For a Robust Political Education Program in EBDSA

Let’s get people feeling that galaxy brain :)

Hi comrades! I wanted to write more in-depth about the role of political education and the idea of a pedagogical approach to our organizing work in EBDSA.

Our development as a chapter is inherently a learning process, especially in a chapter so recently expanded and including so many members relatively new to socialism. As such, we must create a robust political educational program. Beyond that, I also propose using a pedagogical framework as an organizing principle across all our work as a chapter, guiding our actions and our reflection upon those actions.

This proposal has a few parts. I’m actually going to leave the more “philosophical” discussion for subsequent sections (which I’ll link here) and jump initially right into concrete vision for deeply democratic, empowering, action-oriented political education.

(The follow up posts will elaborate a bit on the theory and motivations underlying that vision. I will also speak to specific current EBDSA structures and dynamics and how a pedagogical approach to organizing more broadly can be beneficial to our chapter.)

What might a robust political education program look like?

1. Democratic participation in the formation of any such program is essential. This would mean:

• An open call to attend meetings about Political Education Committee formation and an open call to participate in said committee. The best way to ensure that many perspectives are incorporated is to not bother trying to represent them, but actually just include them outright.
• Multiple open meetings to broadly explore members goals, ideas, motivations concerning effective political education and strategies for making sure all our pedagogical work presupposes the transformative action we have come together for in this chapter.
• Flipping the capitalist education dynamic on its head. We do this when teachers become students learning about the needs of members. Teachers’ first task would be to learn. Such a call for open participation and input is built on the all-important TRUST that member/students are worth hearing from, and that we respect each other enough to listen to each other’s’ needs. I cannot emphasize enough centrality of trust and mutual respect.
• A commitment to using those broad member-driven discussions as the basis for any program moving forward, placing authority in the membership body. This means facilitators should not provide participants with “suggestions” beforehand, and that they must avoid steering/favoring certain proposals over the preferences of participating members.

2. Responsibility for moving those projects/initiatives forward must lie not just with a small group of facilitators but with the students as well. If someone organizes an event for you, you have less of a stake in its success. Student/teachers should be trusted with, but also responsible for, the results of this political education program. This could mean (but is not limited to):

• Rotating facilitator responsibilities for longer term projects
• Delegating tasks for student/teachers, such as bringing in new resources to classes, running reading groups, etc. (from each according to their abilities).
• Create a database/resource for skill sharing — finding out what our members already know how to do well — and use that to build workshops, events, and just fun afternoons learning how to do new stuff. This could be anything from “how to feel less intimidated by knocking on doors” — hosted by experienced canvassers to “how to screenprint rad logos on every piece of clothing you own” — hosted by whoever is feeling crafty.

3. Encouragement of member initiative to organize. Taking on the coordination of a large education project is daunting, and we shouldn’t be afraid to let motivated members spearhead their own projects and plug into chapter resources to do so. This requires:

• Cross promoting/publicizing different endeavors, instead of making each individual member drum up whatever support they can find all on their own.
• A rejection of categorizing educational efforts as “official” or “unofficial”. “Learning” cannot be categorized into “official” or “unofficial”. There are no “right” books to read. If you are only learning “officially” that’s not learning, it’s indoctrination. Education is necessarily uncomfortable and transgresses boundaries. This must me recognized and embraced as effective pedagogy.
• A thoroughgoing self-examination and evaluation of the obstacles to self-organizing, including perhaps anti-oppression training aimed at helping us all understand the barriers many face to stepping up into teacher/student roles, and to becoming organizers.
• A recognition that an emphasis on “book learning” and formal markers of education is part of the capitalist system of oppression and an ongoing effort to learn to recognize new ways of teaching each other (not relying on imitations of capitalist classrooms).

4. Engagement with wider community — using education as an externally facing element of organizing. If we position ourselves as students who are inviting people to teach about their experiences, we can better plug into our own region’s rich tradition of political activity. We should not limit ourselves to figures we “endorse” or fear engagement with different organizations, different traditions. All encounters can be illuminating, as long as there is wide input and agreement from membership for such outreach. Again, education cannot be “official.”

• An ongoing series of guest speakers (organizers, political figures, scholars, artists (art!!!) with opportunity for real member engagement. For example: as we begin to organize on housing, we can bring long time housing activists to share their wisdom, answer questions, and dialogue about the path forward.
• Inviting local authors/scholars/organizers to contribute to individual sessions of relevant reading groups (There’s got be local feminist thinkers to invite to Soc Fem right? Local anti-racist leaders. Local organizers to invite to speak on police and prison abolition.) We are surrounded by a cornucopia of human wisdom and experience and have made very little organizational use of it so far.
• Soliciting feedback from local groups with robust political education programs about what has and hasn’t worked for them, and reporting back to the wider group with findings. The very process of “formulate questions, interview, follow up, analyze, synthesize, present to EBDSA community” is a valuable transferable research skill to cultivate among our members, and deploy in external campaigns.
• Public facing educational events that draw people in from our neighborhoods (something that might be easiest to organize first on a neighborhood branch level, then expand with more experience). This is something to be embarked upon perhaps further down the road, when we’re more comfortable in our practices as teachers students.
• The creation of more outward facing materials/media for both member and public use, drawing on and sharing what we’ve learned in our activities as an organization. This might look like SF DSA’s little zines, or a more robust newsletter/blog, flyers and posters, or educational materials to be made available to other chapters/orgs. The process of actually making those materials can also be really helpful and informative to organizers themselves, refining processes and priorities and aiding in the reflective process essential to any praxis.

None of these lists is meant as a definitive framework, and all need debate. These are merely possibilities meant to spur the imaginations of our membership, and hopefully get us talking about how to approach our chapter’s growth and all of it’s undertakings as opportunities to deepen our knowledge of political traditions, strategies, histories, organizations and goals.