For items relating to popular education for union democracy, including blog entries, etc.
By Matt Noyes, adapted from Tecnicas Participativas Para la Educacion Popular, Tomo I, in collaboration with Nadia Marin Molina of the Workplace Project/Centro Pro Derechos Laborales.
By Matt Noyes, from a workshop with Leon Rosenblatt
Summary:
This is a spur of the moment role play where participants and educators act out the actions and problems they have been discussing, with no preparation or script.
Good for:
By Matt Noyes. Adapted from La Pecera in Tecnicas Participativas Para La Educacion Popular, Tomo I, with the help of carpenter, educator, and rank-and-file journalist Mike Orrfelt.
By Matt Noyes; the cuento vivo technique on which this is based comes from Alforja, Tomo I.
Summary:
One of the problems with Robert's Rules is that most union members have little or no experience with using them. Using a "Cuento Vivo" (live story) technique, this activity has people act out a scene from a union meeting. The scripted parts help people practice the language and shows how the rules can be used.
Materials:
No popular education technique has spread as far and wide as this one. I first learned it from Eleonora Castano Ferreira and Joao Castano Ferreira, thanks to Maureen LaMar at the old International Ladies Garment Workers Union Worker-Family Education Program. To my mind the authoritative version is the one found in Volume 2 of Alforja's Tecnicas Participativas Para La Educacion Popular.
Summary:
For union and social movement activists, resistance is one of the highest virtues. We all carry around in our minds some favorite image of resistance: workers on a picket line, plan occupations, Norma Rae standing up with the "union" sign, the little fishes getting together to chase away the big fish, etc. We put the images on t-shirts, mugs, buttons, posters. Given our affection for resistance, it is easy to forget that resistance is also difficult, divisive, stubborn, uncooperative, backward, ornery, un-productive, wrong-headed, that is to say, resistant.
This is where the spiral of popular education takes shape. You did the preparation work, shared information and built trust, analyzed problems, got and shared new information, planned strategy and people took action. Now what?
Well, assuming you have a group that continues working together, you start all over again: getting people together, sharing information, building trust. But you start in a different place. Now you have a group that has been through a learning process together and taken action to solve problems.
Summary:
In this chapter I depart from the pattern of the other chapters. Instead of activities, I describe a few cases where education moved into action, using them to raise issues that educators and activists face as we follow this crucial step in the spiral of popular education.
In the previous step, Adding New Information, the need to share new information raised a danger of slipping back into traditional approaches to education and the assumptions about expertise and knowledge that they reflect. By using participatory techniques and sticking with the underlying democratic and egalitarian method, that danger can be overcome.
This step can be tricky for popular educators. It is easy to slip back into the old "banking" model of education: and play the role of the expert whose job it is to give people information or ideas, treating your fellow participants like so many empty vessels waiting to be filled.
Providing new information (or helping people find it themselves) and helping them learn how to use it is essential in any educational process. Obtaining and learning to use information is a central part of building power. Sharing information and helping others learn is essential for democracy.
