Bill Ayers textbook dillema

[chrispycsuf]

I just recieved my required reading list for some of my teaching courses, and i have since picked up all of my books. Upon opening the first book, i was shocked to see the name William Ayers. Apparently he is the series editor for a series called teaching for social justice. I dont object to him editing a book, however, i have some reservations about paying for a book, where the money is going to a known terrorist. Though he didnt author the book, he did act as editor and he is acknowledged as an inspiration for the author as well. It feels strange to see this from a government-funded public college, but then i just remember that it is CALIFORNIA. I dont think advice from a terrorist is going to help me become an effective teacher.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

When I went to school the teachers actually knew how to spell.

dillema?

That's OK when my wife was doing an MA in education she gave me one of her papers to proofread. She became defensive when I, a mere engineer, pointed out that she had used the word "dilemma" when she clearly meant "predicament."

In the case at hand, I suppose this is actually a dilemma, a choice of two evils, but the word I would have used is "dilemma".

When I went to school teachers would have consulted a dictionary for proper spelling of either word. I doubt they would have made any distinction between them, however.

[ETL]

Bill Ayers TODAY (April 6, 2008), from his own red communist star-headed website, begging to debate communism vs capitalism with Sean Hannity and STILL calling for revolution!

"Imperialism. I’m against it, and if Sean Hannity and others were honest, this is the ground they would fight me on. Capitalism played its role historically and is exhausted as a force for progress: built on exploitation, theft, conquest, war, and racism, capitalism and imperialism must be defeated and a world revolution—a revolution against war and racism and materialism, a revolution based on human solidarity and love, cooperation and the common good —must win.

We begin by releasing our most hopeful dreams and our most radical imaginations: a better world is both possible and necessary.

Source: Bill Ayers' own website:
http://billayers.wordpress.com/2008/04/page/2/

'Guilty as hell, free as a bird—America is a great country,' he [Ayers] said."
August 2001, Chicago Magazine (article: No Regrets)
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2001/No-Regrets/

[Freedom4US]

Do you want to keep your job, or not?

[sailor4321]

As Abbey Hoffman said: “Steal This Book”!

[Freedom4US]

“what course is this for”

For to graduate, they long ago made this bilge _mandatory_.

[Sherman Logan]

Ayers is wrong (on many levels) about everything being inherently slanted, biased and political.

That's not exactly what he said in the section I quoted. He said, "school is always a contested space – what should be taught? In what way? Toward what end? By and for whom?"

People always have disagreements about these issues. They are inherently political.

Choosing to teach the truth is every bit as much a political choice as choosing to teach falsehood. In today's world, oddly enough, doing so, as you do, is wildly revolutionary.

As Thomas Sowell has pointed out, the essentially libertarian vision of the American founders is the only truly revolutionary political ideology. All others insist that the people must be dominated by an annointed elite group, differing only about who that group should be and what they should do with their power.

Only the American Revolution came up with the idea that the people should be allowed to lead their own lives as THEY see fit.

[muawiyah]

Diversity in education would be, of course, English, Calculus, Biochemistry, Physics, and that all time favorite of the learned classes, Topology.

All that other stuff is just the same old CR*P sorted differently ~ no diversity at all.

[Freedom4US]

guinea pigs at the unis for the psychotics.

[happinesswithoutpeace]

bkmark

[richardtavor]

“education is the motor-force of revolution” He doesn’t mean education, he means indoctrination...Education should teach truth....

[goldfinch]

You can try to find the book used. Check Amazon and Half.com. There are several internet sites that specialize in used textbooks. Save money where you can.

If this is the first time you have run into a liberal bias in your college career, you have been very lucky. My advice...do what you need to do to graduate.

Conservatives spend a lot of time bitching about the way liberals run our schools...but too few are willing to get involved and do something about it. We need more conservative teachers, administrators, and school board members. The liberals took over the public schools in the last couple of generations. Conservatives need to spend the next couple of generations taking them back.

[chrispycsuf]

I have already set the book aside to return to the Bookstore. I have ordered it on half. The only reason i didnt before was because there wasnt much of a savings, but every dollar counts and the money doesnt go to Ayers. That aside, i agree with your sentiment, and i can do my fighting in the classroom, showing students that they can think for themselves, regardless of what the left tries to indoctrinate. Thanks!

[Freedom4US]

“Show them how to think for themselves”

That’s the key right there - and what leftists fear most albeit they have managed workarounds on classic logical fallacies and many other impediments. But if the student is not fully aware and informed of how they are being scammed they have little hope whatsoever, in life much less school.

[Fundamentally Fair]

Get out while you still can.

[reaganaut1]

“There is no link...its a printout of book titles...the book is titled “Holler if you Hear Me.” Its not a sociology course. Its a book for “Teaching Diverse Student Populations in Secondary Schools:....a required course for my teaching credential. I have started reading and really dont see a connection to the course at all.”

If books for the course use buzz phrases such as “social justice”, I doubt it will be worthwhile. You will probably learn more of value from the book “Black Education: Myths and Tragedies” by Thomas Sowell, a black economist and intellectual. A good university library should have it. You can read an essay by Sowell “The Education of Minority Children” at

http://www.tsowell.com/speducat.html .

[Chgogal]

"Are you a student or a teacher in this course? If you are a teacher, teach your students that this is commie crap, and that one of the editors is a non-repentent communist. Introduce them to Saul Alinsky and Antonio Gramsci."

I always think pictures are worth a thousand words. Idiots like Ayers and Obama cannot argue against reality. Communism and socialism lead to poverty. I am paraphrasing Margret Thatcher, "The problem with Socialists, sooner or later, they run out of your money." The link and picture below are reality checks of Communism's failure. It is true for North Korea (vs, South Korea) as it was for East Berlin (vs. West Berlin) and Eastern Europe (vs. Western Europe). The picture shows that the North Korean and bordering Chinese economies have not provided the economic environments required to produce good infrastructure such as an electrical grid. This picture was used in a news debriefing in December 2002.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/dprk-dark.htm

[Defiant]

If you are a student, and you are required to read this garbage and are tested on it, then there is little you can do, except complain to the administrators, who are probably very liberal, or go to a Republican assemblyman about contacting the state university system to take a terrorist off its required reading list, and maybe take it to a conservative talk radio program and see if they can bring some attention to it. With Ayers in the news right now, someone like Roger Hedgecock might make it a cause celebre.

[pabianice]

I stopped giving to my alma mater (UMass) after feminists seized the Anthropology Dept., renamed it The Department of Feminist Anthropology, and expelled the male professors who wouldn’t kiss their hairy asses.

[El Cid]

Yup, Thou shalt not steal.
If the God of Heaven thought enough to write this down with HIS own finger in stone, I think we ought to give it a go...

I agree with the others - buy this book used.

[reg45]

Why don’t you just steal the book. I’m certain the anti-Capitalist William Ayers would approve.