Rick and William Ayers renew their challenge to teachers to teach initiative, to teach imagination, to “teach the taboo” in the new edition of this bestseller. Drawing from a lifetime of deep commitment to students, teaching, and social justice, the authors update their powerful critique of schooling and present classroom stories of everyday teachers grappling with many of today’s hotly debated issues. They invite educators to live a teaching life of questioning—to imagine classrooms where every established and received bit of wisdom, common sense, orthodoxy, and dogma is open for examination, interrogation, and rethinking. Teaching the Taboo, Second Edition is an insightful guide to effective pedagogy and essential reading for anyone looking to evolve as an educator. What’s new for the second edition of Teaching the Taboo! A deeper exploration of issues of white privilege and racism and war and peace. A more thorough examination of the problems with math and science education, including possible solutions. An expanded exploration of the importance of creative writing for validating individual and community experiences. A more thorough discussion of Freire’s work and comparison to the radical teaching projects of African American activists in the south during the Freedom Schools. An in-depth look at how students can be part of co-constructing historical narratives and analyses. An update on school struggles in Atlanta, Chicago, and Seattle. Praise for the first edition of Teaching the Taboo! “For those frustrated by the thrust of educational 'reform'…this book provides what can be described as both a challenge and a set of alternatives.” —Education Review “Drawing from a lifetime of deep thinking about education and courageous commitment to precious students, Rick and William Ayers have given us a marvelous book. Their devastating critique of the pervasive market models in education and their powerful defense of democratic forms of imagination in schools are so badly needed in our present-day crisis!” —Cornel West, Princeton University “Teaching the Taboo is provocative, challenging, funny in places, wild but sensible enough to be useful, inspiring, and practical for educators who are working to negate the educational madness that is infecting the schools.” —Herb Kohl, author of 36 Children and Painting Chinese Rick Ayers is a university instructor and founder of the Communication Arts and Sciences small school at Berkeley High School, and teaches at the University of San Francisco. William Ayers is a school reform activist and a Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Rick and William Ayers renew their challenge to teachers to teach initiative, to teach imagination, to "teach the taboo" in the new edition of this bestseller. Drawing from a lifetime of deep commitment to students, teaching, and social justice, the authors update their powerful critique of schooling and present classroom stories of everyday teachers grappling with many of today's hotly debated issues. They invite educators to live a teaching life of questioning--to imagine classrooms where every established and received bit of wisdom, common sense, orthodoxy, and dogma is open for examination, interrogation, and rethinking. Teaching the Taboo, Second Edition is an insightful guide to effective pedagogy and essential reading for anyone looking to evolve as an educator.

This book is filled with classroom stories of everyday teachers grappling with many of today's hotly debated issues.--[book cover]

Can I Teach That? Negotiating Taboo Language and Controversial Topics in the Language Arts Classroom is a collection of stories, strategies, advice, and documents collected for teachers who are using or plan to use materials or implement policies they know may be controversial. It is for any teacher dedicated to engaging their students in the complex, challenging, and rewarding activities of reading and writing, for any teacher committed to speaking honestly with students. For any teacher, period. Because when we decide to work with young people, when we commit to sharing books and ideas that engage their hearts and minds, when we strive to get adolescents to think critically and write honestly, we open ourselves up to suspicion and critique from someone, somewhere, no matter how above reproach we feel our materials and strategies are. Few language arts teachers will experience a full-blown challenge to the content of their curriculum, but many may self-censor or suffer through awkward and challenging conversations with colleagues, administrators, parents, and other members of their community. This book is for those times when teachers are called on to defend and legitimize their use of controversial material in their classroom––material that they know reflects students’ reality, even as it makes adults uncomfortable and fearful about their inability to protect children from that very reality.

These essays follow a veteran teacher educator and school reform activist as he tries to understand an enterprise he calls "mysterious and immeasurable." By focusing on the authentic experiences of teaching and learning that he has lived over the past 15 years, Bill Ayers reconsiders, argues, reflects, and searches for ways to break through the routine and the ordinary to see teaching as the important and extraordinary work it is. Covering a range of issues—standards, equity, testing, professionalism—this book shows us teaching as an achingly personal calling, and ultimately as a social and a political act. With these essays, Bill Ayers invites teachers into a wonderful conversation about the meaning of teaching as craft, as art, as vocation. He reminds us that an active kind of hope is at the core of teaching,seeing things both as they are and as they could be.

The death of a student, especially to gun violence, is a life-changing experience that occurs with more and more frequency in America’s schools. For each of these tragedies, there is a classroom and there is a teacher. Yet student death is often a forbidden subject, removed from teacher education and professional development classes where the curriculum is focused instead on learning about standards, lesson plans, and pedagogy. What can and should teachers do when the unbearable happens? An Empty Seat in Class illuminates the tragedy of student death and suggests ways of dealing and healing within the classroom community. This book weaves the story of the author’s very personal experience of a student’s fatal shooting with short pieces by other educators who have worked through equally terrible events and also includes contributions from counselors, therapists, and school principals. Through accumulated wisdom, educators are given the means and the resources to find their own path to healing their students, their communities, and themselves. “A dreadful script had been written for our school and town (and the world) but this did not mean that a new script could not be written by us. We didn’t have to subscribe to the tragic script beyond our control. It was time to rewrite.” —Lee Keylock, high school teacher, Sandy Hook, CT “This book is a meditation on the unspeakable horror and ensuing anguish that follows the death of a student. A heretofore taboo subject, teachers have much to share about their creative, improvisational praxes when shared cultural scripts in urban classrooms are unavailable. This moving and poignant text illuminates as much as it inspires. —Angela Valenzuela, Professor of Education, University of Texas, Director of the Texas Center for Education Policy “Written by the most important kind of expert, someone who has been there, Dr. Ayers candidly discusses his own struggles following the violent death of one of his students. This book serves as an invaluable guide, providing research and practical tools on how to respond to a student death and facilitate a safe space in the classroom where students can ask questions, express emotions, and process their grief. This is a must-read for every teacher, administrator, and counselor so that a school is well prepared in the event of a tragedy.” —Heidi Horsley, executive director, Open to Hope Foundation, adjunct professor, Columbia University School of Social Work “For those who teach, this book will likely evoke painful memories of loss and unrealized potential that accompanies the tragedy of any student's death. Classrooms and communities are worlds of their own, where saving one life or inspiring someone in even the most minute or momentary way can mean saving a whole world. Ayers's book honors the lives of both teachers and students. It is a book for all of us.” —Jack Weinstein, director, San Francisco Bay Area, Facing History and Ourselves