My Mental Map Compared to the Beginning of the Class

At the beginning of the class, I have very little idea of how to create social change. I am limited to what I have seen so far. Protesting and flyering are the only items in my repertoire. On mass media, I am only exposed to protesting. I have seen flyering in school and on the street. I did not know how those actions could cause social change. For example, people have been protesting against the invasion of Iraq, but I do not see social change happening. I have thought that social change required a lot of people doing a lot of things for a long period of time. Like the Women’s Rights movement required many women and took many years to have some progress.

Before taking this course, I thought that social change is something extremely challenging for me to do. I do not have the talent to think of how to change something for the better. If I were suddenly hit with the task of creating social change, I will not know where to start.

Taking the course dramatically change the way I see how to create social change. As Professor Schneider said, we are putting more tools into our toolbox, so we have more choices and a greater chance of picking the right one. We will not be hammering a screw.

I have increased my repertoire of social change techniques. From flyering and protesting to action research, weapons of the weak, service learning, etc. My selection of techniques has increased, which gives me more opportunities to create social change. I know how to select the most appropriate technique for the situation I am dealing with.

I also got deeper insight into the techniques I am already familiar with. For example, I thought that protesting is just holding up signs and expressing your message. But I learned about effective protesting and ineffective protesting. Professor Schneider said, “polite protest is ineffective protest.” When people protest, they should let the pawns of the power holders herd them around like a herd of cattle. Like in the recent anit-war protests, protesters had to follow the path approved by the police, therefore it was ineffective. Protests should cause some type of disruption to the normal routines. Or else it will be just people holding up signs.

There are individual methods of social change that I can participate in. Before the course, I thought social change techniques always involve a group. Now, self-work, being nice, etc. are in my repertoire as individual methods of social change.

Lastly, my vision of what is wrong in society has changed. Before the class, I only thought about the large problems in society, like racism, sexism, poverty, etc. Now, I see that there are a lot more things than that. Even little things like spam can be considered a problem that can be changed.