[Noisebridge-discuss] Charging for classes at Noisebridge

[Ani Niow]

I totally agree that teaching is hard work and often people forget that
labour often costs money just as materials do. It's easy to discount it
since its not something you can physically interact with unlike tools and
materials but it is equally as important.

There's a lot of benefits as you mention for paid classes and I believe we
would be doing a disservice to our community if we banned this from the
space (not sure how we could even do that anyway).

Basically as long as you're being excellent to your students as well as the
space you're in, its fine by me. Go for it!


-Ani



On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Josh Myer <josh at joshisanerd.com> wrote:

> In another thread, I'm seeing a lot of confusion about whether or not
> Noisebridge bans for-pay classes.  It seems like they're frowned upon, but
> nobody has come out and said so.  Personally, I think it's important that we
> don't ban people from using money as a tool or instrument of exchange within
> the space.  I love that most events are free, and believe they're very
> important (I ran one for a long time).  But, there are many benefits to
> having slightly more formal, for-pay sessions in the space.  These sessions
> shouldn't be specially regulated, nor should we impose a formal set of
> tariffs on them; they should be treated like every other class or event at
> the space.
>
> There are a few people who are opposed to having for-pay classes at
> Noisebridge, and I'd love it if they'd chime in here.  I only know of one or
> two people who have stated outright that they themselves are opposed to
> having for-pay classes in the space, and their voices are conspicuously
> absent from the discussion.  I also haven't heard anyone arguing against a
> new policy which would disallow or restrict for-pay classes at the space, so
> I wanted to articulate some reasons we shouldn't ban for-pay classes.
>
> I believe that for-pay classes are a huge benefit to Noisebridge.  In fact,
> Noisebridge benefited from one I ran last weekend.  Several people new to
> the space came out to learn how to fix PCBs, and left really liking
> Noisebridge and what it had to offer them.  After the workshop, I donated
> $50 as a way of saying thank-you for making a space available, and to help
> offset the solder and electricity we used.  There's no way we used more than
> $5 in consumables, so $45 of that donation can go directly to pay
> noisebridge's rent.   Adding a reasonable tuition to the session helped
> ensure the above was possible.
>
> Making the class for-pay helped filter for people who were serious about
> being there.  That said, I wasn't a hardass about it, and had one person
> RSVP paying less than the materials cost me.  The fees everyone else paid
> let me offer a few below-cost seats, and I'm really happy to offer them to
> anyone interested enough to email me off-list about it.
>
> This "making sure people are serious" thing is a concern for me.  At one
> point, I'd given more Noisebridge workshops than anyone besides Mitch, and
> probably still hold that record.  I started the old Machine Learning
> Wednesdays, which is still the longest-running weekly class at noisebridge
> after Circuit Hacking Mondays, despite my stopping a year ago.  It brought
> lots of people into the space, and was the first time a couple dozen people
> came to the space.  From there, we got 5~10 new members, which was great,
> and I was happy to do it for that.  That said, I could never do a series of
> talks building up to a single goal.  Because people weren't really invested
> in the workshop, they were very casual about attending every week. Even my
> ever-awesome co-founders* would randomly skip out in the middle of a two- or
> three-session project, because they only had "fun" invested in it.
>
> I also found that people would jump into things we had clearly labelled as
> over their heads, because all they had to lose was time.  Think of how many
> times you grab a flyer without being really interested, or download a free
> album only to listen to the first half of the first track.  I appreciate
> people going out and sampling new things, and love leading introductory
> sessions!  But, if people's first experience with Machine Learning was the
> third stage in implementing neural networks, it's nearly impossible for me
> to bring them up to speed while still helping everyone get to the next step.
>
> My final reason to charge for seminars or classes is that they're hard
> work.  I spent a day preparing for the green wire workshop, and, depending
> on how you do the accounting, lost money on the day.  I had fun teaching
> eleven folks an art, but it was hard work to plan, assemble kits, and
> actually teach.  ML Wednesday often left me totally exhausted, but I had a
> good time doing it (I also didn't allow myself to do a whole lot of prep,
> partly to avoid burn-out).  Getting paid something for that time is a way to
> feel appreciated, and motivate yourself to prepare better lessons/sessions.
>  More to the point, saying that someone can't charge for teaching is like
> saying someone can't charge for a haircut or cooking. Teaching is a very
> valuable service, hard work, and not something that everyone can do.
>
> Why do I care so much?  I've been contemplating teaching an applied
> electronics class at noisebridge.  Once I find a textbook I like, I'm
> willing to do it.  But, there will be limits on how many students I'll take,
> along with some requirements of those students.  They need to actually read
> the book, do their homework, pay for (or provide their own) materials, and
> pay some tuition for my prep time.  People who can't afford some of the
> above are welcome, but they have to demonstrate that they're serious.  True,
> there's no way for me to stop people from listening at the space (and,
> honestly, that part doesn't concern me), nor asking questions.  But, if
> someone isn't participating in the class in a serious fashion, they're going
> to inhibit everyone else from getting something out of the class, and I'll
> have a talk with them.  If this means giving them back the rest of their
> tuition, I'm happy to do that.
>
> I think the space has a lot to gain from embracing the occasional for-pay
> workshop or class, and we would be doing ourselves a great disservice by
> adding a new rule to ban or regulate them preemptively.
> --
> Josh Myer 650.248.3796
> josh at joshisanerd.com
>
> * a shout out to Jean, h0mee and verbal for all their hope getting things
> running and keeping them going, and to all the new folks making the
> reincarnation a consistent event
>
>
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>
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