Copenhaver Institute

William Ayers is Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and founder of both the Small Schools Workshop and the Center for Youth and Society. A school and community activist for over forty years, he also teaches courses in interpretive research, urban school change, and youth and the modern predicament. A graduate of the Bank Street College of Education and Teachers College, Columbia University, he has written extensively about social justice, democracy and education, the political and cultural contexts of schooling, and the meaning-making and ethical purposes of students and families and teachers. His articles have appeared in many journals including the Harvard Educational Review, the Journal of Teacher Education, Teachers College Record, Rethinking Schools, The Nation, and The Cambridge Journal of Education. His books include A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court (Beacon Press, 1997), The Good Preschool Teacher, (Teachers College Press, 1989), and To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher, (Teachers College Press, 1993) which was named Book of the Year in 1993 by Kappa Delta Pi, and won the Witten Award for Distinguished Work in Biography and Autobiography in 1995. Edited books include: To Become a Teacher: Making a Difference in Children’s Lives (Teachers College Press, 1995); with Janet Miller, A Light in Dark Times: Maxine Greene and the Unfinished Conversation (Teachers College Press, 1997); with Pat Ford, City Kids/City Teachers: Reports from the Front Row (The New Press, 1996); with Jean Ann Hunt and Therese Quinn, Teaching for Social Justice: A Democracy and Education Reader (The New Press and Teachers College Press, 1998); with Mike Klonsky and Gabrielle Lyon, A Simple Justice: The Challenge of Small Schools (Teachers College Press, 2000); and with Rick Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Zero Tolerance: Resisting the Drive for Punishment—A handbook for parents, students, educators and citizens (The New Press, 2001). Recent books include Fugitive Days: A Memoir (Beacon Press, 2001), On the Side of the Child: Summerhill Revisited (Teachers College Press, 2003), and Teaching the Personal and the Political (Teachers College Press, 2004). His latest book is Teaching Toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action in the Classroom (Beacon Press, 2004).

Gregory Michie is an assistant professor in the College of Education at Illinois State University. He taught for nine years in Chicago public schools, where he developed a media literacy course and an award-winning student video-production program, and spent three years codirecting an alternative certification program for urban teachers. He has published numerous essays and articles about his work with children, and is the author of a book about his teaching experiences, Holler If You Hear Me: The Education of a Teacher and his Students (Teachers College Press, 1999), and the editor of a chapbook of oral histories, Reflections: Young Men in Back of the Yards Look at Their Lives (Santa Cruz Press, 2001). His latest book, See You When We Get There: Teaching for Change in Urban Schools, was published in 2005 by Teachers College Press. Currently, Michie is working with a cohort of ISU undergraduates who are undertaking year-long senior-year internships in Chicago Public Schools.

Jerry Mills is an internationally acclaimed educator, singer/songwriter and motivational trainer who travels worldwide sharing what the Chicago Tribune describes as “an intensely personal look at the challenges faced by youth.” Hundreds of thousands of educators, parents and students have experienced the impact of his live trainings.

As a child he experienced the “failures, fears and frustrations” of some nameless problem. These experiences later led him to pursue a career as a teacher. As a classroom teacher, Jerry discovered the real cause of his lifelong struggles with learning. It was a discovery that would change his life and the lives of many others.

Today, Jerry has become a leader in the effort to train and educate teachers, parents and youth. Hundreds of thousands of educators, parents and students have experienced the impact of his live trainings. Presenting educational workshops and training full time, he is regularly featured for a wide range of state and national conferences. A talented and prolific songwriter and storyteller, his work vividly captures a broad range of human experience and emotional encounters with the challenges of life.