Creating Critical Pedagogy Communities: The bell hooks Teaching Trilogy Reading Circle as Model of Cultivating Engaged Pedagogical Praxes -- ell hooks’s Radical Pedagogy: New Visions of Feminism, Justice, Love, and Resistance in the Classroom
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This reflection details the authors’ experiences envisioning and participating in a bell hooks reading circle on the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s campus, in an effort to create a space of compassionate, critical self and community reflection on our pedagogical practices. The reading circle, made up of 25 faculty and staff, worked through the teaching trilogy over the course of one semester, reading and writing reflections on our own and coming together biweekly for discussion. Maia Butler, then assistant professor of African American Literature and a Racial Justice Learning Community co-organizer on campus, garnered support from the Center for Teaching Excellence to supply paper copies of hooks’ teaching trilogy for each participant. Savannah Geidel, then a graduate teaching assistant in UNCW’s English department, participated in the reading circle with hopes of developing her pedagogical practices. In addition to the formal teacher preparation received in both her BA and MA, the reading circle provided her with a more encompassing view of teaching that prioritized cross-disciplinary connections. In this piece, we discuss: developing the programming for the reading circle, intentions for the circle, the collective experience, and the benefits for teachers both new and seeking renewal in their teaching practices across the landscape of the university. Ultimately, the circle allowed for space to discuss what goes right in our teaching, where we can grow in our teaching, and how university structures support or undermine engaged pedagogies. We developed connections across campus units that broadened our conception of who belongs to our teaching community and how they engage students in different spaces as well as from the standpoints of their respective disciplines. We offer the teaching trilogy reading circle as a model for teaching communities to practice reflection, offer support, and build strategies for engaged pedagogies.
