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The Benefits of Teaching a Craft Class

Let's talk now about the benefits of teaching aircraft I know what kind of alluded to that earlier but I want to give you guys some more information because this is really where I feel like we are all we should we should all be teaching okay not just I'm not just saying I mean I obviously love it but you should also be teaching and one of the main reasons for that is that it is a great additional reb revenue stream for your business. A lot of us have businesses that involve many different aspects thank you like for example, maybe you sell a craft fairs maybe you haven't etc shop or an online shop maybe you do some blogger articles or you do some writing um there's so many different aspects to our businesses and this is a way of making some more money. But I want to say that for example, for quilter I think I'm a coulter and it is difficult tio make money felling quilts in this in this world just because of the time that goes into making them and you know the cost of a quilt um and sale...

s can be inconsistent for example, holiday times are a great time for a lot of small businesses to make they cash, but then maybe the other times of the year you're not making as much okay and teaching can be a reliable year round opportunity to make money ok especially if you start building relationships with certain venues or um you know there's just endless opportunities to teach workshops and teach classes throughout the year okay, so this is a really good, reliable way it's also an opportunity to sell your products and we're going to talk a lot about that a little bit later on it's also really great marketing and I know we kind of cringes can can sometimes cringe at the word marketing although creative life has great courses that will convince you otherwise I recommend them um but it's a great way of building your community and meeting people okay? It is one of the best not even just teaching but being a student okay you guys I know you guys are because they're here in the audience is a great way of meeting people even the online audience it's a great way of connecting with people being a student being in a classroom situation you can go your email list we all know how important it is to have an email list building partnerships partnerships can be conferences, shops, organizations, nonprofits places like creative life okay endless endless opportunities for proper partnerships and you grow your customer base and your audience and then for me this is this is the big one okay I run a small business I work from home for me it is incredibly empowering to be a teacher it is the best way for me to get out into the world okay, so some of us work in a more solitary studio environment teaching is a great way to get out there and interact with people and sort of just get out of your your space okay passing on your passion for kraft pay it is super empowering to know that you are passing on something that you feel passionate about right? I think about that sometimes with with quilting so my mom like I said before is ah coulter a quilter and equal teacher and I feel like as a younger generation coulter I feel like I'm passing on this amazing tradition to my audience as well ok, so I think about it and you know, I get a little bit like emotional about it you know? Because you're thinking I'm passing on from this you know, people think of quilting is this sort of potentially thing that is very traditional and I feel like I'm passing on this tradition that like we don't want these things to die out okay it's incredibly empowering you learn new things from your students I I learned things from every single class I've ever taught I learned something even if it was you know the worst experience of my life which I'm not trying to scare you guys off I'm referring particularly tio teaching middle schoolers and you know that environment which is a totally different story but you always learn something especially about your craft hey it's so surprising the things that you see your students do with what you've shown them ok it's really cool and you always learn something and because of that you'll be able to see your own craft from a new perspective even just explaining something that you find a really simple and easy even just explaining it to a class you'll start to see it from a new perspective and that's really helpful because you know we're always looking for ways to change things up right? We're always looking for new inspiration and you know we don't want to get in you know it happens but we get in these creative rots where we kind of like ok, well what now I guarantee you that when you go into a classroom something something will spark in your own work and then because of all of those reasons and some of you guys mentioned this earlier you're going to build even more confidence okay, so began we should all be teaching our craft so I'm going to make you guys do another visualization okay? And we're going to think a little bit about the opposite here I want you to think about a time when you were frustrated in a learning environment now I know we've all probably had maybe we maybe we block them out, but I know we've all had a frustrating learning experience and I'm wondering if anybody would be willing to share maybe why you felt you were frustrated or maybe something that you've already figured out could have helped solved that there's anybody in the audience want to share holly I loved science I was like an honor sciences and math until I hit chemistry class on and then it was like what I have and I didn't have he didn't give any basics before we got he just assumed that we knew things and then he would give you a test on something and you're like but you didn't even talk about he just expected you to go search it out and find it by as moses there's something and it was really yeah so you felt like you were confused yeah you were confused you were kind of lost there is just no support what great no support you are confused lots of confusion the worst susan thinking a craft class is that I've taken when the instructions weren't clear yeah and why do you think that instructions were were unclear way that the same is holly's experience? A teacher thinks that you know something and you don't write so there's an assumption on assumption of a level or knowledge level yeah that's really good yeah I think of a spanish class I had where the teacher well I start off enjoying it and then it was not fun by the end of this mestre and that's because he instilled a sense of competitiveness and fear in the class with there's nothing worse than here that feeling of you know like that's not how you that's not opening your suit is your students are open for learning when they're feeling like fearful are afraid yeah thank you for sharing kathy I have taken a very few craft classes but I remember one that I did take I feel like I really couldn't keep up it was like a big room and everybody was given the steps throughout the whole project and I was always two or three steps behind because I might be more embellishing one it just went if they use about with it went too fast for you did you feel like you could share that with your teacher? It is a big room a lot of people and it was kind of just I guess supposed because it was one of my first I didn't realise it's really about whipping it out learning the technique then right to make a masterpiece and I think I was taking every single step to the max totally and you probably felt like you didn't know what you're the expectation was for you as a student right? And I have no idea where the stanley was going you had a an example on the wall but right now just keeping up with hard you didn't know what was expected okay, really do we have anything from online? Er we d'oh and I have something I wanted so great, yeah, please administration. You know, I'm a singer, an actor that's my art and sometimes there's some teachers who, like there are our language, is this the same? They totally communicate in the way that I get, and then sometimes it's art it's amorphous, you know, sometimes like we just don't connect in the language ing they use or the ways they try to get into the art, right? So that can be frustrating, so you didn't feel like you connected. We ask julia, um, and then online sandra stewart said, I have been frustrated when the teacher went too slow for those of us, we're not advanced who were far more advanced um, great and also lisa devi says the teacher either did not understand the material well enough to make it clear to the average student or there was language barrier. Oh, ok, yeah, I think that this is going to be a this is a big frustration for us all. I feel like we can all identify with being in a situation where we didn't understand the instructions or it wasn't clear um and a teacher aiken I've been a vic, I have this there's, you know, right away we're like ok my instruction was not clear enough because everybody's just like and they turned to their neighbors like what did she say that's when you know that you did not give clear instructions thank you thank you guys for sharing those online answers I'm really interested to hear those so anybody any last frustrations I had a lycan anthropology class that was a two part thing and the lab was like great cause you're like doing things with bones and stuff and then the teacher would teach like it was a different teacher the instruction part and he would just lecture and lecture and then the test had nothing to do with his lectures it was all based on the book and so you had to like read the book through with a fine tooth comb I have no idea what that is, what it kind of like you didn't know it was expected you guys have the similar you didn't feel like you have support there was confusion you know and there's nothing like getting confused at the end of the semester when the test comes and you're like well more like we knew you figured out like oh you have to read this book with fine tooth communist more like a lack of time you're in college like you it's like going to the task of going to this class and then I also have toe like yeah and you know these things overlap with what we're going to talk about as well, you know, with, with teaching craft. So what I'm going to show you guys now is that you need to teach. But we need to make sure we avoid putting our students in these situations here, right? We would agree that this list is not how we want our students to feel when they leave our classes, right? So well, I want to make sure you guys get the tools in order to avoid these things, okay?