For the afternoon portion of Thursday August 13th, students heard from Jonathan Stith about the principles and possible methods of community organizing. Mr. Stith broke down the concept of community organizing for students, differentiating between individual acts and advocacy or direct action. Many of the actions that are a part of community organizing go towards challenging an existing power structure, he said. And this power structure can be thought of in terms of the “three I’s of power: intra-personal, interpersonal, and institutional.” Mr. Stith recognized that this power model may not apply to all countries and governments, but is applicable in American democracy, and “embedded in this idea of a democracy is that as a citizen I have the power to make decisions that affect my life, and if we come together, we can affect change.” To further clarify the principles of community organizing, Mr. Stith split participants into four groups and had them try to match definitions of key terms of community organizing with their definitions; however, he divided the terms and definitions between groups so that they needed each other to complete the exercise. He then showed students a video “Stand Up” by the Youth Education Alliance, of which Mr. Stith was a founding member, so that participants could see some of the challenges of community organizing, as well as the potential for success. For his final activity, Mr. Stith had participants play a game of “Leadership Bingo,” to ultimately identify certain leadership qualities that their peers already possess. He used this activity to lay out the steps he takes to begin organizing and building a community organization.
At the end of his course, one participant noted: “you started with such a big concept and it seemed so impossible, but you broke it down and made it seem easy.” Another described his lesson as “not only food for thought, but motivational for me. I think you’re an asset…I envy people you actually organize for having you!”
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