Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom

bell hooks (1952-2021) was an American author, educator, and social critic. hooks grew up in Kentucky and was educated in segregated schools. She was influenced by family members and educators who encouraged her to think critically and challenge the status quo, including the patriarchal and racist values that dominated American culture.

In Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom, hooks explains that she went to schools in which the teachers valued critical thinking and higher education. They instilled in her the belief that education was the pathway to liberation and transformation. Despite their influence, hooks writes that it was the inevitable result of white supremacy and dominator culture that she learned to internalize self-hatred. In The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love, hooks describes her childhood and the ways in which her parents unwittingly upheld patriarchal values. She looked forward to attending university and meeting others who valued intellectualism and critical thinking.

At Stanford University, hooks was struck by the contrast of her professors and the teachers of her childhood who emphasized education as a practice of freedom. Her professors dehumanized their students and upheld structures of white supremacy and patriarchy. Those few educators who used counter-hegemonic