The Museum of Education Gallery Talk

“Learning Through Life” by Bill Ayers
Monday, January 28, 2008  2:00-3:00 p.m.

In his pedagogical memoir, To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher, Bill Ayers writes: “The fundamental message of the teacher is this: You must change your life. Whoever you are, wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, the teacher invites you to a second chance, another round, perhaps a different conclusion. The teacher posits possibility, openness and alternative; the teacher points to what could be, but is not yet. The teacher beckons you to change your path” (p. 141). Bill Ayers reflects this sentiment not only as teacher but also as life-long learner, as an individual who has taken and is taking many paths and has had many careers: as longshoreman, co-director of a day care center, community activist, early childhood/preschool teacher, deputy commissioner of education for the city of Chicago, baker, founder and director of three alternative schools, and, now, Professor of Education at the University of Illinois- Chicago. 

His books include A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court (1997), The Good Preschool Teacher: Six Teachers Reflect on Their Lives (1989), and To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher (1993) which was named Book of the Year in 1993 by Kappa Delta Pi and received the USC Museum of Education’s Witten Award for Distinguished Work in Biography and Autobiography in 1995. Recent books include Fugitive Days: A Memoir (2001), On the Side of the Child: Summerhill Revisited (2003), Teaching the Personal and the Political: Essays on Hope and Justice (2004), and Teaching Toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action in the Classroom (2004).

The Museum's Gallery Talk with Bill Ayers, “Learning through Life.” see a video clip: “The Call To Teach”

With a masters in early childhood education from Bank Street College of Education and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from Teachers College, Columbia University, Bill has become a prolific author, perhaps also due to a recently acquired masters in creative writing from Middlebury College. A complete bibliographic listing is impossible for this brief introduction; however, I will mention his most recent book,  Teaching toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action in the Classroom,  as well as other writings including A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court (an ethnographic study stemming from spending one year at the   Cook County Juvenile Detention Center), The Good Preschool Teacher (a marvelous and unfortunately somewhat overlooked pedagogical portrayal of six preschool teachers representing the finest aspects of portraiture and autobiographical narrative), Fugitive Days (a memoir describing a particular time of great political activism), On the Side of the Child: Summerhill Revisited (a thoughtful reflection from the re-reading of A. S. Neill’s classic), and A Simple Justice: The Challenge of Small Schools.

Craig Kridel, curator