Confucius once said: “Education breeds confidence.

Confidence breeds
hope. Hope breeds peace.” Perhaps that sentiment inspired Adrienne Rich and
bell hooks to write Claiming an Education and Teaching Community: A
Pedagogy of Hope. In these works, they take a stance on the topic and address
some of the issues they think are plaguing modern education. What is,
however, probably the most important thing the two pieces share is their
perception and evaluation of the relationship between education and life itself.
Rich and hooks view the relationship between education and life as a solid,
unbroken bond.
The first major example is the approach of both women towards the
issue of dehumanization of college education, namely, the separation of
learning from the students future lives. hooks emphasizes the hurtful effect of
said phenomenon, which is the cessation of further studying due to the false
notion that universities are separate from and therefore irrelevant, in the “real
world”. She even goes as far as to call the whole system a “false construction of
the corporate university”. Rich also treads quite aggressively, deeming the
present-day academic scene a place of “depersonalizing and cheapening
pressures”. Her accusation also makes a comparison to industrialism and
bureaucracy: “the processing of human beings into expected roles through
credit hours, tests and grades”. Both essayists decry the current way of
teaching and studying thoroughly. Yet they also point to the people responsible
for the duty of changing the situation.
The next point, the role of the teacher, according to hooks and Rich. To them,
an educator is someone connecting the real world with the college one. In
Rich’s words, the thing that makes learning useful in real life is an “ethical and
intellectual contact between teacher and student”, one that is permanent,
“intuitive, dynamic, unwritten”, and most importantly, vital in overcoming the
confines of the modern educational landscape. Meanwhile, hooks praises
teachers with a “vision of democratic education”. It is that trait, that, according
to her, enables students to bring their skills to use beyond the premises of their
universities. Through making learning more flexible, these people, according to
hooks, help students adapt to the ever-changing world around them and
“being fully present in the now”.
What makes for a final point of comparison between Rich and hooks is the role
of the student. What is evident is the shared belief that, despite the
importance of teachers, it is students who must use education to change the
world for the better. hooks approaches this from a unique angle, bringing up
her personal experiences. She spoke to many “brilliant” students, ones full of
hopes and aspirations, that would unfortunately fail later on. All these talented
young people were, according to her observations, mercilessly crushed by the
system and stripped of their dreams. A good teacher-tutor, she claims, would
have been more than enough to direct them to the right path and let them
realize the depth of their potential. This might be the only major point of
contrast between her and Rich, as the latter accentuates the role of the guided,
not the guide. In her mind, young people must step up and take active part in
their education, engage with their mentors through the aforementioned
unwritten contract. They should “claim” their education, take responsibility for
it and whenever necessary, do things the hard way. Nonetheless, despite this
discrepancy, it is clear both authors seem to agree on the role of the student.
Rich and hooks take a stand against the way knowledge is distributed
nowadays. They firmly point out the flaws of the current educational system,
whilst reaffirming the unbreakable connection between education and life.
Because it is only through the former that we may fully understand and
experience the latter. And it is up to us to make that happen.

657 words.
Bibliography:
hooks, bell. Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope
Rich, Adrienne. Claiming an Education

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