FW: Cob: experience is overrated -- an eight-year-old with a cookbook could do this stuff!

[Donna Strow]

-----Original Message-----
From: Donna Strow [mailto:dstrow at bcpl.net]
Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 8:44 PM
To: name witheld for the usual reason
Subject: RE: Cob: experience is overrated -- an eight-year-old with a
cookbook could do this stuff!


But the folks who offered the 10 day intensive said I should come away
qualified to lead my own workshops.  And I do feel qualified, but not
perfect.

"Profit" isn't really where it's at, though.  If all you do is charge for
your time you break even; you don't profit.  If I'm not mistaken it was the
Apostle Paul who said, "The workman is worthy of his wages."

At issue here is not my worthiness as a teacher but the value to students of
what I'd be teaching.  Case studies and the lore of technology was valuable
stuff, but actually building was like, yeah, OK, exactly what we thought we
would be doing, exactly how we thought it would be done.  A few things came
up in the practica, but these also could be conveyed verbally.

-----Original Message-----
From: name witheld for forwarding purposes
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 4:53 PM
To: Donna Strow
Subject: Re: Cob: experience is overrated -- an eight-year-old with a
cookbook could do this stuff!



Perhaps the problem was who the class was with, or
what the practica was. I think that the workshop I
took was VERY valuable and gave me lots of information
that I had not found in any books, as well as an
experiential reference for what I had read about. We
built an actual house, not a shed or a garden wall.
As I build my cob house now I am constantly applying
the knowledge I got from that workshop.

Also, I think the particulars of every project will
bring different ideas and information to the surface.
I know that people who have come to work on my project
have learned some new stuff that wasn't available at
the workshop I went to, but they also will not be
around to see some of the stuff that I learned there,
such as plastering or arching.

Also, it sounds like you were expecting to "make a
living" by teaching building for money after one
workshop. Is this correct? Forgive me if I
misunderstood but that sounds shaky to me. Aside from
the fact that I think the "expert" title is bogus and
keeps people from finding their own path, I also think
anybody who is teaching building for profit should
have a LOT of experience in the technique they are
purporting to teach. One course, or even a degree for
that matter, doesn't seem like enough to me unless
there's a lot of real world experience to back it up.
"Good judgement comes from making mistakes, which
comes from bad judgement."

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