How to Spread the Word

7/28/2019 How to Spread the Word

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Leo Huberman (1903-1968) was an edito r o f Monthly Review

This essay is a reprint f rom the December 1967 of Monthly Review . It is dedicated t o the revival of the U.S.labor movement af ter nearly three decades of retreat and inactivity. Leo Huberman was one of the f ounders o f Monthly Review , and a devot ed propo nent and practitioner of labor education.

The Editors

In the late l930s I sat in on a course of education for trade unionists. That these workers had a desire to learnwas evident by their enrollment in a class held in the evenings, af ter t hey had done a days work. That t heteacher knew his subject was manifest f rom the brilliance of his lecture. That the combination of st udentsdesire and teachers grasp of the material did not result in learning was obvious f rom the f act that befo re thehour was o ver, several members o f the class were asleep; it was apparent, t oo , f rom the decline in enrollmentthe next class was attended by only half the st udents, and the third time the class met, less than a quarter who had signed up were in attendance.

This, by and large, has been the experience in trade union education in the United States . Union of f icials,badgered by the pleas o f the education directo r to appropriate the small sum needed f or t rade union classes ,f inally yield, reluctant ly . The classes are held, and they f izzle. The union o f f icials t hen declare triumphantly,See, the workers dont want t o learn. T he teacher, saddened by his experience, agrees. But the co nclusion istotally wrong: it isnt that the workers do not want to learnthat is seldom the case. The cause of the failure isthat the teacher does not know how to teach.

This experience is no t unique to trade union classes . It happens with radical groups , to o. And it happens inunder-developed count ries where revolutionary ardor f ills new classrooms with enthusiast ic workers andpeasantsand poo r teaching, just as quickly, empties t hose classroo ms.

This need not happen. Workers and peasants , no matter how impoverished their previous educationalbackground, will stay the course, and they will learn, if the t eaching they get is good teaching.

What is goo d teaching? What did that t eacher in the trade union class do wrong? He had talked f or about t enminutes when a hand went up and a st udent asked a quest ion. It was a t houghtf ul question. The teacher sho uld have felt f latteredhad said so mething which had stimulated one of his list eners to think. He shouldhave felt like hugging the quest ionerinstead, he was annoyed. The smoo th f low of his carefully plannedlecture had been interrupted and he put of f the quest ioner with Ill come to that later.

His mistake was in being concerned only with subject matter; he should have been concerned with students. Hewas a lecturer, not a teacher. The lecturer t eaches subject matt er; the t eacher teaches people. The dif f erenceis crucial.

Obvious ly, where classes are very large and the lecturer stands bef ore so many f aces that he cannot pos sibly

know them as individual human beings, go od t eaching by def inition, is not f easible. Here the lecturer do es hisob well if he masters his material and presents it in as lively a manner as poss ible. But that trade union classhad only l7 students and in a class t hat size (up to a limit of 25) it is easy f or t he teacher to get to know hisst udents as individual human beings with varying backgrounds, and go od teaching is pos sible.

It is po ss ible because the teacher can base his lesson o n the background and experience of the s tudents and,by skillful questioning, get them to participate in the learning process . The s ubject matt er is no longer an end initself but a vehicle f or making the st udents t hink, f or giving them to ols f or understanding the world and their pos ition in it. From the lecture hall, students emerge with a body of information; f rom a goo d classroo mdiscussion in which they have part icipated actively because the subject matt er is keyed to their experience,st udents emerge with an analytical approach to problems, with a comprehension o f underlying f orces.


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The subject of the f irst lesson in that trade union course was an introduction to the capitalist system. As I saidabove, the teacher gave a brilliant lecture beginning with f eudalism, the change to capitalism, the words of KarlMarx, exploitation of the working class , the whole bit. But he wasnt teaching , he was telling . He was t elling theworking class in words what it had experienced in life, inst ead of drawing f rom that experience the analysis hewanted the st udents to make.

Here below is a summary outline of the way the same subject was taught t o a group of trade unionists in aworkers summer schoo l. It should be not ed that in this class and tho se that f ollowed, no one went to sleep,the lively discussion was enjoyed by both teacher and students, the students were enthusiastic about theschoo l, and test s sho wed that t hey had, in f act, learned what was taught t hem.

No t ape recording of the class session is available so it should be understo od t hat t he questions and answersare only a fragment o f the whole, list ed merely to show the approach, to give the f lavor of the discussion, t oclarify the technique.

Questions

Where do yo u work? | answer

Why do you work? | answer

Does the man who o wns the f actory work alongside you? | answer

Have you ever seen the stockholders of the corporation working in the plant? | answer

But you all agreed you had to work in order to live; now you t ell me there are some people who live witho utworking. How come? | answer

Then there are two gro ups o f people in our so ciety. One group, to which you belong, lives by? And the o ther group t o which your employer belongs lives by? | answer

Answers

Students give the names of companies where they are employed. (This ques tion serves the additional purposeof helping the teacher get t o know his s tudents and the s tudents t o know each other in their f irst meeting).| next question

Have to work in order to live; Cant eat witho ut working; Just got ta get that dough each week to pay the rent.| next question

(Laughter) Thatll be the day; Ive never seen him; My plant is owned by a big corporation. | next quest ion

No, they dont work there; Of course not. | next question

They dont have to work because they own the f actory; They get prof its f rom the business. | next question

Working. Owning.

(Teacher writes on blackboard)

2 groups

Workers live by working

Employers live by owning
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Questions

Have you always had work? | answer

Mary says her plant was clos ed down for over a year. But she works in a textile mill. Didnt peo ple need theshirts her mill turned out? And Henrys ref rigerato r plant, he t ells us , was shut do wn for f ive mont hs; didntpeople want ref rigerato rs anymore? | answer

You mean to s ay that even though people needed shirts and wanted ref rigerato rs, unless the owner made aprof it, he closed up? | answer

What you are saying, then, is that in our syst em of production, goods will be produced only if t here is a prof it?| answer

Was t hat always t rue? | answer

Why dont t hey make shirts, and ref rigerato rs, and washing machines, and autos f or t hemselves now? | answer

Answers

Yes. I was laid of f f or f ive mont hs once. My factory was closed during the depression f or o ver a year. | nextquestion

Sure, people needed shirts but t hey couldnt pay f or t hem because they didnt have any money, so t he bosshad to shut the mill down. When Henrys boss couldnt sell his ref rigerato rs, he closed the plant. If I were him Idhave done the same thing. Hes gotta make a profit or he must go out of business. | next question

Yes, hes in business t o make money. If he does nt make money, he shuts down the plant. It doesnt matter if hes a goo d guy or bad guy, unless he makes a prof it, he has to clos e up. | next question

Thats right. Unless theres a profit, theres no production. | next question

Guess s o. No, there was a time when people made what they needed f or themselves, when they needed it.| next question

Dont have the money. You need f acto ries and raw materials and expensive equipment t o make the thingspeople want nowadays.

Lets sum up what we have discussed so f ar. You say that in our sys tem of production there are 2 groups(teacher points to blackboard):

Workers live by working; Employers live by owning

The employers live by owning (teacher writes on blackboard).

The employers own:

the f acto ries equipment, machinery raw materials

the means of production

The employers own what is necessary to produce goods in our society. This system of production is called(teacher writes on blackboard):

CAPITALISM
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Objectnot to produce goo ds as needed but to make a profit

Now lets continue.

Questions

The owners of the means o f production, the employers, are also called capitalist s. Which of the two gro ups,workers o r capitalists , have more po wer? Why? | answer

What gives them more power? | answer

Which group has the mos t po wer with the government? | answer

Answers

The bosses have the mos t po wer because they have more money. The capitalists have the mos t po wer because if t hey dont give you a job, you cant pay your bills. The capitalists have the mos t po wer because if you dont work you st arve, if they dont go to work they have enough money to live on. | next quest ion

They own the means o f production. | next quest ion

Let me answer that ques tion by reading a quotation f rom a book written a long t ime ago:

The f acts o f the situation amount to this: that a comparatively small number of men control t he water powerthat t he same number of men largely cont rol the railroads; t hat by agreements handed around amongthemselves they cont rol prices, and that same group of men cont rol the larger credits of the country Themasters of the government of the United States are the combined capitalists and manufacturers of the United States .

The man who wrot e that was in a pos ition to know. He was the president o f the United Stat es when he wroteit. His name was Woodrow Wilson.

In our next lesson, we will discuss what the working class can do to protect itself from the power of thecapitalist class .

It is apparent f rom this lesson t hat a discuss ion does no t mean merely aimless t alk leading here, there, andeverywhere. The goo d teacher must know his subject as well as t he lecturer; he must have the same masteryof his material but, in addition, he must give thought t o the best ways of presenting it in terms o f theexperience of his st udents. He must have a lesso n plan. This does not mean such st rict adherence to his planthat he wont be quick to pick up and pursue this or that interest ing point arising f rom the students responsebut it do es mean that he must no t be sidetracked indef initely. His lesson must have a beginning, a middle, andan end. He must know before t he discussion begins the basic points he is go ing to make and he must makethem.

A key po int to remember is that the discussio n must never be allowed to become a dialogue between t eacher and a st udent with the other students f eeling that t hey need not listen until a quest ion is directed specificallyto them. The students must listen caref ully to ot her student responses as well as to teacher questions. Thereare techniques f or establishing this continual participation. Do you agree with what John just said, Philip? No?Then whats your answer to the question?

In this connection, the good t eacher never makes the mistake of calling upon s tudents in order. When the f irstquestion is directed to Student A, the next to Student B, and the next to Student C, there is no need for Student Z to pay any attent ion because he knows precisely when he will be invited t o participate; until thatmoment arrives the discussion can become irrelevant to him.
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There is an even more import ant reaso n f or no t calling upon st udents in a set o rder. The good teacher isconcerned less with s ubject matter than with the people he is teaching. He wants them to learn to think. If he isalert and has done his job well, all the st udents will have participated in the discuss ion bef ore it is over and hewill then be aware of their background and capabilities. He will know his students, and consequent ly he candirect ques tions t o them in accordance with their varying ability. The easy quest ions will go to the less ablestudentsit is important for them to get a feeling of accomplishmentand the more difficult, more subtlequestions will be directed to the brighter studentsthey must be extended to the utmost or they will loseinterest.

The good teacher never teaches a lesson witho ut using the blackboard, and he should insist that the basicpoints he writes on the blackboard should be recorded by the students in a notebook, along with other notesthey choose to take themselves. There is a sound reason for the blackboard and the notebook: some peoplelearn by hearing; some people learn by seeing; some people learn only by using their muscles; and almosteverybody learns best by a combination o f all three. Thus, the discussion itself will be suited to tho se wholearn by hearing; the basic points on the blackboard will help those who learn by seeing; and writing in thenotebook will drive the points home for those who must use their muscles to learn. The notebook with thef undamentals o f each lesso n therein recorded will be of use to the st udent f or review purposes and, for t hebrightes t o nes, it can become a tool f or t eaching ot hers when the need arises. And the need already exists f or more classes f or workers, newcomers to the radical movement, and peasants in the underdeveloped countries.

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How to Spread the Word