Rolling Earth, movement education

This handout goes with the Visions of Unionism diagrams. It is not "the answer," but it does reveal my thinking about the diagrams and my biases. It is very schematic, just a starting point for discussion.

When I used this activity, I included this text in a packet of materials. I did not use it in the actual workshop because the workshop was about helping the participants articulate their own visions of unionism, not debating mine (much as I would enjoy that!).

[img_assist|nid=138|title=Visions of Unionism 1|desc=The first image -- what do you see? Who are these people? What do we know about them? What do the arrows and circles mean? Why are some pointing in different directions?|link=none|align=left|width=450|height=348]

[img_assist|nid=139|title=Visions of Unionism 2|desc=The second vision: What do you see here? Who are the various people? What are they all doing? What are their relationships to each other? Have you ever experienced this type of unionism?|link=none|align=left|width=450|height=348]

put my line here, image first

[img_assist|nid=136|title=The Spiral Model|desc=The Spiral Model as it appears in Educating for a Change.|link=none|align=left|width=450|height=341]

The spiral model illustrates several important principles of popular education:

• that it begins with the experiences and interests of the participants,
• that the content of the educational process flows from their experience,
• that new information is needed,
• that through a collective process of dialogue participants explore their experiences and identify problems they wish to address,
  

Here's the problem. Evaluating a course at the end, and/or at various points during the course, is essential to good teaching/learning practice. But, the tools I have used have sometimes felt dull and plodding, like busy work, especially when I try to get people to make the evaluation more specific and concrete.

The problem is worse when the participants are friendly and compliant. Then it really feels pro-forma.

[Put here the AUD handout -- who does what? Use it as a checklist activity that people can do, discuss in pairs and then share in group. Can also use it as an agree/disagree list.]

[WHERE DOES THIS BELONG? MAYBE BETTER TO PLACE IT UNDER ACTION, OR UNDER PREPARING FOR ACTION?]

Checklist of 13 Basic Principles of Democratic Organizing
(adapted by Matt Noyes from The Troublemaker's Handbook, by Dan LaBotz, Labor Notes 1989)

Tu, con que intencion y como pretendes utilizar las tecnicas? (Alforja, Tomo 2, "Advertencia!")
And you, what are your intentions, how do you plan to use these techniques?

The Chart:

Spectrum of educational approaches in the field of labor education.

These models are intended to represent three distinct approaches to labor education. They are simplified and incomplete, but should reflect coherent methods that we have experienced in our work. The idea is to use these models to explore how we work now, and how we want to work, where we want our work to go.

For each category, please:

Circle the paragraph that best describes how you do your education work now.