For items relating to popular education for union democracy, including blog entries, etc.
The task we set ourselves in an English for Activists class was to analyze an upcoming local election with major implications for parliamentary elections that would follow later in the year. The context was a recent victory by the Liberal Democratic Party in the Upper House elections and the continuing decline of the radical left/green parties which most of our participants support.
Another way to evaluate a course (or any other activity, perhaps), that breaks from the standard evaluation form format. This one takes the form of a debate over this proposition: "This course is (has been) a complete and total waste of time and money."
Form two teams, choose sides by flip of a coin, one team is given the task of arguing for the proposition, the other against.
THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT PROTEST AND PERSUASION
Formal Statements
1. Public Speeches
2. Letters of opposition or support
3. Declarations by organizations and institutions
4. Signed public statements
5. Declarations of indictment and intention
6. Group or mass petitions
Communications with a Wider Audience
7. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
8. Banners, posters, and displayed communications
9. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
10. Newspapers and journals
11. Records, radio, and television
12. Skywriting and earthwriting
Group Representations
These are sorting games I made up based on Gene Sharp's list of 198 non-violent methods of struggle. I wanted to introduce the list of methods to people without overwhelming them (198!), and do it in a way that raises the underlying organizing issues they imply. The idea is to sort the methods according to whatever criteria you choose. These games should spread awareness of the variety of non-violent methods people have used in collective action and the issues they raise in a given context/group.
I learned this from Emily Schnee and rely on it, especially for academic courses I teach. The form is simple, an interview activity with a report back and a chart to collect the information. But the content is rich: how have we learned well, what does that tell us about how learning is best done, what does that say about teaching and how it is best done? Starting with a skill also helps people recognize themselves as people who have skills and know how to learn, rather than starting where most education starts, with people's ignorance and lack of skill.
The flow:
This is a simple way for a group that is meeting again after not meeting for several weeks or months to catch up on each other's activities. Like the Power Line and the Learning Interview, this activity involves making a simple shared chart that "bubbles up" individual experiences and, at the same time, enables you to see collective patterns of activity.
UCM
Instrumento
Evoluciona!
Personal, Family, Community, City, Country, Nation
y
el Mundo
como
Espiral
por John Kendell Graham
2004
The Paradigm Shift El Cambio de la Paradigma
LIBERATION THROUGH EDUCATION FOR HUMAN GOVERNMENT
LIBERACIÓN POR MEDIO DE LA EDUCACIÓN PARA UN GOBIERNO HUMANO
Had an interesting conversation about the problem tree activity with some people who are using it in the context of a migrant worker organizing project. As part of a series of monthly worker assemblies, they are facilitating a three part problem tree activity -- one session for generating the leaves, another for the branches/trunk, a third for the roots. Where to go after that is not settled, it seems, but they seem to be thinking of some kind of discussion of solutions.
Hegel criticized "picture thinking" (vorstellung) as opposed to conceptual thinking, for some good reasons, but learning finds a good foothold in the creation, description, and analysis of pictures. I think this is because we find in drawings elements produced unconsciously, accidentally. And the drawings we create become objects in common -- something we can look at and to which we can refer in our conversation.
This simple activity can be the opening of a long investigation.
