Teachers should exploit the opening-week excitement rather than settle for mere learning

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 (#expands, via linked claim)

Teaching is a performative act. And it is that aspect of our work that offers the space for change, invention, spontaneous shifts, that can serve as a catalyst drawing out the unique elements in each classroom. To embrace the performative aspect of teaching we are compelled to engage “audiences,” to consider issues of reciprocity. Teachers are not performers in the traditional sense of the word in that our work is not meant to be a spectacle. Yet it is meant to serve as a catalyst that calls everyone to become more and more engaged, to become active participants in learning. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 32 (#expands, via linked claim)

One of the most intense aspects of liberatory pedagogical practice is the challenge on the part of the professor to change the set agenda. We all learn to make lesson plans, and want to stick to them. When I began teaching, I would feel panic, a sense of crisis, if there was a deviation from my set agenda. I think the crisis we all feel about changing agendas is the fear that we will not cover enough material. And in thinking this through I have to undermine my own “I ”; maybe the material I most want them to know on a given day is not necessarily what learning is about. Professors can dish out all the right material, but if people are not in a mind to receive it, they leave classrooms empty of that information, even tough we may feel we’ve really done our jobs. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 304 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Generating classroom excitement requires abandoning fixed agendas and fixed authority — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 24; Classroom excitement arises from collective recognition, not professorial charisma — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 25; Good teaching requires abandoning fixed agendas to meet learner readiness — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 304 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Generating classroom excitement requires abandoning fixed agendas and fixed authority #expands (0.85) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 24
• Teaching is a performative act demanding reciprocal audience engagement. #expands (0.80) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 32
• Good teaching requires abandoning fixed agendas to meet learner readiness #corroborates (0.78) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 304
• Effective teaching functions as a performative catalyst, not a spectacle #expands (0.75)
• Studying as drudgery rather than adventure diminishes actual capacity #qualifies (0.74)
• Classroom excitement arises from collective recognition, not professorial charisma #qualifies (0.72) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 25