Abolitionist Education - Part 1

Resources: The webinars below, but also the Abolitionist Teaching Network

Although Abolitionist Teaching is not new as a concept, it is something I am learning about for the first time, and I’m kind of shocked that it’s something that I learned about only at the end of my graduate program in education from several classmates/peers of mine (maybe I wasn’t taking the right classes? But also there’s so much value in maintaining networks of anti-racist educators - we can all elevate each other). For me the word abolitionist evoked images of Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Fredrick Douglass, and other folks who took action towards abolishing slavery. In fact, abolitionist teaching draws from the work of these abolitionists who envisioned what a world where everyone had a right to humanity and systematically took the steps to make that happen. Abolitionist teaching is bold, joyful, and necessary.

Being new to this topic, I started by listening to 2 webinars that were originally live-streamed this June. The first was called “Abolitionist Teaching and the Future of Our Schools” featuring Dr. Bettina Love - Educational Researcher and Athletic Association Endowed Professor at the University of Georgia, Dr. Gholdy Muhammad - Associate Professor at Georgia State University, teaching literacy and language in the Department of Middle and Secondary Education, and Dena Simmons, Ed.D - Assistant Director of Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.

The second webinar was called “Repurposing Our Pedagogies” featuring Stephanie Cariaga - Assistant Professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills’ College of Education, Dr. Bettina Love, Sagnicthe Salazar - Director of Restorative Discipline at Elmhurst United, Carla Shalaby - Coordinator of Social Justice Initiatives and Community Internships at the University of Michigan, and Marylin Zuniga - Elementary Teacher and Co-Founder of Sisterhood Now Leadership Project.

Here’s what I learned:

• Abolitionist Education is about abolishing systems that support white supremacy and oppress BIPOC. It is not about reforming or re-imaging a system that is founded in white supremacy (like putting paint on a dilapidated building), but about removing that system and starting again. School reforms are generally meant to appease white folks, and Dena Simmons said, “We can use anything in education to create harm...good intentions don’t equal good outcomes.” To put in another light, when distinguishing between re-imagining/reforming and abolishing, someone brought up the question “would you say that you want to re-imagine slavery?” (My answer is no! Hopefully yours is too)

• Being an abolitionist means you are in a position where you are dismantling oppressive systems and creating alternatives. You are changing the conditions that allow for an oppressive system.

• Abolishing these oppressive systems requires white folks to give up privileges.

• As an oppressor (or accomplice to oppressing), you don’t get to tell the oppressed that they’re not oppressed (I knew this, but it’s good to reiterate).

• Abolitionist teaching is based on the actions/learning of Abolitionists from the 19th century abolitionist movement who were “thoughtful, methodical, brilliant” and who pushed for change, even if they did not see the finish line in their lifetime.

• Four learning goals of Black Abolitionists were cultivating 1) identity 2) skills 3) intellectualism (being exposed to new ideas and perspectives) and 4) criticality (advancing understanding of power, racism, and other oppression - they did not want to be passive consumers of knowledge). In our current education system, we prioritize primarily skills (think about learning math concepts, memorizing history, learning how to read). While learning skills is an important part of our education, when we focus on it, we are unbalanced in our learning.

• Abolitionist teaching is systematic and intentional, and it starts with small acts of resistance in the classroom. Gholdy Muhammad explained that one way you can start to do this is by asking yourself these questions and adjusting your teaching around them: “How can my unit plan help my students to learn something about themselves or others? How does this unit plan make my students smarter not related to skills? How does the unit plan advance my students thinking about equity, power, and anti oppression?”

• The 4 I’s of oppression - Ideological, internalized, interpersonal, institutional

• Abolishing systems of oppression is only half of the equation. The other half is creating systems of anti-oppression and establishing the world we do want to live in. It also involves practicing the skills we need to for the future we envision, even if we do not live to see the end result. As Sagnichthe said, “We know it's possible, let’s dream of how it’s possible.”

• More than anything, Abolitionist Teaching is about elevating everyone’s humanity. When we elevate the humanity of those who are most oppressed, everyone benefits. It’s a radical form of love and inclusion in which we never see anyone as a “throw-away” person. As Dr Love states, “It's not a radical thing to want to be seen as fully human.”

I suppose these concepts are labeled as radical because they’re against the systems already in place, but I don’t think wanting to make sure everyone is seen and treated as fully human should be seen as radical. I didn’t know it until I heard it, but an abolitionist educator is exactly who I want to be in my career. As Dr. Muhammad said (and echoed by everyone on the panels), “Abolitionist teaching is a way of life. It’s not what you do in the classroom - it’s who you are. You’re very being has to be changed.” I want to work towards making sure I am supporting all of my students by challenging and taking apart systems that benefit me while working against so many of them. There are so many things that we do in everyday life that we don’t even question, and I want to look at the world as critically as these brilliant educators. I was also captured by the idea that abolitionist work is slow, methodical, and intentional (exactly how I function as a person), and that no matter how big or small your own impact, it is still paving a path for humanity, even if you aren’t able to see it through yourself. As someone who can be overwhelmed by feeling like I can’t make a difference, this idea is incredibly comforting. As someone pointed out in one of the webinars, abolishing slavery was seen as a radical idea at the time, and many of the folks who worked towards that never saw it through. But it happened, and they set the movement up for success. At the end of my life (an during it, really), I want to know that I did whatever I could to make elevate everyone's humanity.

I also looked into Abolitionist Teaching in Environmental Education, and I have not found anything besides a few articles about abolitionists and climate change (which are valuable). I am just diving into this way of thinking/teaching/being, and as I learn more, I am also thinking about how to apply it to Environmental Education. There was so much knowledge, wisdom, and experience on both panels, and everything everyone said was impactful, although there were some statements/ideas that made me reflect on my own practice/experience in education. In particular, this statement by Dena Simmons made me think about what I want to bring to my next job as I look for roles that have some influence on curriculum - “If the educator has not done the work, if the school is steeped in white supremacy, then guess what that curriculum is - a white supremacist curriculum.” I am now thinking more about critically examining curriculum as well as instructional practices and how they do or do not uphold oppressive systems. I can’t say that I have exercised this way of thinking much, but it is something I want to practice as I move forward.

Equity work is hard and exhausting, and listening to these educators fired me up (I challenge you to listen to them speak and not be!). The joy and love they hold is incredible. My next steps in abolitionist education are to learn more about it, especially in how to take action in the classroom (I feel like I have an understanding of it broadly, but not specific steps I can take) and to reflect on how to apply those in environmental education (I’m thinking about practicing with a written reflection on programs I am currently working on for IslandWood).