Diving In

Inspired by the life and work of Bill Ayers—particularly his advice to “teach into the contradiction”— Diving In reflects the intellectual adventures that Ayers has always encouraged those around him to undertake. Written by leading educators and activists, the collected chapters within this book are as diverse as the myriad contradictions that teachers encounter in their day-to-day practice and their out-of-class musings. The contributors use themes suggested by Ayers’s work to open up new perspectives and discourses on key issues in education, such as participatory democracy, social justice, liberation, and education as a human right. Diving In offers much-needed hope at a time when teachers need it the most.

Isabel Nuñez is associate professor in the Center for Policy Studies and Social Justice at Concordia University Chicago. Crystal T. Laura is assistant professor of Educational Leadership at Chicago State University. Rick Ayers founded the Communication Arts and Sciences small school at Berkeley High School and is an assistant professor of education at the University of San Francisco.

“It will leave you feeling richer, more connected, and asking new questions.”
—Martha Biondi, Northwestern University

“This astounding collection of new essays animates the themes of contradiction and discomfort within social-justice work as embodied by one of education’s true visionaries, Bill Ayers, and in so doing, brilliantly models his pedagogical and mentoring style. Both sparked by and inter-flowing with his life work, Diving In invites readers to similarly situate our own struggles and strivings into this larger movement as we each embark on living and teaching radically but in ways yet unimagined.”
—Kevin Kumashiro, author of Bad Teacher! How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture

2015 Society of Professors of Education Book Award