Note: The following is excerpted from Appendix B of Take Back Your Time: Fighting Overwork & Time Poverty In America (The Official Handbook for Take Back Your Time Day) to be published in July, 2003.

In this essay, Cecile Andrews offers suggestions that can make your teach-ins or meetings more lively and inclusive. You'll see that some of her ideas are different from Sean Sheehan's. She likes smaller panels, for instance. But there are no "right" ideas in these essays that need to be followed by everyone. Discuss the possibilities with other members of your local time day committee. Think about who your audience is and what your setting is. Some audiences will want formal presentations, others more personal dialogues, yet some combination of the two should be part of your event. Many people really want facts to chew on, but they also need time to discuss them with others. Consider all the ideas here and then plan your event. If you decide on a larger panel like the one Sean suggests, make sure the panelists all have something different to say, and ask them to tell stories and be personal as much as they can to help hold the audience's interest. Good luck! -- John de Graaf, Editor

To paraphrase Einstein, if you want a different result, you have to change the way you do things. In our efforts to educate people, we can't keep teaching in the same old competitive, didactic way. We have to try something different.

For instance, the primary teaching technique -- found at almost all levels of education -- is that of overwhelming students with information. We seem to believe that facts alone will change people. Yes, some people are changed by information, but most students just spit the facts back and go on about their business.Further, our conventional education focuses primarily on the individual learner, but we need to change society. How can we both transform people's lives and change the wider society? Fortunately, we don't have to start from scratch. We have a long, albeit hidden, history of education for social justice. How many people know that a few months before her history changing action, civil rights champion Rosa Parks had been to a school called Highlander -- a school for social change that continues to exist today?

Founder Myles Horton created a school rooted in the idea that wisdom lies in the people. Highlander has been credited with being at the heart of the civil rights movement, perhaps our greatest American social change campaign. People came together at Highlander and found the answers to their problems themselves. Most of all, they left Highlander inspired and emboldened, ready to dive into their communities and take action!

This is the core of educating for change -- the belief that the answers lie within the people, and that when people come together in a participatory, democratic setting, they find the answers themselves. It is a turning away from reliance on experts and authorities; it is helping people learn to think for themselves and act for the common good.

We don't really have a name for this kind of education. Folk education thrives in Denmark, but people in the U.S. assume it means basket weaving or line dancing. Some are familiar with Brazilian educator Paulo Freire's popular education, but, again, the word popular doesn't convey the right message. So what can we call it? The best I've been able to come up with is community education: education by the people, for the people, and of the people. It's education that can happen in the community, that can create community, and that can benefit the community. Community education evokes excitement, concern, involvement, and participation; it inspires action and reflection and more action.

Community education is built on respect for the individual within the community. Its foundation rests in the absolute belief in the dignity of the individual, but it goes further, assuming that people learn and change best in community, that people are most fulfilled when they contribute to the common good.

If we are really going to take back our time, we need to embrace this alternative approach to education. Conventional education is part of the status quo that promotes a feverish striving and straining to get ahead. We need education that inspires people to question, to reflect, to discern what is in their own true best interest and in the best interests of the greater good. We need education that leads people to action -- action to change their own lives, as well as change society.

This is the basic philosophy of community education: wisdom lies in the people. So how do we do it? Here are the essential ingredients:

Analysis of the Personal Story: In Paulo Freire's words, we must move beyond reading the word to reading the world. People's ideas and values must emerge from an analysis of the lessons of their own lives. When people suffer from chronic sleep deprivation, for instance, they shouldn't just take the doctor's medication, they should ask themselves what caused their problem. They must try to discern what their experience is telling them -- that you'll get sick when you work longer and longer hours.

To find answers to these questions, people must have a chance to tell their own stories. Telling your story is like writing -- you learn in the telling. The act of listening calls forth a deeper wisdom.

Small groups: One of the most effective tools of community education is the small group. It's hard to tell your personal story to a big group. (For one, there's never enough time for everyone to talk.) The larger the group, the more we become guarded; the smaller the group, the more we become intimate. Further, it's easier to form community in a smaller group. When you're sitting nose to nose with others, you become fond of them. So no matter what the size of the whole group, break up periodically into groups of three to four. Always take turns going around the circle giving people three minutes to tell their story with no interruptions. (In the beginning, people use egg timers until the three minutes becomes automatic.)

Action and Reflection: To really change, people must try out their ideas and then reflect on the outcome. People need to see life as an experiment; certainly, we learn the most from our mistakes and failures. In community education people commit to an action and return to reflect with the group.

Critical Thinking: In community education, nothing is accepted as a given. Every conventional idea is probed and tested. Most important, we must seek out alternative sources of information from our standard media -- stories that help us spot deception and manipulation. Luckily, as more and more Web sites bring us dissident information, this is getting easier. The problem is that there's so much! But when you have a group of people reading and searching and sharing, the group becomes sort of an information cooperative with everyone contributing what they've read and discovered, and no one needing to read everything. Together people search for what's really going on, moving beyond the deceptions, seeing through the manufactured consent.

Absolute Safety: If people are to learn to speak up, they need to know that aggressive attacks, sarcasm, sneering, and competitive debates are not allowed. Of course, you can disagree with others, but you can do it without trying to demolish their ideas. The leader of the group establishes rules and models of behavior that value the voice of every person and refuses to allow anyone to silence another. When people don't feel that they're being heard, they quit speaking up. If we are to gain the courage to speak up in the larger society, we need a safe place to practice!

The Activities

Teach-ins: The marks of a rousing and inspiring teach-in are the personal story, presentation of suppressed information, and commitment to action.

Effective teach-ins should have speakers who have not only studied an idea, but have lived it. For Take Back Your Time Day teach-ins, you need people who have suffered from overwork but who have also made changes -- limiting their work hours, changing jobs, cutting back to part time, quitting, or developing their own small business. We need to hear people say, "Yes, having more time is wonderful!" Next, you need some experts who can summarize what's going on in places like Europe and in this country. Finally, you need to rouse response in the participants.

Here is a suggested agenda:

1. Begin with the personal presentations. Have a panel of no more than three. Try to have the people represent different groups. Don't just have lawyers or corporate executives, have some "working people," as well, if you can. Try for gender, racial, and age diversity. Give each person strict time limitations: perhaps 5 to10 minutes, depending on the setting. (Talk with them earlier, and make sure you don't have someone deadly dull!) Save questions and comments until later.

2. Next, the participants in the audience should gather in small groups (of three) to respond with their own stories. Do this immediately, while everyone is still inspired by the speakers. With only three people in a group, everyone gets to talk and be heard. You'll see the energy of the audience go up immediately.

3. Next, move from the personal to the political realm and bring in the expert. People need to hear about the alternative approaches in Europe. This speaker can take clarification questions from the audience.

4. At this point, move to open discussion in the large group, exploring ways to work toward policy change. Have someone facilitate a large group discussion about the issues such as:
   • What will be the arguments against shorter work time and how would you answer them?

   • What would be the best tactic -- to begin with a shorter workweek, longer vacations, or more holidays?

   It's helpful to have a few people in front who can give some "expert" testimony on the questions. You might want to have someone from government, labor, or professional organizations talking about strategies. The people in the audience should be restricted to no more than three minutes or else someone will go on and on, becoming irritating and taking up valuable time. (You need a strong timekeeper.)

5. Finally, a teach-in should end with people making a commitment to some sort of action: to talk to someone, to read something, to get a study circle going, to form a committee in their professional organization, etc. People should turn back to their small groups to discuss possibilities, and then close the meeting by returning to the large group with people (volunteers) standing up and announcing their plans. By talking first in a small group, everyone makes a commitment, and by closing with the large group, the meeting ends on a high note with lots of energy! Obviously it's best to have a room with movable chairs, but people can still talk in small groups of three in fixed seats.

Study Circles

Although workshops and teach-ins are important to rally people, more effective change comes from getting people involved in longer term study and conversation. The study circle is a form of adult education and social change that is used extensively in Sweden. (Indeed, Sweden has been called a study circle democracy.)

The study circle takes the same basic format as the teach-in, but lasts over a period of weeks and occurs in a small group of four to eight people.

Here is a format:

First Meeting

1. Begin the first meeting with personal stories: people go around the circle talking about their own experiences with time. Beginning with the personal involves people at a deeper level.

2. At the first meeting, present people with some questions for them to explore in the following weeks. Have them clarify the questions and suggest some of their own. Some possible questions include:
   • How does lack of time hurt people, the community, and the planet?

   • Why do we put up with our time famine? Is there something in our national character that has lead to this?

   • What do you think people will do with extra time? Is there a danger they will just use the time to shop more? What can we do to keep that from happening?

   • What arguments against shorter work time do you anticipate? How would you respond?

   These questions can be addressed one per week over a period of five weeks -- long enough to build a sense of community, but not so long that people feel they can't commit the time. (After five weeks, study circles often go on indefinitely.)

3. Present the idea of "research." During the week, people discuss the questions with friends and coworkers. The focus is on listening, not on arguing. (You'll not only be gathering information, but listening to others -- a form of social change in itself!) Each week people return to report on their "research." They also report on newspaper and magazine articles they've seen.

Subsequent Sessions

1. Begin by discussing personal struggles with taking back your time. Have people go around the circle with each having three minutes to report.

2. Next, report on your talks with people in the community.

3. Report on reading.

4. Bring together all of the information and discuss that week's questions.

Summary

People who experience this kind of education find themselves enlivened and enlightened. They not only have new ideas, but a new energy and commitment to bring about change in their own lives and in the wider society. Teach-ins and study circles can be exciting experiences of personal and social transformation. We need these for the long haul because what we are doing is starting a national conversation about "taking back our time." People are just beginning to think about this issue. Our goal is to keep the conversation going and rally support for policy changes.

We can keep our spirits up by remembering Margaret Mead's words: "Never doubt the ability of a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens to change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."