It's been a most incredible year. Twelve months ago, I had just returned to the UK and discovered that one of the less negative sides of the pandemic was that teaching Zentangle online wasn't just possible, but was a positive joy!
I've recently had to stop my own online teaching because I work as a tutor at a couple of UK universities teaching English for Academic Purposes each summer, but just before I started, I was delighted to deliver my first face-to-face class, here in the UK and it was wonderful!! I can't wait to do more, but that will be later in the Autumn, when I also intend to restart my online classes again. As much of the world, at least from my perspective seems to have gone Zentangle crazy, I want to share this other idea of mine. Just before beginning this work, I had heard from a few of my original students who have since gone on to do the online CZT certification and the things they said created a new idea in my head.
How about offering some workshops to support new teachers?
I reached out to some of my NowZen students and a couple of other teaching friends to see what they thought and then they were generally very positive and so I ran a pilot for this idea with some great results. I also have had some excellent feedback from some initial contacts I made with some of you out there - and you know who you are! Thank you all for providing me with so much food for thought!
The outcome is a series of workshops that I am now making available to anyone who is interested in improving their teaching skills, building up a toolkit of ideas and resources and generally gaining confidence in sharing the Zentangle method more widely, either to family and friends or in a more professional manner. It is possible to find your own style over time and certainly I am not against the advice of Rick and Maria to 'Just Do It' but some people need a little more support and time to feel comfortable in teaching others. And I am hoping that my workshops will offer that support, guidance, advice and chance to ask questions and learn from someone who has been going through it.
I have many years experience of training and teaching at all levels and have also acted as a mentor in my previous work. Instinctively, I enjoy teaching and encouraging people to find their best selves and to have the confidence to share their knowledge in a way that suits them. The workshops I am offering can be taken individually ( as a one-to-one with me) or in a group of others. There will be no actually drawing - it is entirely focused on the aspects of teaching that you may not have had the opportunity to think about. There are six workshops in all, covering things such as Online Teaching, Face-to-Face teaching, Elements of Business (the legal, technical, data protection and administrative things that you may not have considered), a workshop looking at Creativity and Preparation and a special class for you to do a 'dry run' teaching experience with me as your student - with detailed and constructive feedback that will help you to identify your own style - a Teaching Time workshop.
If you are interested, I suggest the Overview workshop would be a good one to start with. It's not duplicated in any of the other classes but looks in a light-hearted way at some of the pitfalls and problems of teaching both online and in person and gives you a set of 'tools' to help prepare you as well as possible. We all know there are 'no mistakes' and this should go for us, the teachers too. However, sometimes, for warned is forearmed and when the unexpected happens, you can at least be partly prepared! There are currently no active dates for the other workshops but please contact me for more information!
I want this to be the sort of course that I could have done before I began teaching live. For that reason, I hope it will be what you are also interested in. I am offering a discount if you select up to four classes in this series but it's possible to take any single one on its own.
So - check them out. Get in touch and let's teach the world to tangle!
Axxx