Tag Archives: Teach Now

Teach Now, she said. So I did….

I can’t say what the impact of doing Jen Louden’s Teach Now course was on my IMG_0018students* but for me, it was profound.  Yup, that good.  And let me say right now that I don’t get commission nor am part of any plan when I rave here. This is pure I really loved it raving!

I’ve taught quite a lot in different capacities and love doing it.  I teach for months each year in Nepal and am doing more and more teaching here in Australia. Teaching/ sharing is becoming more and more part of what I do and I want to do it as well as I can.  As a chronic over provider and an introvert, I also wanted to teach well without feeling very anxious and exhausted afterwards.  And without exhausting or overwhelming students with my excitementIMG_0026 and passion!

When the 2014 Teach Now course started I was in Nepal with unreliable internet, no hope of being around for phone calls and months of travelling ahead of me.  Was the timing right I wondered? And yet, inside me I knew it was and even when Jen Louden sensibly replied with Only you know that to my Is this timing crazy? email, her realistic description of expectations and time required meant I knew I could embrace this.

I’d spent some money previously on some on line training and was very underwhelmed. This made me fearful to spend more but Teach Now was a great investment. It’s worth so much more than you pay and the results far IMG_0019exceeded my expectations.  It helped me so much as I prepared for perhaps the most ambitious teaching I have done (the 6 week course) and some of Jen’s thoughtful questions have revolutionised the way I prepare and determine what to include.  And…in my case very pertinently…what not to include.

From my perspective, my teaching was so much more joy filled and energising rather than draining. I knew how to replenish myself after a class but did not have that utterly spent feeling I used to get.  I came home with more and more ideas and I grew to love using my creativity in preparing classes.  I could go on. And on. Suffice it to say, anyone wanting guidance about how toIMG_0023 effectively communicate something they are passionate about should have a look at Teach Now.

*I am blessed with cracker students and they all made gorgeous things and humoured me when I did my raves about creativity. The photos are from the most recent one day workshop! Ola and Tracey, you were blurry sorry.  So nice to have a bloke there Clem!!!!

Who Won and What’s Happening?

I have to confess that I have been having way too much fun writing and preparing DSCN5316 this 6 week program to stop and write in the blog!  And the good news is that Creativity and Polymer Clay will be running as we have already got the minimum number of participants* (and bless them, some are coming without having really heard ANYTHING about the course! Gotta love that trust!)

As well as making some gifts** and preparing samples*** for participants, I have loved the process of getting really clear about what I want people to be able to do as a result of having spent the 6 weeks together.  WORD OF THE YEAR ALERT: Clarity was one of the words I selected and for those of you noting them down to get the big prize, here’sDSCN5319 your second one!

I am going to write more very soon about a program called Teach Now but doing this course has really helped me to get clear about what I want to say and how I want to say it.  And I think it contributed enormously to the amount of joy I’m getting from preparing the course.

I have also been revisiting favourite sites and rediscovering some wisdom! I love this one from the Skinny Artist about how to deal with too many ideas and not enough time!

I loved the ideas Emily, Deb and Margaret came up with for a name for the course and so all three will get a pendant. Margie, it won’t be another black and white one for you! Only so many a woman can wear really!  Thank you all for connecting!

*Still room for more!

** Just knew I would eventually find a use for some of the little plastic thingies that came with flowers a daughter got once. Did you know the flower getting gene is not familial?

*** Can you spot monochromatic, analogous, complementary and split complementary colour schemes?