In her short piece, “Rebel’s Dilemma,” bell hooks describes the balance between being an academic and a “rebel,” as she states the following: 

“Academia was where we worked but we wanted a life on the outside. We did not want to be imprisoned in institutions of higher learning that would reward us and then demand that we stop being outlaws—that we stop stepping out on the edge. 

It takes courage and critical vigilance not to conform. It takes knowing the rules of the game, how to play and win, as well as finding strategies to win without compromising in ways that violate or destroy the integrity of your being” (2).

hooks shares later in the essay that she’s considering leaving academic life because of the tension to conform and lose part of her identity.  I’m reminded of John Ogbu’s theory of “oppositional culture,” which Tom Fox, in “Basic Writing as Cultural Conflict” uses to explain the resistance African Americans have had toward academia.  Fox focuses on questions students might be asking themselves, such as “If I learn to school reading and writing will I lose my social identity?” and “If I learn to school reading and writing will I then be economically and socially rewarded?” (74).

Can we help our students gain the rewards of academic knowledge and know-how without sacrificing too much of themselves?  Can we do this ourselves?  hooks states that one must know the rules of the game and how to “win” if one is to succeed without losing one’s integrity.  There may be room here to help students see the value of the academic discourse we teach, but also to help them see using it as a choice.  Critical pedagogy theorists, such as Paolo Freire and Ira Shor, focus on the importance of bringing in students’ lives—their issues and their interests—into the classroom, and teaching them critical thinking so they can examine the power dynamics of their lives and the world and choose when and how to use academic discourse. 

I think as teachers we need to take these issues to heart so that we might model for our students ways of being in academic institutions.  I’m thinking of some of my favorite teachers and professors, the ones who most inspired and influenced me.  Most of them had a little bit of the “outlaw” in them, passions about changing the world, and that was a big part of what appealed to me.  I guess I’m wondering if I need to summon my own inner outlaw from whatever corner of the world she ran off to during my years as a public school teacher so I can model for students that one doesn’t have to conform to all of academia to have agency within it.  I’m not sure yet what this will look like.  I’m a white, middle class woman.  I’ve been privileged most of my life in ways many of my students have not, but I’m also a marginalized, adjunct writing instructor.  How shall I model “step[ping] out on the edge,” retaining my own identity and liberal view of the world while surviving in an academic institution?