Welcome to Rolling Earth


This website offers worker educators, activists, and rank-and-file workers tools for education for democratic self-organization. I hope it will provide a space for discussion and exploration of the use of "popular education" in worker organizing -- guided by a commitment to grassroots, rank-and-file democracy. See the website guidelines for more about the mechanics of the site. - Matt Noyes

Thu, 07/08/2010 - 00:56 — Matt Noyes

La democratie...est l'action qui sans cesse arrache aux gouvernements oligarchiques le monopole de la vie publique et a la richesse la toute-puissance sur les vies... Elle n'est portee par aucune necessite historique et n'en porte aucune. Elle n'est confiee qu'a la constance de ses propres actes.

— Jacques Ranciere

La Haine de la Democratie

Run on story

Mon, 06/21/2010 - 21:02 — Matt Noyes

A simple way to help people tell a story by providing prompts that keep the story moving and demand richer description and reflection.

Sitting in a circle, participants take turns telling a story with the facilitator (or as Boal says, the Jokeri) providing the links:

Participant 1: "My friend called me this morning and told me she was going to quit school..."

Joker: "because..."

Participant 2: "...she needs to make money and she feels like school has no meaning."

Joker: "But..."
...

Games and roles

Mon, 06/14/2010 - 23:17 — Matt Noyes

What makes games useful in learning is not just that they get people participating, that they involve physical movement and responding to a changing environment, that they require creativity and quick responses, that they create a kind of mini-world in which what we say and do has immediate and obvious relevance and measurable impact, not just that they are fun...

Mon, 06/14/2010 - 22:43 — Matt Noyes

La societe inegalitaire ne peut fonctionner que grace a une multitude de relations egalitaires.

— Jacques Ranciere

La Haine de la Democratie

Mon, 06/14/2010 - 22:37 — Matt Noyes

Democracy is not a type of constitution nor a form of society. The people's power is not that of the population amassed, not that of the majority, not that of the working classes. It is simply the power that belongs to those who are no more entitled to govern than to be governed.

— Jacques Ranciere

La Haine de la Democratie

Mon, 06/14/2010 - 22:29 — Matt Noyes

Pas de maitre qui ne s'endorme et ne risque ainsi de laisser filer son esclave, pas d'homme qui ne soit capable d'en tuer un autre, pas de force qui s'impose sans avoir a legitimer, a reconnaitre donc, pour que l'inegalite puisse fonctionner, une egalite irreductible.

— Jacques Ranciere

La Haine de la Democratie

Talking Chits

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 22:36 — Matt Noyes

This is a simple tool for equalizing participation in small group discussion and raising awareness of how much people speak. It's probably not original, but I can't recall seeing it before.

Flow:
In a smallish group (ten people) in one of my courses, I prepared a set of chits -- small rectangular pieces of card stock (cut up index cards) -- and gave each participant five chits (including me).

Fri, 05/14/2010 - 01:09 — Matt Noyes

...des qu'un homme demande une methode, un explicateur, un maitre, il est esclave, il est abruti.

— Joseph Jacotot

Thu, 01/21/2010 - 07:09 — Matt Noyes

C'est le prix à payer. On ne peut pas vouloir le nombre et ne pas vouloir le désordre. On ne peut pas vouloir à moitié. Il faut juste mieux dormir et continuer à vouloir.

— Francois Begaudeau

Mon, 10/19/2009 - 23:23 — Matt Noyes

He questioned union leadership. In my religion, that's a sin.

— Joe McDermott

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