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.