Using the Teacher Packet in a Class
I just led a class using the Teacher Packet of recently published RC literature. I am a relatively new RC teacher. (I started my class two years ago, when I was twenty-eight, and my assistant led it for a year while I worked in another part of the country.)
As I ran from my apartment to class, my roommate handed me my new Teacher Packet that had just arrived in the mail. I decided to share it with my students.
Two students came to class—a Brazilian man and a white woman born in the United States, both from the working class and sixty years old. I shared why we read RC literature. I said that as their teacher I am not an expert on everything; there are parts of RC theory that I haven’t yet learned. Also, the theory has a long history—since the 1950s. There is much to understand. I told them that they can’t learn it all from me and that the literature gives them a key to RC worldwide.
I opened the packet and let them see how happy it made me. It was like opening a present on my birthday! The new edition of Black Re-emergence gave me the opportunity to talk about the upcoming Black Liberation and Community Development (BLCD) Workshop that our Area Reference Person is organizing. My female student laughed and laughed when she read the title Older and Bolder. She discharged without even opening the journal! We also had a great discussion about capitalism and how to maintain hope and a big perspective while living in an exploitative system.
I lent some of the literature to the students and showed them how to purchase it. It was a great class. I am excited they now have their own connection with the literature and RC theory.
Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA
Reprinted from the e-mail discussion list for RC teachers
(Present Time 189, October 2017)