[Noisebridge-discuss] Charging for classes at Noisebridge

[Sai Emrys]

On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 1:44 PM, meredith scheff <satiredun at gmail.com> wrote:
> 3. the reason I personally don't take many classes at NB is that it's really hard to judge how long they'll last, when the teacher will actually show up, etc.

FWIW, the reason I don't teach any any more (ASL, Ruby/Rails) is the
converse - IME I can't rely on people showing up. I'm still perfectly
willing to teach any of my skills (those, massage, chainmai[le], etc.)
but I don't want to waste my time and energy. It also means that when
I do initiate something I do so in a very asynchronous, noncommittal
manner - so that if it falls through I don't feel disappointed from
having invested in it.

Partly this may be just lack of interest in those particular subjects,
and while that's harsh I'm okay with it. But partly it may be more a
matter of social convention that could be somehow improved.

Right now, I think that running a class demands a bit too much
initiative/work from the teacher (vs. effectively none from the
students) for not enough emotional payout. It's too easy for it to
seem like you're investing in something that nobody gives a shit
about.

I'd point out that we had one person (re. Forth class IIRC?) have a
pretty loud storming-out (on and off list) because of this. Perhaps an
extreme example, but still, it's a problem.

I think that if the baseline situation were changed such that e.g. a
group of prospective students came and said they want a class on X and
would attend at any of Y dates, that'd change things considerably.

This also affects larger things - on 5MoF for example I'd bet that
Aestetix is very close to burnt out and Ani / Miloh partway there.
People treat it as something cool that they're doing but don't bother
helping out, which makes them feel the pressure is all on them. Which
sucks. A lot of the work on such things could be reasonably well
distributed so that no individual feels like they're too burdened.

- Sai