To Teach

This is the Fourth Edition of the classic memoir that has inspired teachers for over 3 decades. It is also available as a graphic novel.

To Teach is both the story of a new teacher’s voyage into the classroom and a guide to the values and commitments that can animate a steady and meaningful life in teaching.

There are stumbling blocks in every teacher’s journey and today’s specific, unprecedented challenges can seem insurmountable. In this new edition, Ayers discusses important events that have shaped education since the last edition was published, including a global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. He also discusses the heightened politicization of teaching as a profession that has resulted in insidious book banning, as well as the continuing influence of mass incarceration on schooling.

For over 3 decades, this classic text has inspired teachers across the country to follow their own paths, face their own challenges, and become the teachers they long to be. This engaging teacher’s odyssey is a road map to the beating heart of teaching, emphasizing the joy in the journey and the pleasure in a life lived in the company of children and youth.

Book Features:

• A primer for new teachers trying to develop the skills and commitments needed to be effective in the classroom.
• An incitement to K–12 teachers to reimagine their teaching and rethink their practice.
• Also available as a graphic novel, To Teach: The Journey, in Comics, featuring the drawings of talented artist Ryan Alexander-Tanner.

William Ayers is a scholar, activist, and Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago (retired).

“Ayers’ riveting description of his unfolding journey as a teacher will be a helpful guide to teachers at all stages of their careers.”

-- Teaching Education (of previous edition)

“The latest edition of Bill Ayers’ timeless classic, To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher, is more necessary than ever. I wish I had this book when I first entered the classroom—something to ground me, support me, and guide me through the uncertainties and challenges of teaching. . . . Ayers has a remarkable way of making the realities of teaching clear while still maintaining an unwavering faith in the transformative power of education.”
—From the Foreword by Bettina L. Love, William F. Russell Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University

“With so many attacks and reform initiatives today (to defund, censor, demonize, technologize) fundamentally transforming and restricting what is and can be ‘teaching,’ we need Bill Ayers’s nuanced and prophetic storytelling more than ever. For 30 years, teachers and teacher educators have been reading and rereading To Teach, partly for the vivid portraits of his own joys and struggles that are both cautionary and inspiring, but more for the fundamental contradictions and dialectics of education that he invites us to dive into—and that he shows as still relevant with updates throughout this Fourth Edition. Read or re-read today!”
—Kevin Kumashiro, scholar, educator, leader, advocate, and author of Surrendered: Why Progressives are Losing the Biggest Battles in Education

"Now more than ever, Bill Ayers's To Teach is the light we need in deeply divided times. His work provides a grounded and inspiring conversation, offering hope and perspective during what may be the most challenging time for teachers in nearly 80 years. Both his insights and encouragement are essential in this mess of a moment we're in."
—David Stovall, professor of criminology, law, and justice, University of Illinois Chicago

“This timely new edition of To Teach reminds us of the liberatory possibilities of education, at a time when teaching the truth and the very idea of the right to a free high-quality public education are under attack. Drawing on his nearly 60 years as an educator, Ayers teaches us how to teach and be in relationship with each other with care and compassion—important lessons for life.”
—Elizabeth S. Todd-Breland, associate professor, University of Illinois Chicago

“Bill’s To Teach dissects the power dynamics of the classroom, the pervasiveness of race and class in these spaces of learning, and the need to build solidarity with learners.”
—From the Afterword by Adam Bush, president, College Unbound

William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago (retired), is an activist and scholar currently teaching courses in writing and the art of the personal essay with the Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project in Chicago. His books include Teaching the Taboo: Courage and Imagination in the Classroom (with Rick Ayers), To Teach: The Journey, in Comics (with Ryan Alexander-Tanner), and about Becoming a Teacher.