David Greene 
Unfit to Be a Slave 

Out of over 40 years of experience in adult or worker education, David Greene brings us tools to develop consciousness and leadership for social change. Based on the power of our huge working class to understand this economic system and to organize, this book aims to empower educators, students and other workers with science applied to solving the serious social problems we face today. We are confronted with the issues of low-wage, part-time and temporary jobs, inadequate housing, health care, and transportation, inequality and injustice, at the same time as the greatest concentration of wealth in human history. The disparity of wealth and control has never been greater. The only way out of this deepening crisis is through education. To change this we need understanding that is based on the clearest reflection of the real world. Unfit to Be a Slave employs the tools of theory and informed practice, to guide us to create spaces to share experience, study history’s lessons and develop consciousness. As a collective and organized force we can transform our communities, our countries and our world. Mythologies that tell people, ‘Things don’t change, ’ ‘We can’t do anything, ’ or ‘It has always been this way, ’ prevent poor and working class populations from taking necessary action on behalf of their own lives and families. Unfit to Be a Slave is meant to be a guide to education for social change.

Table of Content

Foreword; Acknowledgements; Learning for Life: Adult Education as Empowerment; My Story; Popular Education; There Are No Neutrals Here; Practice and Theory; A Fresh Look; Preparation for the Job Market is Not Enough!; Listening and Relevancy; Limitations and Possibilities of the Existing System; An Auto Strike in West Virginia; A Fair Elections Committee; The Haitian Revolution; A Shout Out! Join the Field of Worker-Education!; Dialogue Questions for Teachers and Students; Questions for Chapter One; The Field of Adult or Worker Education; Millions of Adult Students; Types of Literacy; Students and Potential Students; Literacy Programs; Bake Sale to Support Victims of Hurricane Katrina; A Wealth of Experience; Teachers; Validating the Experience of Adult Education Students; Teachers and Organizing; Stability and Voice; Worker or Adult Education Needs to be Redefined; The Status of Adult Education Today; Questions for Chapter Two; Gatekeepers and Social Control; What Do Adult Students Find When They Seek Out Classes?; Two Roads: Education for Liberation or Domestication?; Domesticating Missionaries and Professionals of the State; The Professional Gatekeeper; The More GEDs the Better, Right?; Gatekeeper Myths; The Ideology of Gatekeeping; Questions for Chapter Three; Political Literacy; Taking the Blinders Off; Popular Education for Students and Teachers; Teacher and Student Equality; What Do We Lose When Students Are Denied Voice?; Making Noise! Workers’ Voices Are Missing; Unspoken and Unheard Voices; A Mighty River of People; Winning or Losing; Student Voices — A Force to be Reckoned With; Who Benefits from this Silence?; Suggestions for a Critical Practice of Adult Education; “Listening Good”; Recognizing Student Knowledge; Dialogue about Adult Education; From Dialogue to Action; Student Committees; Class Content and Lesson Plans; Utilizing Public Documents and other Public Resources; Little Steps; Lesson Topics for Adult Education; Teachers Voices Too, Must be Organized; Voices for Critical Thinking and Popular Education; Questions for Chapter Four; The Political Economy and Adult Education; Political Economy — A Tool for Liberation; Surplus Value; Accumulation of Wealth; Polarization of Society; Polarization in the United States; The Base and the Superstructure of this Economic System; A Class Analysis of Adult or Worker Education; The UPS Story; Why a Class Analysis is Critical Today!; Understanding the Economy is Essential to Changing it!; A Broad Look at the Economy; Whom Do We Bail Out First?; Health Insurance Profiteers; Pharmaceutical Bandits; The Offensive Military; A Very Profitable Prison System; Stock Market Recovery; Financial and Economic Literacy; Examples of Lesson Content; Looking at Garment Industry Wages Around the World; Questions for Chapter Five; Tools for Social Change Consciousness and Social Transformation; Tools of Theory; Tools of Popular Education Practice: Political or Civic Literacy; Popular Education is Not Arranging Chairs in a Circle; Curriculum and Community; Participatory Research; Questions for Chapter Six; Spaces and Schools for Education for Liberation; From Robinson’s Cave to Freedom Schools; The Coal Miners of South Wales; Citizenship Schools and the Highlander Folk School; Labor Colleges; International Literacy Campaigns; Venezuela; Cuba; Nicaragua; Zimbabwe; Other Literacy Campaigns; International Action; The National Right to Literacy Campaign; The New York Bill of Rights for Adult Education; The Freedom School in Licking County; How the School Started; Education: Inside or Outside Institutions?; Questions for Chapter Seven; Chapter 8: Conclusion; Stand Up For Your Rights; Start a Freedom School Where You Are!; A Recruitment Call for Worker Education and Literacy; References; Index,