TOWARDS LIBERATION!

In A Letter to Teachers: On Teaching Love and Learning Freedom, Vito Perrone offers countless powerful moments of reflection, but one quote resonated with me deeply:“Responding differently to our troublemakers is paramount to meeting our responsibilities as educators, and as human beings. What we call ‘classroom management’ is an assault on freedom. Points, rewards, threats, treats, traffic light systems, demerits and detentions are used by the person in power to police the boundaries of acceptable behavior. A young person’s place in the community becomes conditional" This statement captures a critical truth about traditional classroom systems: they often prioritize compliance over individuality. In many classrooms, students with bold personalities or those who express themselves freely are sent home with "talkative in class" written on their report cards. They are shamed for traits that should be celebrated, curiosity, confidence, and the courage to speak up. As educators, our responsibility should not be to mold students into quiet, unquestioning participants but to recognize and nurture the strengths of every individual. Penalizing those who don’t fit the narrow standard of what a “good student” is stifles creativity, diminishes self-worth, and discourages authentic engagement. When classrooms operate like dictatorships where students are only praised for compliance we teach them that their value is tied solely to their ability to follow orders. There’s little room for curiosity, no applause for asking questions, and no reward for challenging ideas. It becomes a culture of “one way or no way.” But imagine what’s possible when we flip this narrative. When we approach teaching and youth work from a place of love and care, we create spaces where students are celebrated for what they bring to the table. We allow them to think independently and express their individuality without fear. In these environments, students don’t feel compelled to fit a rigid mold—they are free to be themselves.

When scrolling through this image made me stop and smile. So often in life we forget how loved we are. We forget about the friends and family we have. This image to me is so fitting being in a galaxy theme, the galaxy is huge and there truly is so much love in it, and I am a firm believer that we always have more love to give.

The other part of Cosmic Possibilities: An Intergalactic Youth Guide to Abolition that grab my attention was this quote.  We as youth workers have the power to change how education is done and how we build and up lift youth. No one can take that away from us. When good things are done and love wins anything is possible.