[Sca-cooks] Teaching in the SCA

[Stefan li Rous]

Euriol replied to Johnnae with:
<<< The second challenge is finding the right
format for a class. For someone who is not a trained educator, this  
can be
quite difficult. I was very lucky last year too take a class on "How to
teach in the SCA." I learned some very valuable tips, and the instructor
(Mistress Alicia from AEthelmearc) had a wonderful planning worksheet  
that
she gave me in electronic form so I could reuse it. >>>

Could you send me the contact info for Mistress Alicia, or give mine  
to her? I'd like to see if her handout and this spreadsheet would be  
a good addition to the Florilegium, and whether she would let me add it.

<<< One of my more popular classes
is "Medieval Beverages for a Hot Day." This class is geared as an
introductory class on non-alcoholic beverages. I taught this out West a
couple of times, and was quite surprised by the number of students I had
show up. So the first Pennsic I taught this class, I thought. There  
might be
a lot of people, I'll plan for 20.  When I got to the pavilion to set  
up for
the class 10 minutes before its schedule start time, the pavilion was
packed. >>>

Yep. I had that happen at Gulf Wars for my hands-on pewter casting  
class. So since then, I've limited my class to 15 students so I know  
I have enough supplies and I can give everyone sufficient one-on-one  
help. I now also do two classes when I can. One of my problems has  
been getting my class into the event booklet. One year the GW website  
published the wrong deadline for class submissions (cute vs. accurate  
is a beef I have with some SCA websites), I only had four students in  
each class.

<<< I felt so bad that over half the people would not be able to walk
away with the handout. But the material was not very extensive, and  
it was
more about being able to sample, which people seemed to enjoy. >>>

Want to send me a copy and let me consider your handout for the  
Florilegium?

<<< A  non-cooking class that I have been developing for over the  
past year is
"Decorative Embroidery for Garb." I choose this as a class topic because
there were a number of Embroidery Basics classes and a number of  
advanced
Embroidery classes. Yet there didn't seem to be much in the way of  
"Now I
know how to do these embroidery stitches, what do I do with them?"  
type of
class. So I spent quite a bit of time finding extant examples of secular
garments between the 6th and 16th centuries and most of this class is a
slide show discussing the extant pieces. From the discussion it ends  
with
drawing some conclusions and tricks & tips of planning a project. >>>

Sounds like an interesting, practical class. I'd consider that for  
the Florilegium, too, except that it sounds like your handout was  
mostly pictures and didn't have enough written material to stand  
alone without your oral portion of the class. But if you'd like to  
produce an article or paper...

<<< I also enjoy doing hands-on types of classes, one of which is a  
sauces
class. I'm in the process of expanding my notes on it, and hopefully  
will
have enough to make a decent publication. >>>

As a for-profit effort? or non? If non, again, I'd like to consider  
publishing it. :-)

<<< I plan on teaching this class and
the Beverages class at Pennsic. I'm also thinking of doing the  
Embroidery
class again at Pennsic since I did get a good amount of students in  
it last
year. >>>

I'm not sure how helpful this would be, but if someone sent me their  
handout in enough time and let me know that they had a time  
constraint, I could see about getting it online and the students who  
are really prepared could download it and review it before your  
class. Then the ones who lose their handout or don't get one in  
class, can download it after the event.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****