"Engaged Pedagogy" By, Bell Hooks

In "Engaged Pedagogy" by, Bell Hooks that for one to be educated the educator must be able to take your through a "spiritual" journey in order to share that information in a "powerful" way. Your job as the teacher is to gain access to your students souls. In a manner that respects the whole self is key to the conditions of learning.

One quote that suck out is one by Thich Nhat Hanh. Hanh used this statement to describe his pedagogy. Hanh's unique way of teaching is one that encompasses "wholeness, a union of mind, body, and spirit" (page 68, "Engages Pedagogy", by Bell Hooks.) This teaching style was rooted in the Buddhist principles that you should be able to teach the "whole" person. This quote struck me as interesting because I never thought about teaching a "whole" student. In today's classrooms you just "fill" the student with information, facts, and figures. That as students they should be able to "spit" back to you on various test, quizzes and examinations. As teachers we sometimes forget that teaching is one thing but being a good teacher is taking all that ones learned and applying it to real life situations.

The critical term in this particular piece of work is pedagogy. Pedagogy appears in various statements throughout this reading (page 68, "Engaged Pedagogy", by Bell Hooks.) This term is important to teachers because it means a way or form of teaching information to your students. You will need to use and be familiar with this term throughout your teaching career. Like teaching it is ever-changing to meet students demands, as such, you as the teacher need to form a pedagogy around these demands.

The central theme that I got out of the text is that teachers sometimes forget what their actual role is. The teacher is there to guide and help students make sense of all the information that gets thrown at them through various points in the semester. By just teaching this information you aren't necessarily "healing" the students your just filling them up with "stuff" that has no meaning.

What teachers forget is to put passion behind their teaching. To show that you are as passionate about this transposes on the students in your classroom "that hey if the teacher is this passionate about this information maybe it's of some use." Your greatest gift to students that are taught under your guidance is that you taught with "heart" and that showed the students how meaningful this knowledge can be.