YOU BELIEVE THE WORLD CAN BE A BETTER PLACE
You want to make change but you feel like you need to know more. Foundations of Social Justice, a self-paced Eight-Week course presented by Dr. Tee Williams, is designed to help you learn what it takes for you to get started on your journey.
About This Course
COURSE COST: One Payment of $1199 or Two Payments of $599
My goal for this course is to provide you with a foundational understanding of Social justice. This means that you will learn the concepts, theory, and language to understand Social Justice and understand oppression. More importantly, you will learn about these things from a LIBERATION perspective. Unfortunately, much of the time the work we do is fighting against something rather than fighting FOR something. Understand this: We study oppression not for the sake of studying oppression, we study it so that we may better understand how to enact liberation. This course will teach all of its material from that perspective.
We will also focus on doing this work from an intersectional perspective. Understanding the larger phenomenon of oppression and how it operates across identity allows us to be more effective in doing liberation work in intersectional ways. It also allows us to create bridges of empathy so that we may be more aware of places where we have privilege and dominant identities.
Here’s how it works: each week you will receive a video recording on that week’s session. You will also receive an audio recording of the same session for your convenience. You will also have the opportunity to participate in two live Q & A sessions to answer any questions you may have. Below is an overview of our class sessions.
Here are Some of the Benefits of this Course:
Gain a Deeper Understanding of Liberation & Social Justice:
This course will teach you the core theories and concepts of Social Justice.. You’ll also learn about Critical Liberation Theory and its importance to Social Justice movements.
Develop the Knowledge & Confidence to Take Action:
This course will give you the awareness, language and tools you need to be an effective ally and allow you to take impactful and meaningful action with strength and confidence.
Overcome the Paralyzing Fear of Making Mistakes:
One of the biggest challenges for allies and potential allies is the fear of making mistakes. This fear can be both overwhelming & paralyzing. This course will help you learn to overcome that fear.
Course Overview
Week One: Introduction & Course Overview – In this session we will introduce ourselves, develop ground rules talk about and set the foundations and expectations for the rest of the course.
Week Two: What is social Justice? – In this session, we will discuss what social Justice is, what it looks like and examine how our personal values interact with the goals of social justice.
Week Three: Liberation & Liberatory consciousness – In this session we will discuss liberation – what is is, and what it means to operate from a liberation perspective. We will also discuss Liberatory consciousness, its effects and how to develop it.
Week Four: Liberatory Visioning – In this session we will talk about the importance of imagination and developing a vision. We will also spend some time thinking about and sharing our individual visions of liberation.
Week Five: Social Identity, Intersectionality & Socialization – In this session we will cover all things related to social identity – What it is, how it functions, what it means within the context of inequality. We will also talk about out multiple social group memberships, intersectionality, and how intersectionality works.
Week Six: Understanding Oppression as a System (pt. 1) – In the next two sessions we will talk about oppression as a system. For a variety of reasons, oppression is often talked about or understood in very shallow ways. For example, many people believe that racism or sexism is when one person does something bad to another person based on race or gender/biological sex. That interpretation is missing about 90% of the picture. The next two sessions are going to be a deep dive into understanding the nature of oppression.
Week Seven: Understanding Oppression as a System (pt. 2) – This session is a continuation of the previous session.
Week Eight: Allyship and Sustainable Action – This is session is extremely important – It talks about how to do the work. Doing the work of Social justice and liberation is hard, particularly when we are trying to do this work in areas where we have privilege. This session will revisit liberation, and will cover how to be an effective ally as well how how to do liberation work in ways that are sustainable and life giving.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is this course for? This course is for anyone that is interested in learning more about Social Justice! The material covered in the course are suitable for beginning, intermediate or advanced levels of knowledge.
When do we meet? Class meets Once a week. The day and date for this section of Foundations has not yet been chosen.
How long are our meetings? Our Class meetings usually go for 3 hours.
How do we meet? We meet online via video/audio conference. In order to participate in video conferencing, you’ll need an data connection and a computer or cell phone with a working camera. If you’d like to participate via audio only, you may call in to the audio line. If it helpful to have headphones available during video conferencing to avoid disruptive audio feedback.
What happens if I can’t make a meeting date? All of our meetings are recorded and kept of file for up to one month. At the conclusion of each metting, a link to that day’s session is posted in our private Facebook group. If you miss a day, you’ll have access to the recording to get caught up!
Are there assignments and readings? The course is designed so that you’ll get what you need from the class sessions alone. There are additional assignments and readings are supplementary, but these are optional, not mandatory.
Is the work load manageable? We understand that everyone leads busy lives. As mentioned previously, the course is designed so that you can
Here’s What People are Saying About Foundations of Social Justice:
Steph Gaudreau
Stupid Easy Paleo
I’m so thankful that Dr. Tee created the Foundations of Social Justice course. Though I’ve spent a lot of time researching and reading about social justice online, I was always left searching for a fundamental look into social justice that was clear and easy to understand. The scope of the content was wide enough to cover the basics but deep enough to allow me to examine issues below surface level. I really appreciated learning in the format we did, with group video and Dr. Tee presenting the material. We stopped often to discuss, ask and answer questions, talk things out, and really interact with each other. That made the experience very rich and with lots of applicable learning outcomes. By taking this course, I now understand how to fight for the vision of liberatory social justice that aligns to my personal values so that I can sustain the work instead of burning out. Without Dr. Tee’s guidance in the Foundations of Social Justice course, I would still be confused and therefore, ineffective at doing anything productive to participate in the work.
Steph Ondrusek
Stong By Steph
Foundations of Social Justice gave me a totally new framework for understanding the systems of oppression at work. Prior to taking this class, I was having a difficult time working out my role in being a better human being (and how to go about it). I understood that oppression is real, but I had looked at it in one-dimensional ways: I am oppressed as a woman, but the oppressor as a white person. Given those identities, I wasn’t sure how they melded, or what that meant. Dr. Tee opened my eyes and helped me to zoom out. I’ve begun to understand that all of our identities intersect and create a unique place for each of us in society. I’ve come to understand that allyship is a developmental process, one in which the rehumanization and the healing of everyone is vital.
Foundations of Social Justice gave me a framework from which to work and from which to learn. I’ve become better at discerning nuances in conversations (especially on social media) and been able to pull important information from social justice spaces and walk through the world with that knowledge but still feeling hopeful, optimistic, and empowered to take action.
This class has helped me to examine myself and my actions and inspired me to take action and connect every day. It’s changed how I walk through the world, made me more compassionate, and given me pause to listen more to everyone (including people in dominant groups that I would have previously discounted). I would highly recommend this course to anyone who’s feeling ready to take serious action and undergo some self-examination! You’ll come out of the course with new energy and a profound understanding of what’s possible.
Amber Leonard Thomas
Girls Gone stong
The Foundations of Social Justice course was instrumental in developing my understanding of social justice and liberation. I had been feeling uneasy about navigating social justice issues with my own family, friends, and online communities, and knew I needed to dig into my own beliefs, get a better understanding the privileges I experience, and learn more about the things I could do to take a stand. Starting with a course delivered by a knowledgeable and well-equipped instructor was important for my learning style and personality.
The material was approachable, understandable, and delivered in a way that encouraged self-evaluation and learning at your own pace. Communication via a private facebook group and weekly video calls encouraged open, honest discussion and questions about topics that can be difficult to navigate.
Dr. Tee sees potential in everyone and offers rich opportunities for self-inquiry and growth. He is so knowledgeable, compassionate, welcoming, and funny, and a perfect person to lead folks into the complex, layered, and charged topics of social justice and liberation. Dr. Tee is also willing to go above and beyond by offering continued discussion and 1-1 interaction to make sure you’re supported in your learning and experience in his course. In all, my experience with Dr. Tee and the Foundations of Social Justice course made me feel validated, heard, and understood, all while fostering a healthy sense of curiosity and questioning of myself, institutions, and systems to allow for change and liberation of both oppressed parties and their oppressors. We’re all in this together, and Dr. Tee helped me feel more optimistic about our uncertain future. I highly recommend this course to anyone feeling called to do more self-evaluation around social justice topics.
Erin Zimmerman
Dr. Tee is truly the best person/teacher/movement maker to have put this course together. He is thoughtful, quick, and open to all discussion. I felt/feel comfortable sharing my past, my perspective, and my lack of knowledge with Tee as well as the intimate groups he curates in order to grow forward towards a liberation mindset (if you don’t know what that is…take the course)! He is patient, and helps to make the content manageable and understandable for all without dumbing it down. We all come in from different backgrounds, and we become a community that basically never stops supporting one another. If you feel lost or broken or uneducated or disconnected in any way from even the term “social justice”, then this course is for you. Dr. Tee breaks all of the ideas down, and personalizes the discussions as the course is taught live. It doesn’t matter where you are coming from, this course will open your eyes and set you on a path of curiosity, learning, and a better understanding of how to change humanity. Sounds unbelievable? Dr. Tee makes it so.
Frequently Asked Questions
This course is for anyone that is interested in learning more about Social Justice! The material covered in the course are suitable for beginning, intermediate or advanced levels of knowledge.
Most of the sessions of the Self-paced course will consist of Audio and video recordings. There will be two live Q & A sessions that you can participate in if you’d like. The dates of those sessions vary. Please check with Dr. Tee for the exact date and times.
Our class meetings usually go for 3 hours, with a break somewhere near the middle.
The live sessions will also be recorded for your convenience! If you can’t make it, no worries, the recordings will be provided to you.
This course is designed so that you’ll get what you need from the class sessions alone. There are supplementary assignments and readings available if you’d like them. They will help increase the depth and breadth of your understanding, however these are are optional, not mandatory.
We understand that everyone leads busy lives. As mentioned previously, the course is designed so that you’ll get everything you need from attending the class sessions.