Fighting Back

On Monday, the controversial Chicago activist, educator, and ex Weatherman William Ayers read from and discussed his two new books on educational strategies - City Kids, City Schools: More Reports from the Front Row- and its companion- City Kids, City Teachers: Reports from the Front Row. He was also promoting the new edition of his 2001 memoir Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist in which Ayers recounts his life as a sixties radical and co founder of the Weather Underground.

I was excited by this rare opportunity to listen to a serious thinker who had been made into the bogey man by the McCain-Palin campaign. He was characterized only as an unrepentant domestic terrorist; his substantial body of work since the heady times of the 1960’s being ignored in an effort to demonize the democratic candidate Barack Obama.

Free and open to all, this author event was hosted by Busboys and Poets and sponsored by two organizations invested in progressive public education, Teaching For Change and DC Voice. The event was originally scheduled months ago and due to the large media interest and overwhelming turnout was moved from Busboy’s Langston Room to the stunningly beautiful All Souls Unitarian Church, located in the heart of Washington DC at 1500 Harvard Street NW. The venue was ideal, located at the intersection of the Mt. Pleasant, Adams Morgan, and Columbia Heights neighborhoods.

Ayers, of course, discussed the recent election, in which he had been made an unwilling participant, but his focus remained on educational reform and the realities of teaching and learning in urban schools in a democratic society. Ayers presented a range of theories and methods, based on the Freedom School model, which can be used today in the classroom. A respected elementary education theorist and a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Education, Ayers understands the vital importance of improving urban education, and his call to action on this topic will likely resonate with the DC community.