"Abolitionist Teaching and the Futures of Our Schools"

 Monday, June 14, 2021

on: "Abolitionist Teaching and the Futures of Our Schools"

"A conversation with Bettina Love, Gholdy Muhammad, Dena Simmons and Brian Jones about abolitionist teaching and antiracist education."

ARGUMENT:

This panel discussion hosted by Brian Jones, Benitta Love, Gholdy Muhammad and Dena Simmons unpack, reveal and discuss the power of Abolitionist Teaching. Together they argue that abolitionist teaching must be the direction of schools in the future. Further, in the words of Benitta Love the panel discussion argues that “Abolitionist movement is a push for everybody’s humanity” (Love).

QUOTES:

• On talking about the “beating the odds award” in Georgia. Love says “you have all these things that you know are barriers and instead of removing these barriers, you’d rather measure me against the barriers” (Love).

The "Beat the Odds" award referenced by Benitta Love encapsulates the very need for abolitionist teaching. Currently, instead of eradicating corruption within our schools, we instead measure students, teachers and schools against these inequities in order to determine their ability to "Beat the Odds." Abolitionist teaching removes the inequities and barriers in order to ensure success of students. This shift in action is crucial for the future of Schools in America. 

• “We’re not trying to abolish those buildings. We are trying to abolish the conditions that create those buildings. We’re trying to eradicate those conditions that make it possible to treat children like this in schools” (Love).

This quote clarifies what Abolitionist movements attack. It is not the buildings (although many school facilities need equitable improvements to infrastructure) it is an attack on mindset, an attack n framing and an attack on the practices that allow students to be squandered. It is a call to action to reframe what schools are, what schools show be, how schools should teach and what schools should teach.

• “How can you be more human? Because this thing of abolitionists work and equity and culturally and historically responsive education is humanizing. It’s like seeing humanity as one body. And when an arm or a limb is hurt, is oppressed, is marginalized, and you don’t feel anything, you don’t deserve to be called human. That’s where we’re at in education” (Muhammed).

This quote lies at the center of Abolitionist teaching as understood by Muhammad. Abolitionist teaching is the platform for humanizing education. Starting at this principal, Muhammad, Love and Simmons build out what Abolitionist practices are, what Abolitionist teaching is and what Abolitionist learning looks like.

• “[abolitionists] came together to strategize, as they were experiencing joy in literature and learning, they were plotting, they were strategizing, they were improving the social conditions not just for black folks but for all of humanity. They had four learning goals, these were like their four learning goals for every time they came together to read, write, think, speak, debate, they were cultivating four different areas: identity. They were asking themselves, how can my reading, understanding, learning help me to identify who I am? Who I’m not, who I wanted to be? They wanted to understand their collective black identities, their original identities of Africa, and then they also wanted to learn about people who were different from them. The second goal is skills, they wanted to cultivate math skills, language skills, arts and history and science. The third was intellectualism. They wanted to become smarter about something… And the fourth goal is criticality. They wanted to advance their understanding of power, equity, racism and other anti-oppressions. They didn’t want to be passive consumers of knowledge, or passive producers of knowledge. They wanted to question and name oppression and wrong. These four things are so important for our students because what child does not need identity, skills, intellect and criticality? … when you teach these four goals together everyday, you’re teaching genius. You’re teaching the whole child. You’re teaching in the lens of Black excellence. That’s why I said Black excellence is the way forward” (Muhammad).

This final quote captures the work of Abolitionist thinkers as portrayed by the panel discussion. This quote outlines a premiss for a black and brown model in education. This quote also captures a repeated theme throughout the discussion that is education must teach all four of these collective learning pursuits, not just one!

 

CONNECTIONS:

 RADICAL IMAGINATION and ABOLITIONIST TEACHING 

The way of thinking presented in "Abolitionist Teaching and the Futures of Our Schools" requires a Radical imagination. As outlines in "Why social movements need the radical imagination" the Radical Imagination is defined as, "the radical imagination is the ability to imagine the world, life, and social institutions not as they are but as they might otherwise be." Khasnabish builds onto the definition of Radical Imagination stating, "the radical imagination is about drawing on the past, telling different stories about how the world came to be the way it is, remembering the power and importance of yesterday’s struggles, and honoring the way they live on in the present" (Khasnabish). 

While the work of the speakers on the "Abolitionist teaching and the Future of Schools" panel do draw on the past, specifically the school of abolitionist thought, they call into action more than just imagination, they recognize the need to eradicate the systems of schooling rather than to reimagine them.

This connects to the final quote that Sir Ken Robinson leaves the audience with in his Ted Talk, "There's a wonderful quote from Benjamin Franklin. 'There are three sorts of people in the world: Those who are immovable, people who don't get it, or don't want to do anything about it; there are people who are moveable, people who see the need for change and are prepared to listen to it; and there are people who move, people who make things happen.' And if we can encourage more people, that will be a revolution. And that's what we need" (Robinson).

The movement, the need for change and the encouragement towards a revolution around schooling in America is a common theme shared between Sir Ken Robinson's Ted Talk and A conversation with Bettina Love, Gholdy Muhammad, Dena Simmons and Brian Jones about abolitionist teaching and antiracist education.

THE DEATH OF HEART

"There are days, and this is one of them, when you wonder what your role is in this country and what your failure is in it. How precisely you're going to reconcile yourself to your situation here, and how you are going to communicate to the vast headless, unthinking, cruel white majority that you are here? I'm terrified at the moral apathy, the death of heart, that is happening in this country" (Baldwin). This Baldwin quote calls into the spotlight the self reflection required to make change. In A conversation with Bettina Love, Gholdy Muhammad, Dena Simmons and Brian Jones about abolitionist teaching and antiracist education. Muhammad, Simmons and Love use this framework to call in the need for Abolitionist teaching in United States Education. This connects to the Spirit Murdering committed by the cruelty of white supremest schools:

“They are spirit murdering our babies. Right, everyday you walk into the classroom with all of these things that Gholdy and Dena talked about and it’s on you that murders your spirit daily. Then the other thing that I will say is that is something that I heard a social justice lawyer, social movement lawyer, Derrick Marnell say this idea of managing inequality, that’s what we do in education, we want to manage the inequality. So we have positions, we have directors, we have all these things that manage the inequality, we all know we have the inequality, but we are not in the business of eradicating the inequality, we’re not in the business of removing the inequality, we’re in the business of just managing the inequality” (Love).

The "death of heart" discussed by Baldwin and the "spirit murdering" outlined by Love, Muhammad and Simmons are deeply reflective of the harmful impacts that white supremacy has on young black and brown children in our country. The proposed solution to beginning healing argued in this video is a
eradication of schools and an implementation of Abolitionist teaching that embraces black excellence and humanizes education for all.

Until next week,

Emily