Why I think Bill Ayers wrote the book To Teach

The first word that comes to mind that aptly describes how the preface and first chapter of the book To Teach by William Ayers (yes, that Bill Ayers) made me feel is uncomfortable. The second word that comes to mind is inspiring. The same passion that made Bill Ayers make some harmful choices in his youth makes him an eloquent writer and a one-of-a-kind teacher.

First allow me to comment on the preface. On the second page of this book, an alarming statistic graced the page: "In the last twenty years...California built 21 prisons and one university, Illinois spent close to $400 million on prison construction and nothing on school construction." Mr. Ayers point was that as a society, America is retreating from sustained support for education. I have heard many comments in the media about failing school infrastructure, but I have never before seen any statistic quite as alarming. I had read this part of the preface before my class in the Contexts of Learning and Schooling, but Jan (the professor) said something that reiterated this point. She commented that government has a choice: they can either build schools or build prisons. Support effective teachers or hire more prison guards. Honestly, I have never heard a statement so blunt about the egregious lack of financial support for public schooling in the U.S.

Another statement I found intriguing in the preface follows "A strong democracy requires a thoughtful, engaged, and active citizenry, and an education that encourages critical thought, reception and resistance, participation and empowerment, will push toward a more vital and inclusive democracy." Despite all the doom and gloom about the American public school system, this still sets our schooling apart from every other system in the world: we educate our children in a way that encourages critical thought, participation and empowerment. There are thousands of people across the world who would love to be educated in the U.S. system. There is none other like it in the world. I personally have no experience in another education system, but when I travel to other countries and talk to other hostelers and when I converse with exchange students here in the U.S., at the high school or collegiate level, they all say the same thing. There is no other education system in the world that encourages so much questioning and critical thinking from such an early age as does the American system.

There is a lot of talk about how much better schools in India or China are, how much more aware of global current events and history students are in those countries than in the U.S. That is a very valid point, and I must agree that the American education system encourages an unacceptable level of self-absorption and egocentricism, but there is still something special about the institution. We are in danger of losing that edge, certainly, but I do not think it is for the exact reasons experts say. I do not think that if American children were in school 5 more hours a day like they are in China that our education system would improve or that our students would compete more effectively in our flat world.

Another statement that made me pause was something along the lines of much of our pedagogy has one goal at the forefront, which is to manage the mob. That was no shocking revelation, but the partnered comment characterizing this kind of teaching as "opposite of a calling to the moral dimension" floored me. I had no idea what Mr. Ayers meant, until I read chapter 1, which I will comment about in the next post.

Another perplexing statement that I still don't grasp the meaning of is this: "If we take as our goal the education of all children--or even a gesture in that direction--our system is a failure." I still have not figured out if Mr. Ayers meant that educating all children is a bad goal or if he meant that our system does not succeed at educating all children. Maybe someone will help clear this up in class on Tuesday.

One more unique perspective from Mr. Ayers I am still digesting: "School change is an instance of social change." Hmmm...interesting.