Table of Contents:

Course Overview

We believe it is important for Sunrise members to constantly build our knowledge and question the key assumptions that guide our work. Orientation Training (OT) offers a sound starting point for folks new to the climate crisis, political history, and movement building, but our learning shouldn’t stop there. Sunrise is building a robust offering of skill-specific training modules for hubs and their members, and we want to offer an intentionally designed curriculum for growing general knowledge and movement analysis beyond OTs. We believe this course can foster a deeper examination of the social, economic, and political forces driving climate change, as well as help to build tools and strategies for creating the change we seek.

Using insights from history, ecology, economics, cultural & media studies, and systems theory among other disciplines, this course examines the complexity and scale of our planetary crisis, explores our vision for a just and livable future, and investigates Sunrise Movement’s theory of change.

We do not believe there is such a thing as an "objective" analysis of the topics we are covering. We carry a specific set of ideologies and influences, and we believe it's responsible to be explicitly clear about these:

• We share a deep concern for the high probability of ecologically & economically-induced systems breakdown in the early-mid 21st century, a drive to create a generation of informed and activated leaders, and a profound belief in Sunrise Movement to catalyze a just, sustainable, beautiful, and loving world.
• Our approach is rooted in a thorough critique of capitalism, and we view systemic socioeconomic transformation as key to building our desired future.
• While this course does not attempt to teach anti-racism specifically, it does attempt an anti-racist approach throughout while also acknowledging potential shortcomings on this front, especially given the white identities of its most significant contributors.
• Lastly, this course draws significant guidance from basic principles of ecological economics, systems thinking, environmental justice, and the 11 Sunrise Principles.

Goals

<aside> 💡 1) Challenge Sunrisers to take a more critical and thoughtful approach to their organizing, one that better aligns beliefs, actions, and habits with those necessary to create the truly transformative and just change Sunrise is attempting. This includes building skill sets and introducing tools for ceaseless analysis and re-analysis of our predicament, our vision, and our theory of change.

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<aside> 💡 2) Provide an inter-hub dialogue to explore new insights, questions, and critiques of the movement through reference to hub-specific and movement-wide experiences.

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<aside> 💡 3) Introduce a range of practical topics that will eventually be covered in more depth by other courses/training modules that will allow Sunrisers to develop in-depth knowledge in specific areas.

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<aside> 💡 4) Gather substantial feedback on course content, structure, and facilitation style from a diverse pool of participants to inform a broader launch of this learning program in Summer 2021.

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As young people considering how much time, effort, and sacrifice we give to this movement during such a pivotal period of our lives, it's incumbent upon us to make the most informed decisions possible, using diversely sourced data, analysis, and synthesis that we can trust. The content that informs our thinking can be what determines our inaction or hardened commitment, our optimism or pessimism, our denialism or nihilism. Not to be forgotten, it can also impact our emotional well-being.