Inspired by Freire himself, hooks’ work can be applied to Freire’s ‘banking’ concept of education. In “Teaching to Transgress,” hooks questions the divide between theory and practice, claiming not only that theorizing is indeed a political act, but also that theory should be applicable to the widest audience of people, not abstracted from real-life situations. In “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education,” Freire criticized the teaching content that is “detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance.” Freire writes that only through experience, or practice, one can truly learn, not through the memorization of content distanced from any real-life application.
hooks and Freire
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This concept is one that is all too real with us as young people. A lot of the classes we took and the information we learned was not applicable to the real world. I have so many memories of coming home from school to tell my family what I learned and they would look more disappointed than happy. Myself, along with many others I know whom I graduated with were all stunned to find out just how much we didn’t know once we left high school and entered the real world. If only we had classes on how to pay taxes and take out loans or even how to mail a letter or a package. We should be teaching what we need to teach, and adapt classes so that the information and skills transferred stays current and reliable.