100 Books Like Teaching to Transgress

This book helped me release shame after a colleague of mine told me my work wasn’t “science.”

Here’s the truth: to create a healing platform, I needed to tap into ways of thinking that academia sees as “woo woo” and “savage.” I looked to the stars. I meditated. I did rituals and read myths.

Dr. Kimmerer, trained as a traditional botanist, realized that the Indigenous myths and stories she was told as a child contained scientific knowledge passed down for generations by her tribe.

She realized there were scientific truths her community knew for millennia that traditional scientists only discovered within the last 100 years. This is the power of Ancestral Intelligence, disregarded by the same science that ultimately created AI.

What stories, fables, and myths have taught you valuable lessons about the world?

A classical book on anarchy within science. I find the proposed pluralist approach as the right way to avoid the monopolies of truth in present-day science. Feyerabend identified science as an ideology, which I might have found exaggerated and difficult to understand when I started to study science, but I understand it much better now, after 30 years of working as a researcher.

Forgetting about the relativism implicit in his proposal, focusing on the sociological aspect, I think there are many good and brave observations there that can enlighten us.

This book is one of the most effective guides to meaningful, lasting change.

James Clear explains how transformation happens through small adjustments practiced consistently over time. His philosophy aligns with a core belief in my own life and work: growth is created by what you do daily, not occasionally.

Clear breaks down the power of systems, discipline, and identity-based habit building. The book proves that success is rarely about dramatic breakthroughs. It is the result of steady, intentional actions that accumulate into extraordinary impact.

Mastering the next right step is the foundation of personal and professional excellence.

This was one of the last pieces Merton wrote before his life was cut short in 1967 and I believe that he outlined both the problems with education in the modern world as well as a possible solution in an accessible way. I often go back to the first chapter in this work as a foundation for my own understanding of teaching and learning. It is truly inspiring!

This book seems to be even more relevant today after the recent passing of Thich Nhat Hanh. Hanh was truly a groundbreaking monastic and peace activist. He introduced mindfulness to the west as well as the concept of “engaged contemplation.” I think Hanh’s book, Happy Teachers is the ultimate toolkit for bringing these practices fully into the classroom. It is so much more than just mindfulness, but a new way of seeing one’s own teaching and practice.

I loved this book because it was very thought-provoking and gave me some great personal insights. At the time of reading, I was planning to walk the Camino de Santiago for the first time and was really interested in reading about others who had gone before. I enjoyed following this complete journey and sharing the thoughts, wisdom, and lessons that came up. 

Self-knowledge is a powerful thing, and I wondered about my own Camino trip and what kind of experience I might have had. This book certainly motivated me to start planning my own Pilgrimage. It is a book that you remember years after reading. It goes deep.

Although her father died when she was only nine, the great scholar of African American life and literature, Farah Jasmine Griffin has never forgotten his admonition to her: “Read until you understand.” In this beautiful book, Professor Griffin guides us to an understanding of the U.S. Constitution, Malcolm X, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder, the artist Romare Bearden, and writers as different as the enslaved 18th-century poet Phillis Wheatley and Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison. As educators, we have read and re-read and read again. Every read reveals a new level of understanding and we are grateful for the journey on which Professor Griffin leads us.

Peña’s book began as a letter written to students and it remains a powerful offering of love as well as a call to rebel and resist oppression. The book’s “Course Requirements” include: an open heart and mind; “The desire to be part of the sum, rather than a single part”; and patience—to make room for humility, to unlearn and relearn, to make mistakes, to become resilient in order to do more than rebel once but to actually light the fire within to be rebellious as a practice. This book inspires us to continue fighting for justice and change, and to sustain our communities to keep the light of hope in a better future burning.

This gorgeous book by microbiologist Dr. Beronda L. Montgomery is as beautiful to read as it is to hold—in your hands, in your heart. We can’t stop thinking about Montgomery’s key lesson: if you have a plant that is struggling, you figure out what environmental changes it needs to thrive—more or less water or sunlight, better soil. When people fail to flourish, we’re quick to blame the individual. As an African American woman, Montgomery makes us think about society and how we approach problems (do we compete or do we build a collaborative effort for a holistic solution?). Humans have much to discover from our photosynthesizing world: how plants learn—from their own kin, their friends, and their foes—and Montgomery helps us to understand the nature (literally) of teaching and learning.

I first purchased and read this book as a senior undergraduate student not knowing anything about the author.

Little did I know that this book would later play an important role in not only understanding the limitations of mainstream economics but also in providing me with an alternative approach to make sense of our economic surroundings. 

Bharadwaj’s book is truly a classic and one that I always recommend to my students. 

Her book continues to inspire and educate me.