Night Classes.

TeeDee

Full Member
Nov 6, 2008
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Exeter
I did a few night classes when I was a young man. Enjoyed them and a nice way to break up the working week whilst learning something different.

Have you done or seen any interesting Night Classes? I did wonder at one point if one could teach a bushcrafty type night class with weekends to consolidate the theory.
 
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Pattree

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Jul 19, 2023
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I think they’ve gone from around here under that title. A search for “Nightschool Classes near me”. produced a few, mostly well-being and sociological subjects.

Long ago I went one evening a week for ten weeks to a Creative Writing course. It wasn’t much good but it got me talking to other people who wanted to write and a few who had been published in one way or another.

They used to cost money but were local government subsidised and accommodated. I guess that’s one of the things that has killed them.
The other will be the internet. There are all sorts of courses on line. There are on line learning centres but also just tagging onto a YouTube tutorial and getting into a conversation with the author is also a self driven learning experience.

I go to a pottery on a drop in basis and a very patient lady is willing to point out how I could do things better and let me use her kiln. There is of course a fee for this . It’s a 69kw kiln!!!!! and she rents the studio.
From time to time she runs a course of lessons.

What might folk be interested in learning?
 

demented dale

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Dec 16, 2021
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I did them for years, creative writing, mechanics, black and white photography and french to name a few. I loved it. I still do the odd course now and again but these days they are very expensive and not all of them are any good. The best I have found are the courses that are run on the Bushmoot. in my experience they are well priced and delivered by skilled people. I tend to teach myself these days. I do spanish in the tent and french in the van (so I dont mix them up) and then i watch you tube and try things out. I love learning in a class enviroment but we just dont have that here in rural ireland. When teaching i always try to remember to remain the pupil x
 
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Kepis

Full Member
Jul 17, 2005
6,860
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Sussex
Think the last night class i did was learning how to use Lotus 1-2-3, when i was working a lot overseas i looked at various language classes, ie Spanish, Arabic, Russian, but due to work pressures i never got round to them, although i did learn Spanish, but more due to spending lots of time in Spain where i just kind of picked it up.
 
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Laurentius

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Aug 13, 2009
2,539
704
Knowhere
I can remember doing night classes various night classes back in the day, just for the interest and something to do. Amongst the classes I remember doing was the history of photography, primitive religions, the literature of King Arthur, mostly courses in the arts and literature as well as music. Those sort of classes have been cut right back nowadays due to lack of Council funding, all that seems available are career based courses with qualifications attached. I have done those too in teaching and psychology but now I am retired I would rather do classes purely for leisure. Last leisure course I did was learning the flute, not that I could not already play the flute having taught myself, but I wanted to learn the proper way. I was disappointed and in the end preferred to continue playing the "wrong" way.
 
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Broch

Life Member
Jan 18, 2009
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Mid Wales
www.mont-hmg.co.uk
The problem is, when one gets to a certain age, you can only expect to get about 20% out of a course on a subject you are interested in. It's surprising how much knowledge one acquires by just 'looking into' a subject.

There used to be a published list of 'night classes' one could attend at the local community hall but I haven't seen one for years. I've done various art and language courses in the past but I confess, I now prefer the 'study and practice' self tuition method.

The last on-line course I did was Zen :) (even got a sticky foot) - but the 20% rule still applied.
 
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TeeDee

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Nov 6, 2008
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Exeter
The problem is, when one gets to a certain age, you can only expect to get about 20% out of a course on a subject you are interested in. It's surprising how much knowledge one acquires by just 'looking into' a subject.

There used to be a published list of 'night classes' one could attend at the local community hall but I haven't seen one for years. I've done various art and language courses in the past but I confess, I now prefer the 'study and practice' self tuition method.

The last on-line course I did was Zen :) (even got a sticky foot) - but the 20% rule still applied.
If it was Zen then maybe the goal should have been that you got nothing from it.. :)
 

Pattree

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Jul 19, 2023
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Ian Anderson learned how to hold a flute decades after Jethro Tull had their last big hit.
 

Keith_Beef

Native
Sep 9, 2003
1,405
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Yvelines, north-west of Paris, France.
I did a few computing classes in the '90s.
System administration
C level 1 and level 2
Web server, FTP server, mail server admin
Web design
JavaScript
Java

Interesting, useful, applicable to my day job, but only in the sense that it makes my day job slightly less boring and slightly less difficult: none of what I learnt got me a cent more from my employer.
 

Pattree

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Jul 19, 2023
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I did an IT evening class with my colleagues right at the beginning of computers in organisations. After five or six weeks I could write a program for a game called “Moonlander”. Now we are not talking tv screens here. I typed the program using an input keyboard that wrote on a roll of paper. I then entered a command and went to the end of the room to see what happened on an output printer also printing on paper.

In eight weeks (I bunked off the last two) I learned that I could safely leave computers to other people until they could inform me. I did not have to inform them.
I didn’t need a word processor, I had an audio-typist.
 

matarius777

Nomad
Aug 29, 2019
358
137
59
Lancaster
I used to do quite a few in my youth, in the 80s, there was always a fine assortment and as I was unemployed, free. I recently tried to find a creative writing or an advanced photography but could find nothing. I guess council defunding has put paid to most, I mean, they can’t even afford to fix the roads!:( Such a shame, they say we’re going back to Victorian poverty, which I would debate, having done a course on the effects of the Industrial Revolution, up to 1850 (also for free). The sad thing is, many of the institutions they inaugurated to expand the minds of the common man have been decimated during Tory mismanagement. How many libraries have been closed? Adult education decimated?
 

Paul_B

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 14, 2008
6,413
1,700
Cumbria
The other half has signed up to a DIY class in a local college. She wants me to sign up to the one after hers but being a man I kind of took offence at that. I think men have DIY in their DNA even if they are absolutely crap at it!!!:)

I learnt by watching my Dad as a kid. Of course from a distance so he didn't see me and get me to help!!!! I wasn't daft enough for that.
 

Stew

Bushcrafter through and through
Nov 29, 2003
6,615
1,409
Aylesbury
stewartjlight-knives.com
The other half has signed up to a DIY class in a local college. She wants me to sign up to the one after hers but being a man I kind of took offence at that. I think men have DIY in their DNA even if they are absolutely crap at it!!!:)

I learnt by watching my Dad as a kid. Of course from a distance so he didn't see me and get me to help!!!! I wasn't daft enough for that.
Im a professional diy-er. It’s fair to say that from what I see, most men don’t have it in their dna.
 
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Pattree

Full Member
Jul 19, 2023
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GSI every time

(Get someone in)
It’s quicker, probably doesn’t cost a lot more but even if it does it means the next six weekends are free because they did it in two days.

and cleaned up afterwards!
 

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