We heard a lot about Bill Ayers during the 2008 election cycle; mostly attempts at using his name as a smear because of his past with the Weather Underground. But for the past forty years Ayers has been a teacher, an occupation he calls the most intellectually challenging thing he’s ever done. His book To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher has seen multiple editions, and when the publisher asked him about doing a new one, he wanted to do it a little differently. Ayers teamed up with comics artist Ryan Alexander-Tanner and created a graphic novel version of the book, To Teach: The Journey, In Comics, hoping to reach new and different audiences.
Ayers was in town recently for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art festival, and he sat down with us at the Bank Street School of Education to discuss his own journey as a teacher, the new graphic novel, and what really needs to be done to reform education in the U.S.