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Adapted from an activity by Eleanora and Joao Paulo Castano Ferreira

Is problem-posing good for educators? Our working conditions as educators are a crucial part of the context in which we are trying to do popular education, influencing everything from the materials we use today to our long term goals. This activity, which I learned while teaching at the ILGWU Worker-Family Education Program, helps educators look at our own work as work, using our own experiences and issues as material for problem-posing.

By Matt Noyes. Adapted from Educating for a Change.

Talking about what we don't want can be the quickest, most concrete path to defining our goals. This activity challenges people to clarify and express their goals in a creative way.

Summary:
Brainstorming what it would look like if, instead of your goals, your worst nightmares were realized.

Materials/Prep: flip chart or blackboard, markers, chalk

Number of People: Flexible, probably not more than 30 or so.

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.