Explicit teaching philosophies

I'm reading bell hooks Teaching to Transgress, and I'll probably have occasional things of note to post here. Today I read this:

In the transformed classroom there is often a much greater need to explain philosophy, strategy, and intent than in the "norm" setting...In my professorial role I had to surrender my need for immediate affirmation of successful teaching (even though some reward is immediate) and accept that students may not appreciate the value of a certain standpoint or process straightaway (42)

We recently discussed this first issue on my blog as I expressed some fear about the ways I have revised my business writing class for the summer. But the second issue here is what I'd really like to address; after having one awful semester teaching, I'm even more concerned about what my students think of my teaching. It is comforting to think that even bell hooks struggles with this issue. I know I work hard on my teaching. I know that I care what my students learn, that the material they engage and the ways they engage it can allow them to leave my class with a better understanding of how the world works, and that requires, as hooks states later

...the opportunity to know that difficult experiences may be common and practice at integrating theory and practice: ways of knowing with habits of being (43)

Well, the current business writing cirriculum uses very little of the theory and the practice is so abstract that in my mind there must be better ways for students to learn these things. But there are many more pieces to this puzzle that I'll just need to learn over time.