Listening into Being

Community Organizing as Holistic Education

Abstract

Drawing on interviews with Charlotte-based organizers, this paper identifies key themes that define community organizing as a form of holistic education. These findings suggest that community education is not a supplement to social justice organizing, but its vital core—one that functions more like a living organism than a formal institution. By examining organizing as curriculum-in-motion, the Listening Project contributes to the fields of holistic education and community-based research. It calls educators and organizers alike to view learning as systemic, spiritual, and embodied—and to treat listening not as a research method alone, but as an ethical practice of transformation.