1. Why do you want to participate in GCO 2023? What do you hope to gain from this experience?

​

2. Please describe your home community. Then describe an experience you’ve had living, working, or interacting in a community very different than your own, and how it felt.

​

3. GCO facilitators are committed to building classroom groups capable of talking, listening, and working effectively across differences of race, social class, religion, sex, gender identity, sexuality, ability, age, and other salient identities and experiences. This is not easy! We work on it because our community organizer partners need the students who work with them to know themselves, listen deeply to others, and focus on the experiences and voices of those directly affected by injustice. What do you anticipate this space would be about for you? How do you think you might thrive and/or struggle in this space?

​

4. Please read this quote from movement scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Facebook post, 1/27, 2017) and respond to the prompt that follows:

"So when radicals and those who have already come to some conclusions about the shortcomings of existing system mock, deride or just dismiss those who have not achieved your level of consciousness then you are helping no one. This isn't leadership, its infantile and amateurish. It's also a recipe for how to keep your movement irrelevant, marginal and tiny. If you want a movement of the politically pure and already committed then you and your twelve friends go right ahead and be the resistance[...]. Should the marches have been more multiracial and working class? Yes! But you are not a serious organizer if that's where your answer ends. The issue for the left is how do we get from where we are today to where we want to be in terms of making our marches blacker, browner and more working class. That is truly the work, but simply complaining about it changes nothing. Yesterday was the beginning, not the end. What happens in between will be decided by what we do. Movements do not come to us from heaven fully formed and organized. They are built by regular people. We must do a better job at facilitating debate, discussion and argument so that we talk about how to build the kind of movement we want, but the endless critiques with no commitment to diving into organizing to struggle for the kind of movement we want is not a serious approach. There are literally millions of people in this country who are now questioning everything. We need to open up our organizations, planning meetings,marches and other actions to them. We need to read together, learn together, be in the streets together and stand up to this assault together. let's engage people and stop writing people off before we've even gotten started.

​

Please write a short response to this quote, including reactions or questions it might raise for you. Some possible questions to consider: Do you feel like Taylor is speaking to you and/or your political community? In other words, are you often critical (internally or externally) of people for not being aware/woke enough? Or does this conversation feel new to you? And if so - what questions does this raise for you?

​

5. Please describe your learning style. How do you tend to participate in discussion classes and other group work settings? Please provide some examples. 

​

6. What are your experiences with community service, social justice activism, or community organizing? What do you understand as the differences between these? (There's no need to do research - if you don’t know that’s totally ok!) What do you hope to learn about community organizing?

​

7. What useful skills or fun qualities would you bring to your GCO class? (e.g. cooking/baking, care package making, contemplative training, art, poetry, somatic exercises, music, story telling, etc.)

​

8. Do you have any particular needs/concerns you would like to disclose? Please include any dietary restrictions (vegan, vegetarian, halal, kosher, etc.) as well as food allergies, medical or religious restrictions, or accommodations requirements you might want us to know about.  [optional!] 

​

9. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us (e.g. your pronouns or other identities or things about your background that you feel it's important for us to know that haven't yet come up in this application)? Are there any questions you have for us at this time?

​

​

​