Reviews

Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal by Bettina L. Love

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goody_reads's review against another edition

medium-paced

4.0

I really like her works. She is detailed, organized, provides all the data, and gives solutions based on facts.

Her style of writing shows where her biases are but gives information through thorough research.

I am always one who wants to change the system and I think Love shows us how we can start to do that on a larger scale.

cesttemps's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

clhorstmann's review

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

“White folx who do the work of racial justice need to get their people because Black folx are tired. And it’s not our job to save White people from Whiteness; we are trying to save ourselves from Whiteness, too.”

In this book, Love provides a truly comprehensive look at the past, present and future of our schools. She does a fantastic job of providing historical context to the racial disparities in schools and connecting this context to how it manifests today. The cause and effect relationships that were discussed were really interesting and I honestly did not want to put the book down. From there, Love explores the current state of education for Black students and the disparities they still face. The book wraps up with a look at the potential future of our schools and a well-crafted argument of the need for educational reparations to make up for disparities. This is a book that could have been a bit of a downer to read, but Love wove Black joy throughout, providing a sense of hopefulness for the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me an advanced reader’s copy of this book!

dashtaisen's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

4.0

I liked this even more than “We Want to Do More Than Survive”. It was a really powerful overview of how neoliberal policies harmed Black learners and their communities. The last couple of chapters about “educational reparations” and alternatives to DEI were shorter than the rest of the book, and not quite as detailed or thorough

evamadera1's review against another edition

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4.5

Once again, Love crafts a masterpiece. While I have already learned much of the information she discusses in this book, Love structures the narrative in such a way to elucidate new insights which make a deep and lasting impact. So many people need to read this and act upon what they learn from it.