Chapter 3: Gettin’ Critical Wit it

As long as schooling is carried out by human beings, there is the possibility for human things, meaning, and love.

—The editors of this text

Today I believe in the possibility of love; that is why I endeavor to trace its imperfections, its perversions.

—Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks

Education is a radical act of love. At least, it should be. Our challenge is that we live in a context that suffocates love at every turn. I did not experience schooling as a site of love despite my deep passion for learning. It was, for the most part, a location of existential subtraction, pain, and sometimes abuse. The dominant message was stop existing so as to exist. I continue to question the extent to which the institution is capable of loving us back. Yet, I am drawn to the “possibility” to which the editors of this text allude. It should also be clear at this point that I also mark a distinction between schooling and education. Education, which is always an act of love, signifies spaces that are fiercely courageous where people consciously choose to love through unconditional commitment, respect, trust, and honesty. It signifies a space where all those who share it are open to the possibility of transformation and growth. It is, therefore, perpetually animated by the quest for equity and justice. Many of us will go through years of schooling and never experience education. Through schooling, we are likely to encounter an assemblage of policies, policy cultures, practices, and people that provide a glimpse of hope, a glimpse of love. If one is lucky, that radical spark might catch a fire. In my case, the spark was lit outside of formal schools or spaces explicitly built for the inculcation of state sanctioned knowledge. My education largely occurred outside of schooling. If there was a love story to tell about schooling, it was forged in and through my resistance to it. It was crystalized in my decision to become the teacher that I rarely encountered.