Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom

Collaborating with others plays an essential role in deconstructing the ways class, race, and gender infuse structural systems and modes of thinking. hooks advocates for developing meaningful, collaborative relationships with colleagues. Doing so serves as a model for what should happen in the classroom. hooks and her colleague Ron Scapp use dialogue to challenge and prompt one another to grow as learners. Both Scapp and hooks engage in rigorous self-critique, but they also hold one another accountable. hooks emphasizes that this type of relationship can only take place when trust has been established and is continuously fostered: “Trust is not static, that it must be constantly re-enforced by the actions we are willing to take both to own the importance of our bond and to protect it” (39). hooks feels that her collaboration with Ron has contributed to her personal and professional growth.

Conversation is key to critical thinking. As an educator, hooks quickly learned that her students retain little of what she presents in a lecture. Most of what they retain comes from the rich conversations they have with their peers: “Talking with teachers and students about how and when the most ecstatic moments of learning occur, I hear again and again the primacy of conversation” (44).