At the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), the School of Education recently adopted a mission-vision of creating equity in schools.
To practice, teach and link the values of “innovating, agitating and disrupting inequitable educational structures,” Dr. Valerie Kinloch, dean of the School of Education at Pitt, established a school-wide book club.
The book that was chosen for discussion was, We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Dr. Bettina L. Love.
“If we take what we have in our mission and vision and then we look at what Bettina Love does in her book, it’s just so directly connected to thinking about educational freedom,” said Kinloch. “And how do we do that not just in a classroom, which is important, but how do we do that across an entire school of education that impacts the lives of our students, young people, our faculty, our staff, our administrators and our alumni.”
Love, an associate professor of educational theory and practice at the University of Georgia and a two-time Pitt alumni said her education at the university was critical to her becoming an educator and scholar.
“Being able to see someone who was a student many years ago here in our school of education who has gone to think about these ideas in very transformative ways,” said Kinloch. “Even that connection, for me, was a meaningful one for us to think about as a school community.”
According to the book, educators “must teach students about racial violence, oppression, resistance, joy and how to make sustainable changes through radical civic initiatives and movements” in order to achieve educational justice.
