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This review has been accessed times since September 30, 2005

Ayers, William (2004). Teaching Toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action in the Classroom. Boston: Beacon Press

Pp. ix+166
$23     ISBN 0-80703268-9

Reviewed by Barbara Slater Stern
James Madison University

September 30, 2005

(For a second review of this book, see the review by Ramin Farahmandpur.)

Bill Ayers’ book, Teaching Toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action in the Classroom is based on a series of public lectures delivered as a visiting school at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA during the 2002-2003 school term. Following a brief introduction in which Ayers lays out the purpose of his book and defines some basic terms are five chapters; the first four of which address what some educator’s might term “big questions” with the final chapter addressing the book’s title “Teaching toward Freedom.” While the book is essentially a philosophical discussion of the essential questions of teaching, there is enough practical application to insure that the reader understands how one can ground a philosophy of education in actual classrooms. Thus, as a reader who could order this book for her curriculum or foundations courses, I was torn throughout my reading with the desire to have all my pre-service teachers engage with this material and the reality that they might not yet have enough experience to seriously struggle with the questions Ayers poses.

In his introduction Ayers sets up the definition of freedom that carries the reader through the book when he states:

Let me note at the outset that freedom, if it means anything at all, points to the possibility of looking through your own eyes, of thinking, of locating yourself, and, importantly of naming the barriers to your humanity, and then joining with others to move against those obstacles. Freedom is not simply a gift—something inert, offered, received, accepted—but stands always as a challenge to ‘unfreedom,’ the active negation of a negative. Nor is freedom the same as complete autonomy—I cannot be anything I like—but it pushes us to act beyond easy resignation. . . . Freedom, then is an act, a verb, a force in motion; freedom must be chosen in order to be brought to live as authentic, trembling, and real. (p.xiii)

Ayers continues, reminiscent of words spoken by Maxine Greene, reminding the reader that every human being is both free and fated. The existentialist conundrum of humankind very much on display as the book opens.

Ayers illustrates his points with examples from current events, film and literature, particularly poetry, both in the introduction and throughout the book. These interdisciplinary examples serving as a reminder of what it really means to be human and educated. He synthesizes and draws on experiences from the arts and daily life to seek an understanding and improvement of the world we all inhabit. Again this reminded me of Maxine Greene’s writings and the broad base of illustrations and interests that she conveys in all her works. But, it also reminded me of an earlier work by Bill Ayers, To Become a Teacher: Making a Difference in Children's Lives, (Teachers College Press, 1995), where in the last chapter he exhorts teachers to live a little; go to the movies, read the newspaper, go to the park, etc.; that all the experiences of life go into making one both a better teacher and a good role model for students. All these experiences help one answer teaching’s ‘big questions’ starting with Chapter 1, What is Teaching For?

Although the formal title of the chapter is Between Heaven and Earth, the question directly underneath those words is “What is Teaching For.” As I read I thought about how few of my pre-service teachers really want to engage in a discussion of that question. I recalled a day in social studies ‘methods’ class when I asked students what the purpose of studying social studies/history is? After a painful discussion where I finally elicited an answer about democratic citizenship, one pre-service teacher piped up and said “Wow, and I thought the purpose was to get from tenth grade to eleventh grade and then to graduate after twelfth grade. It is nice to know there is something more than that!” Ayers book is grounded in the search for more than simply passing tests and passing through grades. In this chapter Ayers addresses the social nature of teaching and asks students to ponder a Maxine Greene “wide awakeness”:

Who, then, do we want to be? What shall we do? What are we teaching for? Schools are set up to induct the young, and so, whatever else they do, they enact partial answers to humanity’s enduring questions: What does it mean to be human? What is society for? What is the meaning of life and what is ‘the good life?’ What can we hope for? (p. 9)

Ayers sets his questions in the reality that there are not simply neat prepackaged answers to these questions but that teachers and students must struggle together to find the answers and then to have them realized first in their classrooms and then in the larger society. He wants, as do many teacher educators, teacher preparation programs to address teaching as a humanistic mission. And, it is hard to disagree with him. My problem is the rejection of this mission by my pre-service teachers at this point in their preparation and careers; especially when one understands how fraught with risk truly enacting this mission would be. Ayers challenges us to “become a student of your students first, and then create a lively learning community through dialogue; love your neighbors; question everything; defend the downtrodden; challenge and nourish yourself and others; seek balance” (p. 18). All this sounds obvious, but when illustrated with the difficulties of William Bennett’s Book of Virtues (see pp. 21-24) or the anathema of zero-tolerance policies; the pre-service teacher is confronted with just how difficult changing the school system into a humanistic enterprise might be. Of course, one could start with his or own her classroom and let change “trickle up.”

Chapter 2: Turning toward the Student addresses the next big question: ‘Who in the World Am I? Again Ayers confronts the reader probing “What is good and fair and just? What kind of world do we live in, and is there anything in all that we survey in need of repair? What should we bequeath to the coming generation? What might we reasonably hope for (p.31)? Ayers pushes us to see that these questions are the questions of teaching and education. And, he reiterates that we can not be neutral—teaching always involves a choice either toward truth and enlightenment or toward dehumanization, conformity and oppression. He is concerned with the enactment of these values through our language, our classroom climate, our empathy from the venerable John Dewey to wide range of poets and activists, Ayers challenges his readers to love their students and their academic subjects thereby achieving greatness in their classrooms through constant effort to improve, to reach out, to love and to learn. “—there is no master narrative that settles things once and for all. There is no lesson or syllabus or course that contains the answers. Rather there are voyages and always more fundamental questions to pursue” (p. 54). Very scary thoughts (true as they may be) for beginning teachers or pre-service teachers and, I daresay, for many practicing teachers.

Chapter 3, Building a Republic of Many Voices focuses on the question ‘Where is My Place in the World?’ These chapters have taken us through cycles of questions revolving around our identities. Obviously, by this point in the book the reader is primed to understand that only democratic classrooms, participative rule-making, etc. will assist students in learning how to make a place for themselves in the world both in and beyond school. And despite the title of the book, Ayers reminds us on that “Teaching toward freedom is always more a possibility than an accomplishment, more a project of people in action than a finished condition” (p. 81). The pedagogy required involves assessing society for its strengths and weaknesses. What do we like and wish to maintain? What needs to be changed? How would we like it to be? How can we effect that change? This is, of course, a critical pedagogy that calls for social action. It flies in direct opposition to those who believe that school curriculum is for transmission and that there are few or limited problems in our society (which, they believe, our system is currently addressing and solving). This is a pedagogy that requires constant questioning of all the curricular materials and topics set before student and teacher. As in the previous chapter, this is a high risk pedagogy for young teachers who know they don’t know everything, but often seem to have a need to act as if they know everything in their classrooms. Ayers states: “I will teach then, not credulousness but critical awareness, not easy belief but skepticism, not blind faith but curiosity. I want no reverence for what I say; I want no disciples (p. 93). He calls for authentic dialogue where “lines are blurred, authority subverted, a new journey undertaken” (p. 97). In this age of curriculum standards and high stakes testing, the pre-service teacher may feel nervous about such an adopting such an approach. This discomfort segues nicely to the issues of Chapter 4.

Lifting the Weight of the World, chapter 4, addresses “What are my Choices? This is the chapter that confronts activism most directly. And, to his credit, Ayers doesn’t expect each reader to go out and fix the entire world. If each teacher would begin in his or her classroom and community lots of good could be done. Small changes add up and improving life for one student is a huge accomplishment. Ayers also states that “Activism should not be confused with specific tactics [ital in original]; it is rather a particular stance in the world, one that draws attention to the need for repair. In the first place activists act. They engage, participate, contribute, stand up, sit in, initiate, move—this is the signature characteristic” (p.109). And Ayers reminds us that while activism pushes us into the world of moral choice, it has no value in and of itself (p. 111). Ayers follows up with several questions about the nature and the results of the activism. If action does not move towards increasing freedom, justice, etc. for the participants and the community then what was the point? In this respect activism and education are entwined with the purpose of teaching being to change the world to make it a better, more just place. To make the task more apparent Ayers states: “The opposite of ‘moral,’ then, is not ‘immoral’ so much as it is ‘indifferent.’ The normal world proceeds normally and, the shut doors—that central act of immorality—mark our era” (p. 128). Ayers sees a nation and a world beset by social injustice and calls upon teachers to act to right that situation as much as possible in their classrooms and communities.

In Chapter 5, Teaching Toward Freedom, Ayers remarks that “We too often act as if the future is going to be a lot like the present, only more so, but the truth is that the future is unknown, of course, and also unknowable” (p. 140). Where does that leave the reader besides in a state of existential crises? Well, it calls on readers to picture the world they would like to see and then, in their classrooms, with each of the individual human beings assigned to them for that year, to help each one find out who he or she is; where their place in the world will be and what their choices might be. Ayers reminds us that “The lifeblood of democracy here and throughout the world requires us to embrace differences and variety as strengths and not weaknesses: (p. 151). This leads us to what Ayers calls the new three R’s. Citing Liz Kirby, a Chicago high school teacher, the call is for Respect, Relevance and Revolution (see p. 157-158). In regards to these issues Ayers states “We have free will, we are free to open our eyes, free to name the world, free to make choices as citizens, not consumers. We are free to become the change we want to see, to become the people we have been waiting for.” (p. 159).

Where did this book leave me both a reader and as a teacher educator who might potentially order this book for her pre-service or beginning teachers? First let me state that I found the book to be somewhat repetitive and, while understanding that it was based in a series of lectures, I believe that one longer essay rather than five chapters might have made the point almost as convincingly. Second, theoretically I tend to generally agree with Ayers’ worldview, although not quite as radically. However, I am painfully aware that a large number of my students and a seemingly ever growing number of the American populace reject the arguments for free will made at the end of this book. We live in an age of rapid change and global transformation. It appears to me that one consequence of the pace of change in our modern world has been a retreat to fundamental religious values and determinism in our society coupled with a resurgence of material greed basic to social Darwinism. While Ayers exhorts us to address the fundamental questions of being human, my pre-service teachers are more concerned with ‘who moved my cheese’ and how do I get more than my share of cheese? And, they are planning to be teachers; which at its base means they have more connection with social issues and concerns than the population at large.

In the preface to Educating Citizens for Global Awareness (2005) the point is made that Americans, more than citizens from any other wealthy nation, have a sense of cultural superiority (p. xiii). As a teacher educator, my first responsibility seems to be to shake the foundations of that belief and to open my students to the reality that all humans inhabit this earth together. And, as hard as I try, I struggle against the resistance of pre-service teachers to most philosophical discussions on the purpose of education and their classroom goals. They want to know “how to teach” and they seem to believe that I can give them a recipe. The believe that the “what” to teach has been solved by the state for them. They "suffer" through our foundations and curriculum classes frequently evaluating them as less relevant than their “practical” methods and field experiences. We struggle to prepare reflective practitioners who center their teaching around their philosophical approaches to education. It may be that they need several years of experience before they are ready to deal with these root issues of teaching and education. Every year I open social studies methods class by requesting that students define social studies and then ask: Why do we teach social studies/history in our school? In eleven years I have never had a student respond with a discussion of the goal “to help create active, democratic citizens.” Ayers book should point them toward that answer; but it may preach the message so strongly that pre-service and beginning teachers shut themselves off from considering that answer.

Reference

Noddings, N. (Ed). (2005).Educating citizens for global awareness. NY: Teacher’s College Press.

About the Reviewer

Barbara Slater Stern is an Associate Professor at James Madison University. She teaches Foundations of American Education, Methods of Teaching Middle and Secondary Social Studies and curriculum courses.

Copyright is retained by the first or sole author, who grants right of first publication to the Education Review.

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