Text 5
When I made my way to college, I was truly astonished to find
teachers who appeared to derive their primary pleasure in the
classroom by exercising their authoritarian power over my fellow
students, crushing our spirits, and dehumanizing our minds and
bodies. I had chosen to attend Stanford University, a predominantly
white college (primarily because the financial aid packages were
better than those offered by black institutions), but I never once
considered what it would be like to study with teachers who were
racist. Even though I had attended a high school with outspokenly
racist teachers who were contemptuous and unkind, I had
romanticized college. I believed it would be a paradise of learning
where we would all be so busy studying that we’d never have time
for the petty things of this world, especially not racism.
HOOKS, B. Teaching critical thinking: practical wisdom. New York: Routledge,
2010, p. 2.