Feb 3rd 2020

Therese Quinn discusses “School: Questions About Museums, Culture, and Justice to Explore in Your Classroom.” She will be in conversation with Bill Ayers. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion.

At 57th Street Books

About the book: Museums are public resources that can offer rich extensions to classroom educational experiences from tours through botanical gardens to searching for family records in the archives of a local historical society. With clarity and a touch of humor, Quinn presents ideas and examples of ways that teachers can use museums to support student exploration while also teaching for social justice. Topics include disability and welcoming all bodies, celebrating queer people’s lives and histories, settler colonialism and decolonization, fair workplaces, Indigenous knowledge, and much more. This practical resource invites classroom teachers to rethink how and why they are bringing students to museums and suggests projects for creating rich museum-based learning opportunities across an array of subject areas.

About the author: Therese Quinn is an Associate Professor and Director of Museum and Exhibition Studies, and an elected representative for her union, UIC United Faculty, at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Therese writes about the arts, education, and cultural institutions as sites of democratic engagement and justice work, and has published widely, including a monthly column for the University of Helsinki, articles in the Monthly Review, Journal of Museum Education, Journal of Gay and Lesbian Issues in Education, and Rethinking Schools, among others, and co-authored and edited several books. In addition to “School: Questions About Museums, Culture and Justice” (2020), the most recent of these are, “Teaching Toward Democracy 2e” (2016), “Art and Social Justice Education: Culture as Commons” (2012), and “Sexualities in Education: A Reader” (2012).

About the interlocutor: Bill Ayers is a social justice activist, teacher, Distinguished Professor of Education (retired) at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and author of two memoirs, “Fugitive Days” and “Public Enemy.”

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