ExpandED Conversations

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

What does this mean and how to we apply this to our work in education? Join in to this conversation to learn more and do better for kids!

Dr. Bettina L. Love is an award-winning author and Associate Professor of Educational Theory & Practice at the University of Georgia. Dr. Love is one of the field’s most esteemed educational researchers in the area of Hip Hop education. Her research focuses on the ways in which urban youth negotiate Hip Hop music and culture to form social, cultural, and political identities to create new and sustaining ways of thinking about urban education and intersectional social justice. Her work is also concerned with how teachers and schools working with parents and communities can build communal, civically engaged schools rooted in intersectional social justice for the goal of equitable classrooms.

For her work in the field, in 2016, Dr. Love was named the Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. She is also the creator of the Hip Hop civics curriculum GET FREE. In April of 2017, Dr. Love participated in a one-on-one public lecture with bell hooks focused on the liberatory education practices of Black and Brown children. In 2018, Georgia’s House of Representatives presented Dr. Love with a resolution for her impact on the field of education.

Dr. Love is a sought-after public speaker on a range of topics, including: anti-blackness in schools, Hip Hop education, Black girlhood, queer youth, Hip Hop feminism, art-based education to foster youth civic engagement, and issues of diversity and inclusion. In 2014, she was invited to the White House Research Conference on Girls to discuss her work focused on the lives of Black girls. In addition, she is the inaugural recipient of the Michael F. Adams award (2014) from the University of Georgia. She has also provided commentary for various news outlets including NPR, The Guardian, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

She is the author of We Want To Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom and Hip Hop’s Li’l Sistas Speak: Negotiating Hip Hop Identities and Politics in the New South. Her work has appeared in numerous books and journals, including the English Journal, Urban Education, The Urban Review, and Journal of LGBT Youth. In 2017, Dr. Love edited a special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies focused on the identities, gender performances, and pedagogical practices of Black and Brown lesbian educators.

After spending 23 years in the public education system as a teacher, literacy coach, guidance dean, and assistant principal, Kelly witnessing first-hand how the system helped white students thrive while continuing to marginalize Black students. So, Kelly left the education system and started Being Black at School.

Kelly is best known as the author of the award-winning blog Mocha Momma, where she chronicles her life as a former teen parent, a birth mom, and a single mother who took her then 3-year old daughter to college with her.

Listen in to our powerful conversation that discusses her journey and work as an anti-racist organizer.

During this ExpandEd Conversations episode, we hear from Jessica Jones, a non-binary educator and activist specializing in contemporary literacies and LGBTQ+ justice. They have served as an educator in various capacities for ten years, with most of their career spent as a high school Language Arts teacher. Early in their teaching career, Jessica observed the numerous barriers that queer and transgender students face within our education system and was inspired to challenge these inequities through both student advocacy.and youth empowerment. It is Jessica’s strongly held belief that our work toward a socially just education system must include unconditional support and inclusion of our LGBTQ+ youth.

Leah Burnett is an avid food justice pioneer in St. Louis. Join the conversation to learn more about the intersections of food justice and education.

Today we welcome Dr. April Warren-Grice, Founder of Liberated Genius, a location independent creation space for equity, access and wellness.