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

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(as of Aug 20, 2025 05:47:24 UTC – Details)

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.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Beacon Press
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 4, 2020
Edition ‏ : ‎ Reprint
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 200 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0807028347
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0807028346
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.48 x 0.54 x 8.5 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #14,417 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #6 in College & University Student Life (Books) #8 in Philosophy & Social Aspects of Education #88 in Sociology Reference
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