Teaching the Taboo: Courage and Imagination in the Classroom

Education at its best is about opening doors, expanding minds, and inviting students to become powerful choice-makers as they forge their own pathways into a wider world. While many teachers long for teaching to be something transcendent and powerful, they all too often find themselves teaching obedience and conformity. This dynamic book―by two renowned educators―is filled with classroom stories of everyday teachers grappling with many of today’s hotly debated issues. These stories of courage and resistance will help today’s teachers confront the cynicism and demoralization that have gripped the profession in this age of standardization and testing. It will help teachers to teach initiative, to teach imagination, to “teach the taboo.” This is a hands-on manual for anyone looking to evolve as an educator.

Rick Ayers is a university instructor and founder of the Communication Arts and Sciences small school at Berkeley High School. William Ayers is a school reform activist, distinguished professor, and senior university scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago.