Abolitionist teaching

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Abolitionist teaching, also known as abolitionist pedagogy, is a set of practices and approaches to teaching that emphasize abolishing educational practices considered by its proponents to be inherently problematic and oppressive. [1] The term was coined by education professor and critical theorist Bettina Love. [2]

Contents

Proponents of the approach have criticized test-taking [2] and prohibitions on cheating, [3] as well as deemphasize traditional literacy and math improvement programs. [1] Private organizations working under the banner of abolitionist teaching have stirred controversy bringing progressive politics and activism into classrooms, which includes promoting anti-police, anti-capitalism and anti-Zionist viewpoints. [1]

Concept

Abolitionist teaching has its roots in critical pedagogy, intersectional feminism and abolitionist action. It is defined as the commitment to pursue educational freedom and fight for an education system where students thrive, rather than just survive. [2] Love further notes that it is a necessary complement to critical pedagogy, as pedagogy is most effective when paired with teachers who fight for student equality and justice. This teaching method is intended to combat systemic oppression, racial violence, the school-to-prison pipeline, reliance on test taking and all other parts of a system Bettina Love calls the "educational survival complex." [2] [4] Other parts of the system that the practice is intended to combat is cheating, as Drs. Lore/tta LeMaster and Meggie Mapes note that "Rather than punitive measures, abolitionist pedagogy requires rethinking how narratives of cheating perform and to what and whose ends such narratives serve." [3]

Some scholars, such as Denise Blum, have argued for a neo-abolitionist pedagogy in educational institutions, a "'third space' to process emotional responses and discuss social positionalities to prevent unproductive feelings of guilt or pity that function to further otherize immigrants." [5]

Theoretical, historical and activist context

Abolitionist teaching is inspired by Black feminist theory, abolitionist theory and direct action. The term can be traced to Bettina L. Love's 2019 work We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom. [2] Love, an Associate Professor of Education at University of Georgia, defines abolitionist teaching as teaching with the goal of intersectional social justice for equitable classrooms that love and affirm Black and brown children. She co-founded the Abolitionist Teaching Network (ATN) in 2020, which empowers teachers and parents to fight injustice within their schools. [6]

Abolitionist teaching resides at the intersection between education, race, abolition and Black joy. It is heavily influenced by intersectionality, which is a framework that focuses on how the intersection of a person's multiple identities influences the privilege or discrimination they experience. Some of these traits include gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion and disability. Intersectionality is a theory coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 in her paper "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Anti-discrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics." [7] Crenshaw has revisited this theme in multiple subsequent papers and discussions. [8] [9]

Abolitionist teachings grows out of the prison abolition movement, which comes from the abolitionist movement. The abolitionist movement was the worldwide effort to end the trans-Atlantic slave trade and free enslaved peoples from bondage. There was no leader of this movement, as there were many groups in many different countries that worked to end slavery over a period of over one hundred years. In the United States, the abolition movement culminated in the Civil War. Though the trans-Atlantic slave trade is no more, there are many global movements aimed at abolishing unjust systems that are part of the tradition of abolition.

The prison abolition movement sees the prison system as a new form of slavery that must be abolished in order for oppressed communities to be freed. Political activist and scholar Angela Davis' is a major figure in the prison abolition movement, which influences abolitionist teaching. She co-founded Critical Resistance, an organization focused on abolishing the prison system. [10] In 2001 article "Race, Gender, and the Prison Industrial Complex: California and Beyond," Davis and co-author Shaylor launch a strong critique of the US prison-industrial complex that includes data on the human rights abuses of women, people of color and the poor in prisons. [11] This framework applies directly to other oppressive systems, like education, that govern members of society. This draws on the Foucauldian notion that discipline evolves over time, both in the penal system and in schools. [12]

The feminist and scholar bell hooks' work also influences abolitionist teaching. bell hooks' seminal 1994 book, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, encourages educators to teach students to "transgress" racial and class boundaries in order to pursue freedom. [13] She also published Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope in 2004. [14] In this book, as in Teaching to Transgress, hooks advises teachers to make the classroom life-sustaining, joyful and expansive. She encourages students and teachers to work in partnership, in order to mutually liberate one another.

bell hooks is deeply influenced by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, whose novel Pedagogy of the Oppressed excoriated the "banking model of education" and proposed a critical pedagogy to engage students as co-creators of knowledge. He argues that through education students can awaken critical consciousness, or conscientização , that will empower them to make change in their communities. [15]

Freire and his legacy are the cornerstone of the field of Critical Pedagogy,[ citation needed ] of which abolitionist teaching is a part.

See also

Further reading

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pedagogy</span> Theory and practice of education

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paulo Freire</span> Brazilian educator (1921–1997)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prison abolition movement in the United States</span> Movement to end incarceration

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersectionality</span> Theory of discrimination

Intersectionality is a sociological analytical framework for understanding how groups' and individuals' social and political identities result in unique combinations of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these factors include gender, caste, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, height, age, and weight. These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and oppressing. However, little good-quality quantitative research has been done to support or undermine the practical uses of intersectionality.

Critical race theory (CRT) is an academic field focused on the relationships between social conceptions of race and ethnicity, social and political laws, and media. CRT also considers racism to be systemic in various laws and rules, not based only on individuals' prejudices. The word critical in the name is an academic reference to critical theory rather than criticizing or blaming individuals.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kimberlé Crenshaw</span> American academic and lawyer (born 1959)

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Critical mathematics pedagogy is an approach to mathematics education that includes a practical and philosophical commitment to liberation. Approaches that involve critical mathematics pedagogy give special attention to the social, political, cultural and economic contexts of oppression, as they can be understood through mathematics. They also analyze the role that mathematics plays in producing and maintaining potentially oppressive social, political, cultural or economic structures. Finally, critical mathematics pedagogy demands that critique is connected to action promoting more just and equitable social, political or economic reform.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrea Ritchie</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feminist rhetoric</span> Practice of rhetoric

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Bettina L. Love is an American author and academic. She is the William F. Russell Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she has been instrumental in establishing abolitionist teaching in schools. According to Love, abolitionist teaching refers to restoring humanity for children in schools. Love also advocates eliminating standardized testing.

K. Wayne Yang is a professor and scholar of community organizing, critical pedagogy, and Indigenous and decolonizing studies. He is a professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, San Diego and Provost of John Muir College. He writes about decolonization and everyday epic organizing, often with his frequent collaborator, Eve Tuck. Currently, they are convening The Land Relationships Super Collective, editing the book series, Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education, and editing the journal, Critical Ethnic Studies. He is interested in the complex role of cities in global affairs: cities as sites of settler colonialism, as stages for empire, as places of resettlement and gentrification, and as always-already on Indigenous lands.

Susan Elaine Sandretto is an American–New Zealand academic, and is a full professor at the University of Otago, specialising in working with teachers to develop critical literacy in primary and secondary school pupils. Sandretto also works on unintended consequences of educational policy, such as changes to active transport.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "This Bay Area school district spent $250,000 on Woke Kindergarten program. Test scores fell even further". San Francisco Chronicle. 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Love, Bettina (2019). We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom. Beacon Press. ISBN   978-0-8070-6915-8.
  3. 1 2 LeMaster, Benny; Mapes, Meggie (2020-10-01). "Refusing a compulsory want for revenge, or, teaching against retributive justice with liberatory pedagogy". Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. 17 (4): 401–409. doi:10.1080/14791420.2020.1829662. ISSN   1479-1420. S2CID   227275870.
  4. ↑ LeMaster, Benny; Terminel Iberri, Ana Isabel (2021-07-03). "Critical performative pedagogical encounters, or "Let's try that again. But first, let's breathe"". Communication Education. 70 (3): 329–332. doi:10.1080/03634523.2021.1912791. ISSN   0363-4523. S2CID   234800016.
  5. ↑ Blum, Denise; Davis, Erin E.; Gibson, Kari; Phillips, Rexi Lee; Jeyaraj, Annette Sharon Stanly; Winters, Bailey (2021-09-14). ""I've never cried with a stranger before": a pedagogy of discomfort, emotion and hope for immigrant justice". International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. 34 (8): 763–781. doi:10.1080/09518398.2021.1962564. ISSN   0951-8398. S2CID   237518014.
  6. ↑ Network, Abolitionist Teaching. "Abolitionist Teaching Network". Abolitionist Teaching Network. Retrieved 2021-03-05.
  7. ↑ Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (2017-08-14). Demarginalizing The Intersection Of Race And Sex A Black Feminis.
  8. ↑ "Kimberlé Crenshaw on Intersectionality, More than Two Decades Later". www.law.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-05.
  9. ↑ "Kimberlé Crenshaw on intersectionality: "I wanted to come up with an everyday metaphor that anyone could use"". www.newstatesman.com. 2 April 2014. Retrieved 2021-03-05.
  10. ↑ "Freedom Struggle: Angela Davis on Calls to Defund Police, Racism & Capitalism, and the 2020 Election". Democracy Now!. Retrieved 2021-03-05.
  11. ↑ Davis, Angela Y.; Shaylor, Cassandra (2001). "Race, Gender, and the Prison Industrial Complex: California and Beyond". Meridians. 2 (1): 1–25. doi:10.1215/15366936-2.1.1. ISSN   1536-6936. JSTOR   40338793. S2CID   145609695.
  12. ↑ Foucault, Michel (1995). Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison (Second Vintage books ed.). New York: Vintage Books. ISBN   0-679-75255-2. OCLC   32367111.
  13. ↑ "Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved 2021-03-05.
  14. ↑ hooks, bell (2003). Teaching community: a pedagogy of hope. ISBN   978-1-135-45792-1. OCLC   846494699.
  15. ↑ Freire, Paulo (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books. ISBN   0-14-080331-9. OCLC   4736792.
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