hooks (1994, p. 34) advises us to ‘renew our minds if we are to transform educational institutions and society so the way we live, teach, and work can reflect our joy in cultural diversity, our passion for justice, and our love for freedom’. She alerts us to ‘the ways democratic education is being refocused solely as a way to achieve material success’ (hooks, 2009, p. 16). My teaching practice is influenced by hooks, but I find my approaches are met with resistance and conflicts of interest.

hooks (2009, p. 7) incites us to consider: ‘Thinking is an action … thoughts are the laboratory where one goes to pose questions and find answers, the place where theory and praxis come together.’ Teaching Black History, I witness passive acquisitions of information by students, a lack of critical thinking. This experience birthed the concept of ‘critical confidence’. For hooks (1994, p. 14) ‘education can only be liberatory when everyone claims knowledge as a field in which we all labour’. In raising the case for increasing, better valuing and improving critical thinking, I propose critical confidence as a process that comes with its own methodology.

In 18 years as an educator, I have encountered teachers’ and students’ fear to question: to step outside of a rigid curriculum, and to have a better understanding of the world, a world that is still battling with racism. This results in the handing over of power, and an inability to make intelligent, informed decisions which reduces aspirations for any type of self-governance. For hooks (2009), knowledge rooted in experience shapes what we value and consequently how we know what we know as well as how we use what we know. If knowledge of self is considered true knowledge, attaining knowledge of self requires critical confidence.

Critical thinkers question information, conclusions and points of view: ‘they strive to be clear, accurate, precise, and relevant. They seek to think beneath the surface, to be logical and fair. They apply these skills to their reading, writing, speaking, and listening’ (hooks, 2009, p. 9). The mind must progress through levels of mental expansion, a purging, which takes courage. To be a critical thinker is to be a dangerous person in this fundamentally anti-intellectual society (hooks, 2009).

‘Critical Confidence requires time and space – it’s a form of activism, it’s an interactive process, it’s radical.’

Today, there is less collective support for critical consciousness, in communities, institutions and among friends (hooks, 2009). Critical thinking is a choice, but not one that is given, or is free, because as Freire (1970) affirms, society’s leaders do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress. The individual must decide to commit; critical confidence is a mindset. hooks (2009) challenges the default, that Lipovetsky (2005) labelled ‘hedonistic individualism’, where people are autonomous, self-contained individuals, whose rights are prior to and independent of any conception of common good. A problem with modernity is that we do not have time to think about a world larger than self. I advocate awakening: agreeing to intellectually explore reality, this is a key component of Critical Confidence. Education is this process, Biesta (2005, p. 62) describes as ‘coming into presence,’ and Critical Confidence is its foundation, meeting Rendón’s requirement that ‘We need to validate students’ capacities for intellectual development at the beginning, not at the end, of their academic careers’ (Rendón, 1992, p. 63). With this validation, individuals may experience peace of mind, a more holistic, conscious awareness and purpose.

Critical Confidence requires time and space – it’s a form of activism, it’s an interactive process, it’s radical. Critical thinking requires discernment. It’s a way of approaching ideas that aims to understand core, underlying truths, not simply superficial truths that may be most obviously visible (hooks, 2009). Freire (1970, p. 26) counsels: ‘Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both.’ True liberation does not come from maintaining oppressive structures or wielding power over others: it emerges from vulnerability and the shared struggle of oppression. When people recognise their collective strength and engage in dialogue, transformation becomes possible. Critical Confidence sees education not merely as a tool for conformity but to critically engage with reality, question existing systems, and actively participate in shaping a more just world.

‘Critical Confidence sees education not merely as a tool for conformity but to critically engage with reality, question existing systems, and actively participate in shaping a more just world.’

Educators have the responsibility and capacity to develop Critical Confidence, as I have with the OnRoot Black History course; but this form of power needs to be acknowledged, owned, developed, challenged. Raising Critical Confidence could be the route for improving critical thinking and for anyone to experience a form of freedom.

References

Biesta, G. (2004). Against learning. Reclaiming a language for education in an age of learning. Nordic Studies in Education, 23(1). https://doi.org//10.18261/ISSN1891-5949-2004-01-06  

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Seabury Press.

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress. Routledge.

hooks, b. (2009). Teaching critical thinking: Practical wisdom. Routledge.

Lipovetsky, G. (2005). Hypermodern times. Polity.

Rendón, L. (1992). From the Barrio to the academy: Revelations of a Mexican American ‘scholarship girl’. New Directions for Community Colleges, 1992(80), 55–64. https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.36819928007