joeyrei's review
5.0
"I call this the educational survival complex, in which students are left learning to merely survive, learning how schools mimic the world they live in, thus making schools a training site for a life of exhaustion."
vivandbooks's review
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
A must read for anyone working in education or cares about education which really should be everyone.
sophia608's review against another edition
1.0
I agree with most of what Love writes in this book. Aside from that, it’s terrible. Her writing is bad, there’s no clear thesis, I couldn’t find any thematic cohesion, there aren’t solutions proposed past aphorisms. It feels like she wanted to talk about racism, but didn’t have an editor bold enough to tell her that her book is disjointed and needs a theme.
First off, the book never defines abolitionist teaching or clearly explains how to do it, except telling us to dismantle the systems oppressing students of color. Many of the examples she praises of abolitionist teaching are referencing movements / people who failed to attain their goals, leaving me skeptical of the efficacy of her suggested strategies. “The system is broken and we have to be abolitionist teachers” isn’t a helpful addition to scholarship.
Love utilizes quotes like a high schooler excited to prove they did the assigned reading. There's a lot of summarizing key ideas of black thinkers / from black liberation movements (e.g.: intersectionality, white supremacist culture, wealth inequality, the problem with “grit," incarceration policies, CRT), but the summaries neither provide enough context for someone new to the concept, nor provide deeper insight to those of us already familiar. Sometimes she relates the ideas back to schools / students, but not consistently. For example, inexplicably, there are sections about the histories of black communities in Boston and New Orleans — neither of which have to do with schools. There is so much disjointed information about racism in America that it started to feel like she was trying to convince us that she’s read the big thinkers and knows what she’s talking about, rather that making an argument.
Channeling Love, I offer other disconnected comments on the writing:
- The entire book is lists upon lists upon lists whereby at the end of a sentence I’ve lost the point of what she’s saying.** I had to reread multiple sections multiple times to grasp the message.
- She asks many rhetorical questions.
- The section about her adoration of “theory” is contradictory at times and uninspiring.
- Her style of writing prioritizes expressing anger. A central theme of the book is assigning blame to Whiteness and White rage; she is angry with the majority of teachers who are young white women who haven’t interrogated their privilege. That anger is valid. As a literary choice, emotion can be a useful tool for conveying information, but without a centralizing message or proposed solutions, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with it.
The could-have-been-good part: There are interspersed memoiric sections about her own childhood which are among the most interesting sections. I wish she'd have leaned into this being a memoir about her own educational journey as a Black woman, because I got the feeling that's the story she wanted to write. I would've liked to know more, for example, about the community groups she was part of during her childhood in Rochester: Where did they get funding? What happened to them? She mentions spending two years as a teacher before leaving to do a PhD (ironically after railing against TFA teachers for doing the exact same thing): Why did she leave? What was her experience like? Does she feel like her experience was different than that of a TFA teacher? As a teacher educator for, as she puts it, "teachers [who] are unaware of how their lily-White communities were established in and have upheld Whiteness," how does she navigate classroom dynamics? She's so insistent on the need for challenging Whiteness, what strategies does she use? One line of the book mentions she was on the board of a charter school (again, ironically, after railing against charters): How does she feel about that tension? Does she wrestle with it? Why was she on the board? What was that like? There's so much here that would have been interesting, but she doesn't elaborate on the things she is intimately familiar with, instead spending page after page quoting other peoples' ideas.
My review is starting to read like her book: a poorly written list of problems, so I’ll wrap up. Overall, I gained nothing from reading this. The ideas are derivative and poorly synthesized. She's quoting/summarizing great thinkers, so instead of reading this, go read the authors she (heavily) cites: read James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, read Langston Hughes, read Angela Davis, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Michelle Alexander — this content is important enough that it deserves an author who can speak to it well and with authority.
**As an example of her list-centered writing style, I made this sentence up, but it’s not an exaggeration: “In order to give children the guidance, support, love, and inspiration they need to be successful, teachers, principals, teacher educators, deans, administrators, counselors, nonprofit leaders, tutors, and support staff must at every turn fight against homophobia, racism, transphobia, misogyny, Islamophobia, xenophobia, ableism, and all other forms of oppression through protests, teaching relevant curriculum, educating themselves, calling student families, respecting the rights of every child, eliminating standardized testing, and building communities that center and empower students.” Do you have any idea what that sentence is saying? Me either because it’s exhausting to read. That’s the entire book.
First off, the book never defines abolitionist teaching or clearly explains how to do it, except telling us to dismantle the systems oppressing students of color. Many of the examples she praises of abolitionist teaching are referencing movements / people who failed to attain their goals, leaving me skeptical of the efficacy of her suggested strategies. “The system is broken and we have to be abolitionist teachers” isn’t a helpful addition to scholarship.
Love utilizes quotes like a high schooler excited to prove they did the assigned reading. There's a lot of summarizing key ideas of black thinkers / from black liberation movements (e.g.: intersectionality, white supremacist culture, wealth inequality, the problem with “grit," incarceration policies, CRT), but the summaries neither provide enough context for someone new to the concept, nor provide deeper insight to those of us already familiar. Sometimes she relates the ideas back to schools / students, but not consistently. For example, inexplicably, there are sections about the histories of black communities in Boston and New Orleans — neither of which have to do with schools. There is so much disjointed information about racism in America that it started to feel like she was trying to convince us that she’s read the big thinkers and knows what she’s talking about, rather that making an argument.
Channeling Love, I offer other disconnected comments on the writing:
- The entire book is lists upon lists upon lists whereby at the end of a sentence I’ve lost the point of what she’s saying.** I had to reread multiple sections multiple times to grasp the message.
- She asks many rhetorical questions.
- The section about her adoration of “theory” is contradictory at times and uninspiring.
- Her style of writing prioritizes expressing anger. A central theme of the book is assigning blame to Whiteness and White rage; she is angry with the majority of teachers who are young white women who haven’t interrogated their privilege. That anger is valid. As a literary choice, emotion can be a useful tool for conveying information, but without a centralizing message or proposed solutions, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with it.
The could-have-been-good part: There are interspersed memoiric sections about her own childhood which are among the most interesting sections. I wish she'd have leaned into this being a memoir about her own educational journey as a Black woman, because I got the feeling that's the story she wanted to write. I would've liked to know more, for example, about the community groups she was part of during her childhood in Rochester: Where did they get funding? What happened to them? She mentions spending two years as a teacher before leaving to do a PhD (ironically after railing against TFA teachers for doing the exact same thing): Why did she leave? What was her experience like? Does she feel like her experience was different than that of a TFA teacher? As a teacher educator for, as she puts it, "teachers [who] are unaware of how their lily-White communities were established in and have upheld Whiteness," how does she navigate classroom dynamics? She's so insistent on the need for challenging Whiteness, what strategies does she use? One line of the book mentions she was on the board of a charter school (again, ironically, after railing against charters): How does she feel about that tension? Does she wrestle with it? Why was she on the board? What was that like? There's so much here that would have been interesting, but she doesn't elaborate on the things she is intimately familiar with, instead spending page after page quoting other peoples' ideas.
My review is starting to read like her book: a poorly written list of problems, so I’ll wrap up. Overall, I gained nothing from reading this. The ideas are derivative and poorly synthesized. She's quoting/summarizing great thinkers, so instead of reading this, go read the authors she (heavily) cites: read James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, read Langston Hughes, read Angela Davis, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Michelle Alexander — this content is important enough that it deserves an author who can speak to it well and with authority.
**As an example of her list-centered writing style, I made this sentence up, but it’s not an exaggeration: “In order to give children the guidance, support, love, and inspiration they need to be successful, teachers, principals, teacher educators, deans, administrators, counselors, nonprofit leaders, tutors, and support staff must at every turn fight against homophobia, racism, transphobia, misogyny, Islamophobia, xenophobia, ableism, and all other forms of oppression through protests, teaching relevant curriculum, educating themselves, calling student families, respecting the rights of every child, eliminating standardized testing, and building communities that center and empower students.” Do you have any idea what that sentence is saying? Me either because it’s exhausting to read. That’s the entire book.
afropacific's review against another edition
5.0
Revolutionary
Omg I loved everything about this book! Being an antiracist educator, it is the first book in a long time to make me unlearn and relearn new language and actions to take back into my work as a teacher :)
Omg I loved everything about this book! Being an antiracist educator, it is the first book in a long time to make me unlearn and relearn new language and actions to take back into my work as a teacher :)
angierpowers's review
5.0
I have read a lot of books about education but...
This. Is. By. Far. The. Best. Education. Book. I. Have. Ever. Read.
If you are an educator, a parent, a voter, a human, this is for you.
This. Is. By. Far. The. Best. Education. Book. I. Have. Ever. Read.
If you are an educator, a parent, a voter, a human, this is for you.