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

by Bettina L. Love

If education is going to deal with trauma, we must recognize the trauma of our teachers. Educators need trauma sensitive training and free or affordable therapy for themselves. Schools of educational psychology should create degrees that help school counselors understand the human development needed to be a teacher. Teachers need to be taught how to question Whiteness and White supremacy, how to check and deal with their White emotions of guilt and anger, and how these all impact their classrooms. Only after unpacking and interrogating Whiteness, White teachers—and, really, all teachers—must unpack how Whiteness functions in their lives; then they can stand in solidarity with their students’ communities for social change. Teachers must demand the end of high-stakes testing and the yelling of slogans at dark children, such as “knowledge is power,” “work hard,” “be nice,” and “no excuses” because all you need is grit. And, lastly, teachers need to mobilize to fight systemic inequities and the educational survival complex.