Generating classroom excitement requires abandoning fixed agendas and fixed authority

Evidence

To enter classroom settings in colleges and universities with the will to share the desire to encourage excitement, was to transgress. Not only did it require movement beyond accepted boundaries, but excitement could not be generated without a full recognition of the fact that there could never be an absolute set agenda governing teaching practices. Agendas had to be flexible, had to allow for spontaneous shifts in direction. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 24

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains where the book’s title ‘teaching to transgress’ gets its force — the act of making higher education exciting is itself the transgression.
• XREF: connects to: Neither Freire nor feminist pedagogy accounted for pleasure in the classroom — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 23; Students’ lived knowledge can exceed textbook content and unsettle teacher authority — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 720; Emotions function as pedagogical signals demanding agenda flexibility (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• Emotions function as pedagogical signals demanding agenda flexibility #corroborates (0.85)
• An engaged teaching voice must shift with its audience and context #expands (0.80) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 33
• Progressive change is resisted when it unsettles classroom authority and safe harmony #qualifies (0.75) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 73
• Professors’ fear of losing control blocks any class critique in the classroom #corroborates (0.75) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 377
• Classroom conflict can be reframed as a catalyst for learning #expands (0.72)