Community organizing leadership development strategy for 'Swimming with Sharks'

During several decades of teaching community organizing to university students, I (Moshe) tried to help them shed their naivete about power and conflict. I asked them to imagine what it would be like to be swimming with sharks, which they did by reading a humorous essay on the subject.1 The students quickly realized that "How to Swim with Sharks" works as a tongue-in-cheek introduction to the characters and circumstances we encounter in community organizing. The shark analogy works because our grassroots organizations are often in conflict with malevolent and unconscionable adversaries.