand their own perceptions of themselves and of society with regards to racism and