We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom

Front Cover
Beacon Press, Feb 19, 2019 - Education - 200 pages
6 Reviews
Reviews aren't verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it's identified
Winner of the 2020 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award

Drawing on personal stories, research, and historical events, an esteemed educator offers a vision of educational justice inspired by the rebellious spirit and methods of abolitionists.

Drawing on her life’s work of teaching and researching in urban schools, Bettina Love persuasively argues that educators must teach students about racial violence, oppression, and how to make sustainable change in their communities through radical civic initiatives and movements. She argues that the US educational system is maintained by and profits from the suffering of children of color. Instead of trying to repair a flawed system, educational reformers offer survival tactics in the forms of test-taking skills, acronyms, grit labs, and character education, which Love calls the educational survival complex.

To dismantle the educational survival complex and to achieve educational freedom—not merely reform—teachers, parents, and community leaders must approach education with the imagination, determination, boldness, and urgency of an abolitionist. Following in the tradition of activists like Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, and Fannie Lou Hamer, We Want to Do More Than Survive introduces an alternative to traditional modes of educational reform and expands our ideas of civic engagement and intersectional justice.
 

What people are saying - Write a review

User ratings

5 stars
2
4 stars
4
3 stars
0
2 stars
0
1 star
0

Reviews aren't verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it's identified

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - Jim53 - LibraryThing

Love begins by asserting that people of color want to matter. She decries the current educational system, which focuses on helping white kids learn and prosper, but on helping kids of color survive ... Read full review

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - semperfi121 - LibraryThing

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina L. Love is a provocative read challenging educators and those in charge of educational systems ... Read full review

Contents

CHAPTER ONE We Who Are Dark I
16
CHAPTER THREE Mattering
42
CHAPTER FOUR Grit Zest and Racism The Hunger Games
69
CHAPTER FIVE Abolitionist Teaching Freedom Dreaming
88
Finding Your
124
CHAPTER SEVEN We Gon Be Alright but That Aint Alright
149
Acknowledgments
163
Index
180
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2019)

Bettina L. Love is an award-winning author and an associate professor of educational theory and practice at the University of Georgia. Her research focuses on how teachers and schools working with parents and communities can build communal, civically engaged, antiracist, antihomophobic, and antisexist educational, equitable classrooms. A sought-after public speaker on a range of topics, including hip-hop education, Black girlhood, queer youth, hip-hop feminism, art-based education to foster youth civic engagement, and issues of diversity, Love has also provided commentary for news outlets including NPR, the Guardian, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Bibliographic information