What Does an RC Class Consist Of?
What does an RC class consist of? The communication of useful information that people otherwise would not get. That’s the content of it. How do you communicate it? One way is by handing out literature and asking people to read and report. Great classes occur in which people are asked to read one article from Sisters* and report on it. They reluctantly take it home and look at it. Then they notice another article and read the whole damn issue—and they come back with their eyes in flames. “Ah ha!”
Wherever you do it, the communication of useful information is a class. You’ll be having a class in the elevator that will last a minute and a half. Everyone wants to know something useful that they didn’t know before. The farmers I grew up among would come back from town and say, “Well, I learned something new today.” That was a high point: “I learned something new.” Sometimes it was just nonsense they heard, but at least it was new. It wasn’t the same damn Russian thistle that had been in front of their door for three years.
Harvey Jackins
From the July 1986 Peace and Disarmament Activists’ Workshop
* Sisters is the RC journal about women’s liberation.