Teaching Your Craft
by Ruth Brown
Teaching something I’m passionate about seemed like a really good idea when I started three years ago and, you know, it was! I taught IT in a previous life with competence, if not joy, so I thought teaching textile subjects might provide a useful and enjoyable addition to my income. I now teach my own workshops roughly once a month and this year I have been teaching for people like Rainbow Silks, Westhope College and various guilds and groups. “Each journey starts with but a single step” – so, how did it all start? First, find your students ... As soon as I had decided that I wanted to teach textiles I started collecting the names and addresses of people who might be interested in coming to a workshop at the various crafts fairs where I was selling. I put an A4 poster on the stand with a clip board and pen for people to leave their contact information. By the end of the Christmas season I had something like 100 names and addresses. You know how you get into conversation with people who like your style of work and want to know how you made it? Well, that’s the point when you ask them if they would be interested in coming to a workshop and would they like to leave their details. Then when you have your first workshops ready to go you have a ready made mailing list. I know this is a ‘Teaching Your Craft’ article but I can’t resist a bit of IT – if you have a computer, store your names and addresses in a database or a spreadsheet then when you come to do your mail shot you can merge your contact info with your documents so they are personalised, but you don’t have to type in the names and addresses on each one. Putting together your first workshop: For your first workshop pick an aspect or technique that you really like. If you are enthusiastic about something, you’re more likely to teach it in a way that makes your students enthusiastic, too. Decide how much you can reasonably cover in a day, or however long you want your workshop to be. For me, a typical workshop would run from 10.30am to 4.00pm. I would maybe cover two or three techniques in the morning with a demo by me of each one followed by the students trying them out. The afternoon might be more techniques, or the students might try out what they have learned by producing a piece of work to a design of their own choosing. Once you have a reasonable idea of what you want to teach, produce an outline of how the day should go with a note of the materials and equipment you will need for each activity and a note of the approximate timings. For instance the first part of my lesson plan for a ‘Cyanotype on Fabric’ workshop is this: Especially for your first workshop, it’s very useful to work out rough timings, perhaps you could get a friend to work through the day with you as a test run? The resources needed for each element of the workshop feed through to a packing list of things you need to take, including electrical extensions and cleaning materials. It’s useful to have some design ideas with you for students to use if their minds go blank (as mine often does when I’m the student!). Also, keep in mind that you will probably have people of differing abilities and experience, so have some extra/ more advanced work prepared for those who work more quickly than the general student. It’s up to you whether you supply most of the equipment or whether you ask your students to bring it with them. I found that more students were willing to come and try something new if they didn’t have to buy much before hand. So, I built up a stock of equipment over a period of time. For instance, my husband spent most of a weekend making me 24 wooden frames (bless him!). You can buy brushes when they are cheap or ask for discount on bulk – it’s surprising how small a quantity will qualify for this sometimes. Manufacturers will often give discount to teachers, as they like to have their products tried by students in the hope of future sales. Okay, so you have worked out what you want to teach; the next question is where are you going to teach it? Basically, you have two options – you can organize your own courses/ workshops or you can teach for other people. Both options have pros and cons.
Your own classes
Where are you going to teach ...
- Are your own premises suitable? Is your studio or workshop big enough? Is there a toilet? Do you have facilities for making tea/coffee? Is there disabled access? How many students could you safely accommodate? If your premises are leased, are there any restrictions in the terms of your lease prohibiting you from teaching there? Is there anywhere to park?
- Alternatively, find a hall. I asked other local art/craft teachers where they taught. Some suggestions were village halls, the local museum, the local youth centre and an art gallery which rented out one of their spare rooms for suitable courses. Go and have a look. Try and visualize how you would lay it out. Is it big enough? Are suitable tables available? Is there a kitchen? Are there enough power sockets and are they in suitable positions? What is the floor surface like – is it likely to be damaged by anything you use (I try and avoid carpet when I’m teaching dyeing for obvious reasons!). Is there parking nearby? How much do they charge (by the day or by the hour)? Allow time for setting up the room beforehand and clearing up afterwards - you’ll probably be charged for this time as well as the time for the actual workshop. Are you allowed to use the whole hall or just the one room? Are there mugs etc available for your use? Are there local shops where students could buy sandwiches, etc?
- It’s useful to prepare a map with instructions on how to get to the hall that you can send out to students who book a course with you. If you have a web site this could be included there as a pdf file and you could also give a link to a site like multimap.com that will also show them where to go.
Now, the nitty gritty - how much are you going to charge?
- Initially, it’s a bit like ‘how long is a piece of string’ as your costs could vary considerably depending on the craft being taught, the hall you book, the area of the country etc., but the following is a starting point and includes some things to include in your costings:
- Your time – this is supposed to make you some money, so be realistic. Include the time it takes you to pack everything before hand, time to set up the room, teach the workshop, clear up the room and unpack once you are back home.
- Cost of the hall, if you hire one.
- Are you going to supply lunch? Tea/coffee?
- An element to cover things like insurance. Add these together and divide the total by, say, half the number of students you can comfortably manage to teach at one go. Just for the purposes of an example I’ll assume this gives you a figure of £30 per student for 6 students.
- Next, if you are supplying the materials, how much is this going to be – say £5 per student. Add this to the first figure and you have worked out that you will break even if you have a minimum charge of £35 per student and if you have bookings from 6 students. Any bookings over this number are profit – any less and you are eating into the charge for your time! Having said that, I did run some undersubscribed courses when I first started as I needed a) to get my name known and b) the practice! It’s useful to find out what other teachers of similar subjects are charging – again, have a look at web sites and leaflets at shows. Decide on your cancellation policy – I usually ask for a deposit at the time of booking with the balance due four weeks before the workshop. I state clearly that if the student cancels within four weeks of the workshop then payment will still be due. If I have to cancel a workshop then I make a full refund. The first year I was teaching I had one workshop when four students had to cancel at the last minute (for perfectly legitimate and understandable reasons) and I lost money on the workshop. Teaching is part of your business – be friendly, helpful and accommodating but businesslike. At this stage you have something to teach - you have decided where you are going to teach and you have a list of prospective students. Next you need to send out the information to your prospective students with a booking form.
How are you going to promote your classes?
- You can often put posters in your local Post Office or supermarket for a nominal sum.
- Develop a database of interested students and mail them the details.
- Send the details to relevant guilds and groups.
- Include this information on your web site, if you have one.
- Send the details to the Craftsman Magazine and other specialist magazines.
- Sometimes your local ‘What’s on in the area’ web site will add you to their listings.
- Talk about them and advertise them on your stand at shows and in other documentation you produce.
- When you, hopefully, get bookings in, acknowledge them as soon as possible and keep a list. Make sure you have a telephone number for each student in case you need to contact them in a emergency – even we super-fit craftworkers occasionally have to acknowledge that we are ill ....
- A couple of weeks before the workshop send out a list of things you want your students to bring. Even if I’m supplying most of the materials and equipment I still ask students to bring protective clothing, including gloves, things like kitchen roll and also any pictures or ideas they would like to use as inspiration for their work.
Preparation
- Pack things to take in boxes you can lift comfortably.
- I like to have a handout for students giving basic information like recipes and basic techniques (in brief note form). I also include a list of suggested suppliers and a list of suggested further reading. The students don’t then have to spend time writing down too much which can disturb the flow of the workshop.
- Take things like cleaning materials if your subject is potentially messy
- Take spare protective clothing if necessary.
Delivery
- Get there in good time so you can prepare the room and take several deep breaths.
- Know who holds the key to the hall and take their phone number with you. Find out what happens at the end of the day – do you switch everything off and drop the latch or do you have to wait for the caretaker?
After Care
- Follow up any questions you have promised answers for
- Pay for the hall
- Every couple of years it’s probably worth confirming if people want to carry on receiving information from you – it’s a waste of your money and their time if they don’t.
Add ons
- If you sell the materials to make your craft, take some with you to sell at the workshop – have a price list, some bags and some cash for change. If you have a mobile credit card machine take that too.
- If you have exhibitions or fairs coming up, publicise these.
- Ask if your students know of any other groups which might like to book you for a workshop
- After the workshop ask if anyone not already included would like to join your mailing list for future workshops.
If I fill one of my own workshops then I make more money than if I teach for someone else but I have all the responsibility and the admin to do. So, you might want to consider ...
Teaching for other people
In the same way that you build up a database of prospective students, you can also build up a list of prospective colleges, groups and organizations who might ask you to teach for them. Again, I gathered some at Craft Fairs, but I also looked for advertisements in magazines like the Craftsman, for people who run their own teaching establishments. Once a year I send these people a list of the courses I can offer, along with details of my charges. Many groups and guilds book a long time in advance (I had a booking for May 2007 in December 2005), so make sure you specify how long the specified charges will apply for e.g. “for workshops to be delivered before the end of 2006”. Petrol and materials costs rarely go down and you don’t want to be out of pocket. One of the problems when you’re starting to teach for other people is deciding what and how to charge. I decided the fairest way was to charge a flat fee for my time, plus a mileage charge for traveling costs, plus a materials charge per student if I’m supplying the materials. Try and find out what other people in your field are charging. Look at their websites, pick up a leaflet at a show or ask them, if they are approachable. Market forces mean that you may be able to charge more if you are teaching an unusual skill or you have become well known in a particular area – such is life! The advantages are that you don’t have to deal with publicity, recruiting enough students, sorting out a hall, taking the milk etc., BUT you also don’t have much control. If not enough students enroll then you could have a date you’ve kept clear with no work.
Just a thought...
Although I had taught other things before I started teaching my craft, I found it very useful and confidence building to take an Adult Education Teaching certificate (City and Guilds 730-7). Part One of this took half a day for one term and Part Two took another two terms. During the course you cover learning theory, structuring your courses etc. and you also get teaching practice in a supportive environment. EVERYONE stutters, stumbles and loses their train of thought to start with if they are nervous! Even if you don’t have time to do more than Part One, you should find it useful. I know there seems like a lot to think about for your first workshop, but the second one is SO much easier and when you get a student come up to you after a workshop and say how much it has cheered them up to come or how the workshop has inspired them, then it’s all worthwhile.
