Elton LK: [00:00:00] You're listening to class, an official podcast to the Democratic Socialists of America National Political Education Committee. My name is Elton LK.
Before Bernie Sanders, 2016 presidential campaign. Few people in America were even familiar with the term Democratic socialism. Local, local DSA chapters. Hosted Socialist Night School events to help educate their members. Recently introduced to socialism in places like New York, Washington, DC, Chicago, and Oakland to name A few Socialist Night School created an opportunity for those new to socialism to get to interact and engage with their comrades in a safe space.
I helped start my. Local chapter, socialist Night School program. It was an exciting opportunity. It has been one of my favorite ways of being engaged within DSA, and I have to say even better than the events themselves, was, when a group of [00:01:00] organizers and attendees would migrate over to a nearby bar to hang out and get to know each other.
In today's episode, we talk with Guy Brown, Molly Kohane and Evan Murky. They are members of the National Political Education Committee. Evan is the chair. They will explain more about what the National Political Education Committee is and they'll explain much more about Socialist Night School.
What is Socialist Night School?
Molly: So Socialist Night School is a core element of DSA political education. It's typically a one and a half to two hour chapter level event that covers a particular topic of interest to socialists. Can be anything from a local campaign to big questions of what is socialism or what is imperialism. They're generally open to the public, so they're accessible to new members and more seasoned members and to non-members who [00:02:00] are curious about learning more about socialism. And they aim to be both in depth enough to appeal to more seasoned, experienced members, and. Straightforward enough and sufficiently discussion-based to also be accessible to newer or non-members.
They're called Socialist Night School because they're typically held on a weekday evening to fit into as many people's schedules as possible. We think they're a great tool for education discussion, getting to know comrades, socializing.
Elton LK: And maybe I should have asked you this question first, but, what is impact? We've done this podcast for a long time and I've mentioned the National Political Education Committee, and I've talked a little bit about it, but I've never actually explained what impact is.
Guy Brown: So Pec , has been around since the 2019 convention, we, were kind of created to fill in that gap of doing political education at a national level. So these night schools [00:03:00] were kind of , the first things a lot of chapters and more, or, you know, traditional chapters have been doing for a little while, especially with like the uptick since 20 15, 20 16.
But, those chapters had a lot of like infrastructure there to do things like this. And that we were created to provide, a national way to give kind of structure and training and help to get chapters off the ground and running programs like Socialist High School, along with doing like many other things, like national events.
Developing curriculums. we've developed what is socialism, what is capitalism? Why the working class, and a few other new ones that are gonna be debuting soon. But we are basically the catchall for any political education or trainings in DSA.
Elton LK: Why has Socialist Night School been important to local DSA chapters that have hosted night school events?
Molly: I think that, socialist Night School embodies two of the most important, elements of DSA as both a socialist organization with a socialist platform [00:04:00] and a big 10 organization with. Different tendencies, different perspectives among our membership, different levels of theoretical background or, experience organizing. so one of the things that is important about Socialist Night School is that it helps members get on the same page with each other. , it helps form that theoretical basis for. Moving forward as, as a unified chapter, as and as a unified organization. And at the same time, it does let members talk about things that they might disagree about. , address and learn about different tendencies so that, we are building a democratic organization where members have enough background and enough shared knowledge to really be able to participate, and. Carry forth a, a vision that resonates with them. I also think it's really important as a way to get to know comrades.
Sometimes socialist night schools are organized, in conjunction with a member social or, often when they're in person, they're includes an element of more social type [00:05:00] discussions. So both as a. Educational tool and as a way to get to know comrades. It can be really useful for chapters and useful to members
Guy Brown: I think like night schools are really great for chapter development, there are great ways to kind of develop leadership and facilitation skills and all of these, give newer members or less experienced members a great a to like. Flex those organizer muscles But these are all skills that like, we need to like, take out as organizers into the outside, , as well. So they're like really great for building up kind of your next cadre of organizers. , and I think they're also, , as Molly was saying, like a fantastic recruitment tool . Asking people to come to the, you know, the chapter meeting or maybe a campaign meeting.
You know, it might be a lot and overwhelming for folks, but coming to like a night school is definitely an easier on-ramp to engage with the chapter and with socialism.
Elton LK: What resources does the National Political Education Committee provide for local chapters conducting Socialist night school events?[00:06:00]
Guy Brown: We've, , recorded several of our trainings that we do fairly regularly. So those are up on the website and we will soon be making a socialist night school resource page. But on top of that, we have, you know, many. Other like curriculum guides for running a night school. So we have examples from other chapters, lesson plans, basically, that we've built ourselves to run from our own curriculum that we've designed the past two or three terms as pec.
And we have a sign up. Form on our website where you can ask for any help and we will gladly, , consult with you, to help you kind of work through any problems you may have in getting your political education program going or your night school running, anything like that. So, you know, if you're an experienced, Teacher, but maybe need some help with like the socialist curriculum part of it. We can get you there or if you know your, your socialist theory and maybe have some facilitation work, we can, uh help you, uh, with all that.
Molly: we also act as kind of a clearinghouse [00:07:00] for Socialist Night School materials that chapters have made. So, npac designed Socialist Night School materials., include a full lesson plan, discussion, questions, readings. we have limited time and capacity, and we've only made a few full socialist night school modules, whereas chapters around the country have created socialist night school programming on all kinds of interesting topics from eco socialism to the history of the Russian Revolution and, . While not all of those have the full lesson plan or complete slides, , we also think they can be incredibly useful for chapters who are looking to develop. , night school programs on more specific topics beyond the what is socialism, what is capitalism, why the working class, , modules that MPEC has designed.
, so those are also available on our website, and, , chapters are also free to and encouraged to submit any Socialist night [00:08:00] school materials that you've prepared that you think other chapters would benefit from using.
Evan: I will, also add that we recently launched, a catalog of all of the events that we've done from the very early days of NEX till now, and it will be, uh, continually expanded, resource for chapters to use. And educators to use. While they are longer events that aren't necessarily designed for socialist night schools, they do cover a wide range of topics with plenty of, expert, people in their field who can speak to, different issues in socialist organizing, that would be very valuable for, DSA members to lean on in developing new curriculum for themselves as well.
Elton LK: What topics are commonly addressed in Socialist Night School events?
Molly: I think of Socialist Night School topics as spanning four or so different categories. There are.introductory socialist Night School topics that, chapters very commonly will run, you know, repeated socialist night schools on what is socialism, what is capitalism, [00:09:00] the role of labor, why DSA focuses on the working class. Then there are the more specific kind of deep dive topics where you might do a socialist night school all about a socialist response to housing or a socialist response to imperialism. There are also socialist night schools that are organized less around a particular topic and more around a particular reading or a particular lecture of interest.
So for example. I recently attended a, a socialist night school in the East Bay, , around a book called Drug Cartels Do Not Exist, And, , the focus was on that particular text as a basis for the night school.
there's a, a related category that is just topics of interest to specific chapters, whether that's a night school around understanding a local campaign or a local election, perhaps debating, a resolution that's being raised in, in a chapter. those are the main categories, and [00:10:00] obviously there's, there's some overlap and, and quite a lot of range within each of those.
Guy Brown: Yeah, I think that hits all of 'em real well. I do wanna call out some of our more enterprising chapters that have, started building semesters of kind of grouped, , night schools and running, Six or eight , at a time and planning those out in advance. And they're all, they're all connected.
But, you know, that's certainly goals that, when you're starting out to, to strive for, but don't feel like you have to do that immediately. And then I guess also, I think some folks might use the Socialist Night School tag for trainings and we can, I don't know if those are technically, but you know, you can use your branding to, to do trainings as well for your chapter.
Elton LK: Socialist Night School. Tries to avoid peer lectures and focuses more on participation. So why and and how do you do that?
Guy Brown: Yeah, I think when we, you know, wanted to start planning these, we wanted to, you know, as socialists make things that are more participatory, [00:11:00] more about the group, more democratic and the little decent of everyone coming in and having a little bit of ownership about it. And, you know, we are coming from a lot of different places and we wanna share those experiences and questions around.
The group that is attending. , so we get like a more holistic kind of experience and approach as we connect the, those theories with our practice. And there's a lot of like pedagogical theories. Obviously many of us have read, , pedagogically oppressed and like taken that to like this planning.
a lot of this is kind of like baked into like making, we don't have like a lot of democratic spaces and obviously the meetings, are democrat in a way, but like, we wanna try to make sure that everyone participates. Whereas meetings obviously has kind of a, you know, a buy-in and an experience and a, you know, a little bit more to it. So we wanted to like build a space where everybody can be part of that.
And then also, getting rid of the lectures. 'cause that puts a lot of burden on. The creators, and you know, it's a kind of a hard bar to get over and a lot of people don't have time or that experience. So we wanted to give folks [00:12:00] like a, an easier way to both facilitate and participate by making it more democratic and participatory as well.
Elton LK: So along those lines, what if you're new to socialism? Can you still start a Socialist night school in your local chapter?
Molly: Absolutely. the point of socialist night school is very much learning with comrades, through reading and discussion. Definitely no, prior experiences necessary. I think a, a model socialist night school will be well over half discussion, if not, closer to two thirds. Socialist Night school trainings, we model some strategies for. Running a socialist night school without someone having a obvious basis in, in the subject, including doing jigsaw readings where people are doing readings and talking about readings in real time during the session. coming up with ways that readings are in conversation with each other and sometimes in disagreement with each other. The lesson plans we advocate are very much designed to meet people where they [00:13:00] are. And all of that being said, I think if you're new to socialism, it is a fabulous idea to start a Socialist Night school program. And also sometimes we as nec, get requests from new members for mentorship who want to start an a socialist night school program in their chapter.
And it turns out their chapter already has a. robust socialist night school program or a political education committee that's working on starting it. if you're new to socialism or new to DSA, we would love to support you in developing a socialist night school program. And also, you do not have to reinvent the wheel and, definitely check and see what your chapter is already up to.
Evan: There's, a few things I also wanna highlight that I think would be important for people interested in starting their own night school, or expanding anything that they're currently doing. First is not to be intimidated by any lack of. Perceived expertise on subject matter. While it's always great to have somebody in the room who does know what they're talking about, not everybody knows everything and we always stand to learn more, which is why the democratic element [00:14:00] is really important. You know, not just in terms of empowering people to participate in a democratic space in a way that maybe they're not used to doing. And, practicing some of the politics that we're putting forward. But at the same time, , when you connect people's personal experiences, particularly new members or, or would be members in a way that they haven't been able to kind of connect their experiences to the systems at large that they're interacting with. It's like when we use the term capitalism or socialism, when we describe these things. Rather than bringing it in in abstract terms or very academic terms, bringing it down to earth and allowing people to themselves start to construct, an image about how their lives fit into these systems, and then develop critiques around them.
And then to do that with your comrades, it's a much more effective model at education. Especially having the humility to say, I don't know entirely what I'm talking about is a very valuable thing. that creates the space for learning in a way that pretending that, you know, what you're talking about, , is not quite as effective.
Elton LK: what kind of preparations are necessary in, in advance of an [00:15:00] event? what does that look like?
Evan: It depends first on whether you're planning for something in person or online, because the, the logistics behind that is a, is a little bit different. But generally speaking you wanna make sure that if there's materials that need to be read in advance, that you have those prepared and that they're easily accessible.
So for example, if it's a book club, making sure people have access to the books, articles, and so on, whatever people need to participate. I also usually find that having a floor of participation where there's either. You know, come whether you've read anything or not, or come having read at least this minimum, making that clear so that everybody's on the same page when they arrive is really important. , if you have slides, having those prepared, . Whatever, , other, , presenting means that you need to have for that, whether it's in person or, or over, , zoom, for example. , but a lot of the preparation for me really comes down to the work of making sure that people show up and are prepared to be part of the conversation. , and then kind of like I was saying before, with the, , the Democratic element, , they can get [00:16:00] accessible. 'cause you know, we're, we're working in a, a system where people don't have a ton of free time. But they are very interested in participating, so trying to create tier of engagement where somebody can just show up and participate in the conversation, or someone who has done the reading can contribute their thoughts based on that reading. I think that's really important for cultivating an effective educational space.
Molly: Something that. We on nec do before trainings that I think is also useful in a Socialist Night school context is before the Socialist night school, whether it's a week before or in the half an hour before the event starts, having what we call a run of show meeting where you gather all of the facilitators or all of the volunteers who are helping with the event. And go through what every minute of the event is going to look like and what everyone's role is going to be. So making sure people have access to the discussion questions and that the discussion questions are clear. Deciding if anyone's going to [00:17:00] lead a short lecture or mini lesson portion. making sure that the tech is working, making sure that that person knows how long they have and feels prepared to speak. Going over whether. You'll take questions during the presentation or after, making sure that facilitators of discussion sections or breakout groups understand what their role is.
Especially because of what Guy was saying earlier about how Socialist Night School can be such a great environment for people who have less organizing experience or are newer to, to DSA, to get some practice doing, organizing things.
, I think making sure that people. Feel totally prepared and totally capable of what you're asking them to do. Whether that's, keeping time or managing a zoom room or leading a breakout discussion, is really important, both to make sure the event runs smoothly and also make sure that your volunteers are people who want to keep coming back and, feel that it's a, good and [00:18:00] useful experience for them too.
Guy Brown: yeah, as a facilitator, the, the run of show, We've been doing this for three years now and we still go over it before almost every training. It's really helpful and make sure that we're staying on time and, keeping things moving for our portion of it.
if you're kind of a little nervous about it, you can always go over and practice it. when I first started teaching, kind of delivering stuff in the mirror to go over it and make sure it was ready for the next day. if you're gonna make a slideshow, I.
go through it at least once, or if you're, really kind of feeling anxious about it, like go through it a few times and just kind of work on it there, and then next time you do a night school it'll be easier and, and so on. So I think, you know, just kind of giving yourself space and time to prep as a facilitator is gonna make that experience so much better for the participants and on you.
Then, you know, I think also, another big thing to prepare. So, you know, we kinda talked about like making the physical space and all that. If you are in a physical space and you're gonna do breakouts, making sure there's separate tables or like areas you can move chairs, obviously on Zoom or whatever you can do, make sure you [00:19:00] have those breakout rooms set up or enabled from the beginning.
And then also, Make sure the word's out there, try to make sure it's out like six weeks or a month before. Use a variety of ways, to make sure people know about it, especially if it's public. You know, social media, your email list, and Make sure folks know about it and are reminded of it.
Elton LK: how do you keep one person from dominating the conversation?
Molly: This is a really good question, and I think there are a couple of strategies that can happen at different points during the event. One is, as guy mentioned, I think setting norms at the very beginning, I think emphasizing the idea of stepping up and stepping back, trying to be reflective about how much you're participating, throughout the event, we like the idea of progressive stack, which, is I'm sure familiar to. DSA members nationwide, the idea is that the facilitator or the discussion leader will keep a stack of people [00:20:00] who want to talk, but it doesn't necessarily go in order of who raised their hands. the facilitator has discretion to prioritize people who have spoken less or people who might have some personal connection to the topic or, otherwise that the group would benefit from. Hearing from earlier on, in a discussion. Then on a more nitty gritty level, I think a really useful way to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to share their thoughts is the strategy of breakout groups with report backs or even pairing people off to think about a question, write it down, share with the partner, and come back to the main group.
Guy Brown: We call it Think Inc. Pair Share. so that people who are more reticent or less confident about their opinions about a topic do have some time to reflect and share in a lower stakes setting before coming back to the big group. Yeah, those small group breakouts are great for kind of. Getting folks going, especially, folks that might not be, as inclined to like talk early on or share in [00:21:00] front of the big group. It's a great way to kind of get, you know, opened up and, and, and talking and feeling comfortable as so you can share with the larger group.
And I think, as mentioned, those community agreements, are great to always go back and reference, in this case, which I think is mainly the ones that usually. You have to call back on, but the, you know, step up, step back or share the air, is one that I think, you know, we, we probably encounter the most.
And I think it is kind of hard to always be, enforcing with other adults. That, but I, you gotta get real comfortable with it. you'd be like, yeah, I, I love
that you like, were to share with us so much, but other people kinda wanna hear from them and a different perspective and, gently, redirecting in another, another person.
Elton LK: And I know that Impact continues to have trainings for, local chapters and individuals that want to, learn more about how to host Socialist Night School events. What kind of, resources and [00:22:00] events do you have coming up?
Molly: we have been, running a series of events called Talking to Non Socialists about Palestine, which is sort of half training, half space for. Learning more about the history and current context of Israel and Palestine, and, doing some personal reflection toward having, organizing conversations about Palestine with people who are potentially sympathetic but not yet entirely on board. so keep an eye out for information about that, which we'll, hopefully we're planning to run another session. Likely, late February or early March. And we currently, as Elton mentioned earlier, we have a recorded, socialist Night School. Trainings. our next live training will probably be at some point in April or May.
So do keep an eye out for that. They're, they're really fun, I think, to, to attend live, but we also do have recorded materials, including recordings of actual sessions and [00:23:00] the slides and resources from those sessions
Elton LK: This is Class, an official podcast of the Democratic Socialists of America National Political Education Committee. My name is Elton LK. Thank you to Casey Stikker, who deserves a big thanks for sound engineering and theme music. Thank you to Palmer Conrad for editing. If you have experience with audio engineering, we are looking for some additional help to support Casey.
Get in touch with us at political education@dsausa.org.
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