Center for the Scholarship of Teaching < Events < 2001

Center Events: Speaker Series

William Ayers (University of Illinois at Chicago)
May 8-9, 2001

Bill Ayers has spent a career linking education and schools to issues of social and racial justice. His writings range from good preschool practice to classroom reform and the challenges of teaching poor city kids, to juvenile justice, and to the global struggles for democracy. Over the years he has been deeply involved in efforts to reform the Chicago public schools. He is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is author of the Good Preschool Teacher and To Teach: the journey of a teacher.

"Education is bold, adventurous, creative, vivid, illuminating - in other words education is for self-activating explorers of life, for those who would challenge fate, for doers and activists, for citizens. Training is for slaves, for loyal subjects, for tractable employees, for willing comsumers, for obedient soldiers. Education tears down walls; training is all barbed wire." - from Chapter 7 of To Teach