Event overview
Young people have risen up to challenge and change the world from Little Rock to Birmingham, in Soweto and Tiananmen, and from Palestine to Chiapas and beyond. In the last decade we saw the rise of Arab Spring and Occupy, and now we are in the midst of vivid mass resistance to the police killing of unarmed Black men and women. Now and historically it’s the young who reject taken-for-granted injustices, and provide the leadership, the catalysts and activists, and the organizers for deep and radical change.
The activism of the Black Lives Matter movement not only illustrates the brilliance and clarity of young people, but also flies in the face of popular currency that children and youth are less competent, less thoughtful, less wise and more dangerous than adults. The continuing reality of young people as social actors stands in opposition to official policies of silencing, suppressing, expelling and punishing our youth, depriving them of an education and denying their creativity and right to be heard.
Can we hold the moment? Do we have the knowledge that young people are capable of seeing and seizing what adults cannot imagine? In the uncertainty and complexity of civil strife and disciplined rebellion, shall we see children and young people capable of being agents of their own—and indeed all of our—liberation?
William Ayers, formerly Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) has written extensively about social justice and democracy, education and the cultural contexts of schooling, and teaching as an essentially intellectual, ethical, and political enterprise. His books include A Kind and Just Parent; Teaching toward Freedom; Fugitive Days: A Memoir; On the Side of the Child; Teaching the Personal and the Political; To Teach: The Journey, in Comics; Teaching toward Democracy and Race Course: Against White Supremacy.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 8 Jun 2015 | 4:30pm - 6:00pm |
Accessibility
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