Crossing Class Lines: 2-part Workshop Series

Join a team of facilitators from Bedford House who invite you to share a meal and explore a collective definition of “class” and what it means to those living in PTBO/NOGO today. This two-part workshop will be co-facilitated by folks with different class experiences, and is designed to engage participants with differing access to resources and wealth. In divisive times, where people are increasingly polarized, this workshop aims to respond with an invitation to sit at the table together, learn and unlearn, listen and be heard, and work at naming and understanding divides that we so often pretend don’t exist.

Together you will wonder through questions that have been raised by the text “On Class” by Deborah Dundas. This text asks us to consider how we talk about class; who tells the stories and who doesn’t, which ones tend to be repeated most often, and why does this need to change? “It asks the question: What don’t we talk about when we don’t talk about class? And what might happen if, finally, we did?”

This workshop is a primer for a new curriculum piloted by Bedford House that will dive deeper in to discussions and understandings of class, and will intentionally build community among people who have different life experiences with money. Join us in trying out this two-part introduction to our new curriculum. It is recommended that participants attend both sessions. Registration will automatically include both dates. If you are unable to attend both dates, please contact the organizer.

Please Note: The workshops will end with a shared meal, provided by the facilitators. There will be vegetarian, meat, and gluten-free options. If you have any other dietary restrictions we should know about, please contact the organizers.

Objectives

• Collectively define what “class” means to us
• Get people in a room who might have very different experiences and talk about money
• Unlearn assumptions about people with class backgrounds different from your own
• Reflect on and learn about resilience and safety nets and how they differ within socioeconomic classes
• Learn tools for connecting with people different from ourselves

Application

• This workshop is designed to include and engage people with diverse lived and living experiences.
• For people who are open, or want to be open, to making meaningful connection with people different than themselves
• This is an introduction to the topic of “class”, and will invite participants to join a 12-week program through Bedford House that will begin later this year.