Wounded students demand healing knowledge, not therapy, from professors

Evidence

Currently, the students I encounter seem far more uncertain about the project of self-actualization than my peers and I were twenty years ago. They feel that there are no clear ethical guidelines shaping actions. Yet, while they despair, they are also adamant that education should be liberatory. … There are times when I walk into classrooms overflowing with students who feel terribly wounded in their psyches (many of them see therapists), yet I do not think that they want therapy from me. They do want an education that is healing to the uninformed, unknowing spirit. They do want knowledge that is meaningful. They rightfully expect that my colleagues and I will not offer them information without addressing the connection between what they are learning and their overall life experiences. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 52

Categorization

• QUESTION: A claim about student psychology circa 1994 worth testing against today’s students.
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to complaints professors make about ‘encounter groups’ and whether that fear is misplaced.
• XREF: connects to: Students today demand meaningful, healing education connecting knowledge to lived experience — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 52