By Lindsay H-P. and Brett R.
Are you new to socialism? Or have you been a socialist for years, or even decades? However long you’ve been a socialist, however long you’ve been a DSA member, however many socialist words and acronyms you understand, YOU can benefit from political education. We invite both experienced and inexperienced socialists to join us in our chapter political education work.
Why should DSA members care about political education? The National Political Education Committee of DSA outlines five reasons: (1) We don’t learn class politics in school, (2) Political education builds democracy within the organization, (3) We use political education to define our politics, (4) Political education is where we learn to argue our politics and convince others to join us, and (5) Political education helps build our campaigns.
With an eye towards these points, and as part of our chapter priority campaign Building a Stronger North Jersey, the chapter re-formed its political education working group this spring. Political education has been an integral part of our chapter’s work in providing opportunities for chapter members to learn about campaigns and engage more deeply with focus issues of our working groups at our monthly chapter meetings. The Political Education working group aims to deepen and supplement this work.
The Political Education working group includes members who have been a part of NNJDSA for some time, as well as newer members (including yours truly!) with an inter est in and commitment to the value of ongoing learning.
Our conversations this spring focused on what our goals as a working group would be and in launching a Socialism 101 learning series for our chapter. Based on the National Political Education Committee’s curriculum, we have begun piloting a three-part learning series.
Our first session of the pilot series held in late July addressed the question “What is capitalism?” The second session on August 31st was focused on the question “What is Social ism?” and the third session, anticipated in September, will ad dress “Why the working class?” We plan to continue to begin this series again in the Fall after we complete it the first time around, so don’t worry if you missed it the first time around!
We are excited to bring renewed focus and energy to political education in the NNJDSA and look forward to learning together with our comrades. If you would like to get involved please join one of our working group meetings. We typically meet bi-weekly on Wednesdays via Zoom. You can join via the NNJ DSA calendar. Look out for more Information about upcoming Socialism 101 sessions in general communications to the chapter.