query: Educating About Organizing: Beyond Just More Organizing?

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

[ed: please feel welcomed to copy COMM-ORG with responses to Aaron's query.]

From: "Aaron Schutz" <schutz at uwm.edu>


This email extends on my question earlier about teaching a brief 
introductory workshop on organizing. One of the most interesting set of 
responses that emerged from my query was a group of people who seemed to 
indicate that we don't need to "educate" about organizing separate from 
the activity of organizing itself. I'm pasting in the relevant section 
from my summary of the responses, below. I'd be interested in hearing 
what others think about this. Is what we already do enough? Does the 
lack of robust organizing (and ignorance about organizing) in many poor 
communities indicate that we need a different approach. Clearly I 
believe the answer is yes.

For an extended exploration of how we might think differently about 
nurturing organizing, see this report on a recent educational conference 
we held in Milwaukee: 
http://www.educationaction.org/educating-about-organizing.html. Some of 
you are probably already be pursuing some of the strategies I mention or 
others--and I'd love to hear from you if you are.

Relevant section from summary of responses to query about a brief 
organizing workshop:

WE DON’T NEED A WORKSHOP, WE NEED MORE OF WHAT ORGANIZERS ALREADY DO

It’s interesting to me that a number of respondents assumed that if I’m 
asking a question like this I must not know much about organizing in 
Milwaukee or in general. In fact, a couple people seemed to assume I was 
criticizing current Milwaukee organizers, although nothing in my request 
indicated this. Rightly or wrongly, I interpret some of these responses 
as implying that we don’t really need to do much differently than we 
already are, except more and better.

GREENBAUM states this most clearly when he questions “your premise that 
we need to sell direct action organizing outside of the context of 
campaigns. What sells the direct action organizing techniques are the 
victories of strong organizations that use direct action within their 
campaigns. And it is through the active campaigns in which we are 
recruiting and developing leaders that we teach direct action strategies 
and tactics.”

While I agree that Greenbaum’s point is accurate in the abstract, the 
problem is that the funding for organizing is extremely limited, as is 
the visibility of organizing. While there is organizing going on, in my 
experience this, by itself, isn’t necessarily educating that many people 
who aren’t already key leaders. And people who “see” organizing 
happening, or its results, don’t necessarily really understand what’s 
happening to make it work. While we can “do” organizing better to 
overcome this a little, I don’t see this as adequate.

I’ve taught a required community organizing course for the last five 
years to a student population that is often very connected to and 
involved in the community. We have one of the most diverse student 
populations in the entire Wisconsin system, and many of our students 
work in community-based organizations or local schools. Almost none of 
them have ever heard of community organizing. I don’t just mean they 
don’t understand it. I mean that in most cases, except for those who 
have been part of organizing, besides knowing that there was this group 
of people who led and participated in the civil rights movement, they 
have little or no idea that there is a tradition and a set of practices 
for creating collective power. There is at least some organizing going 
on around them in our city, but almost none of them seem to have learned 
much from it (if they even know it exists in the first place).

Aaron Schutz
Associate Professor & Chair
Dept. of Ed. Policy & Comm. Studies
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
P.O. Box 413
Milwaukee, WI 53201
Office: (414) 229-4150
Fax: (414) 229-3700
Website: educationaction.org