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Rick Ayers

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Teaching the taboo: courage and imagination in the classroom

Teaching the taboo: courage and imagination in the classroom

Teaching the taboo – breaking from dull repressive mandates – calls for a culture of respect and mutual recognition, transformation and liberation

2011

Stories

Repression of dissent in America

It’s terrible now; it’s about to get worse

Dec 10, 2024

Repression of dissent in America

Dec 10, 2024

Han Kang’s “Human Acts” and the literature of witness

I picked up Han Kang’s 2016 book Human Acts this week, partly because she had just won the Nobel Prize in Literature. But I was not…

Oct 28, 2024

Han Kang’s “Human Acts” and the literature of witness

Oct 28, 2024

On Gaza — how low can the New York Times go?

OK, I get it. I’ve always known it, right? Of course the New York Times reflects the consensus of liberal imperialism and slants the news…

Sep 4, 2024

Sep 4, 2024

Percival Everett’s James and the literature of resistance

Here is a photograph in the Glen Ellyn News from the spring of 1958 — the fifth-grade students were putting on a minstrel show in this…

Jun 10, 2024

Percival Everett’s James and the literature of resistance

Jun 10, 2024

The kids are All Right: In praise of student activism against genocide.

The massive upsurge in US of solidarity with Palestine and sharp criticism of Israel has reached a revolutionary inflection point, a moment…

May 6, 2024

The kids are All Right: In praise of student activism against genocide.

May 6, 2024

Echoes of the American war in Vietnam — Part 2

I previously wrote about the lessons learned from the US war against Vietnam in relation to the current horror of Israeli attacks against…

Mar 28, 2024

Echoes of the American war in Vietnam — Part 2

Mar 28, 2024

The SAT again, the monster that would not die

Ah, here we go again. One step forward, two steps back. Finally, because of the pandemic, many colleges dropped or made optional the SAT —…

Jan 10, 2024

Jan 10, 2024

Echoes of the American war in Vietnam

We are living in perilous, frustrating, horrendous times. It’s hard to do anything — brush your teeth, take a walk, read a book — without…

Nov 11, 2023

Nov 11, 2023

Behind the walls

History will judge the atrocities committed in Palestine and Israel

Oct 23, 2023

Behind the walls

Oct 23, 2023

The Pseudoscience of Reading

How the New York Times Gets It Wrong Again

Jul 19, 2023

Jul 19, 2023

We Have No Anti-war Movement

One thing we can be proud of in the US is our long history of anti-war activism, especially in the years after World War II. A massive…

May 5, 2023

May 5, 2023

A Movement Veteran Speaks

A review of The Movement Made Us by David Dennis Jr. and David Dennis Sr.

Jan 19, 2023

A Movement Veteran Speaks

Jan 19, 2023

The wages of exile — American war resisters in Canada

I turned in my draft card and sent it back to my draft board in October of 1967. The anti-war movement was large and growing — our…

Aug 4, 2022

The wages of exile — American war resisters in Canada

Aug 4, 2022

A Life-changing Poem

Upon being asked what was my favorite poem, I wrote this:

Jul 8, 2022

A Life-changing Poem

Jul 8, 2022

The times they are a’changing: Abolitionist teaching under attack

It would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous. All these manly men of the right whimpering about books their kids are reading, whining…

Feb 4, 2022

Feb 4, 2022

Reading Freire in San Quentin

During the doctoral class on Social and Critical Foundations of Education, we are digging into the work of Paolo Freire. For me, it is a…

Oct 4, 2021

Oct 4, 2021

Recall fever: All these recalls decrease democracy

Now that the spurious project to recall Governor Newsom has been defeated, we can step back and review the whole bizarre episode and the…

Sep 17, 2021

Sep 17, 2021

Capitalism is killing us — the COVID case

May 1, 2021

Capitalism is killing us — the COVID case

May 1, 2021

Educators in the Freedom Struggle

A review of Teacher Unions and Social Justice: Organizing for the Schools and Communities our Students Deserve

Apr 20, 2021

Educators in the Freedom Struggle

Apr 20, 2021

Everyone shouts “Black Lives Matter!” — but heaven forbid we change anything

Last summer was a heady time. Historic, truly epic, protests and even uprisings took place in response to the police murders of George…

Feb 23, 2021

Feb 23, 2021

Rick Ayers

Rick Ayers

Book Author

Rick Ayers is professor emeritus of education at the University of San Francisco.

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