If You Don’t Know, Learn! If You Know, Teach! #LearnAndTeach
We invite you to join us in our guiding theme this year:
If You Don’t Know, Learn! If You Know, Teach! #LearnAndTeach
Why must we commit ourselves to learning?
“Educate yourselves because we’ll need all your intelligence. Stir yourselves because we’ll need all your enthusiasm. Organize yourselves because we’ll need all your strength.” -Gramsci
It can be overwhelming to live in this world of inequality and injustice. It’s very tempting to “check out” and disengage. Gramsci reminds us that we need all the power our people hold to advance our struggles. Taking the limitations imposed on us by systems of oppression as opportunities to question, study, learn, and engage in collective struggle can serve as a source of inspiration to move forward. The study of our history and how our movements and people are connected across the world can help develop strong, sharp, political analyses and strategies that are essential to enacting systemic change.
Why must we teach?
“Without revolutionary theory, there is no revolutionary movement.” – Lenin
Our current education systems do not reflect the interests of the working class. It fails to develop our class consciousness and give us the information we need. In order to build strong movements on the left, we have to educate, analyze, debate, and share the theories that emerge from our radical traditions and our organizational processes. If you hold onto knowledge and not share it, then expanding our collective knowledge and growing our movement becomes harder. If we don’t teach, the potential of building a revolutionary movement decreases.
How you can learn…
Engage in movement, ask questions, be critical, take action, make mistakes, and learn from experiences in struggle and history!
Here are some resources:
- Explore our political education platform that is full of resources and self(collective) study guides! Politicaleducation.peoplesforum.org.
- Organize your own book club with 1804 Books, with reading guides and tools to keep you and your comrades committed to learning about global struggle.
- We offer a wide range of accessible courses, in both mini-course and semesterly formats. Sign up for our email newsletter for updates!
How you can teach…
Everyone has something to teach! Every student can be a teacher, and every teacher is a student. Any space can be a classroom. You can teach out on the streets. You can teach during dinner with your family and friends. You can teach through organizing in your communities and workplaces.
If you have an idea for a course or workshop, get in touch! Let us support you in your teaching.
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