I’ve taught many craft classes over the years as a librarian, but I’m still messing up. Sometimes I know better but try to skip a step, sometimes it is because of overconfidence, sometimes it is just bad luck. Here are the basic rules for running a successful craft class.
- Prepare – Plan the project and make a sample. The sample will be used to show the finished product, help you estimate time to make it, and see common mistakes that need to be anticipated. Prep as much as you can in advance, having all tools, components and things needed within reach. Have more supplies than you need, instead of “just enough”.
- Have handouts- this is where I goofed up last week- my handouts didn’t have step by step instructions, so that everyone could have something in front of them.
- Keep the group close. If you are demonstrating something that people need to see, being able to walk back and forth between participants and have them able to clearly hear and see you is important. Tables set up with participants on one side and you on the other is ideal, perhaps in an “L” shape or horseshoe shape.
- Set expectations. Summarize what you are going to do, talk about any safety precautions, and let people know it’s ok to ask for help or interrupt you. Also, it’s good to let people know where the bathroom is.
- Allow for creative variations– This isn’t a factory. Especially with children, allow for them to take the idea or technique and create something unexpected and new.
- Have fun. When I completely screwed up explaining how to fold a cloth star (something I’d done fine many times before, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out what I was doing or teaching wrong), we all tried to do it together and still had fun.
I think my next class will be a “Nailed It” or “Bad Art Night” program. In a Nailed it program, based on the popular Netflix show, you have an impossibly complicated goal (usually a professionally decorated cake) and a short time limit, and participants throw something together for hilariously unprofessional results. In Bad Art, you deliberately try to make a tacky, garish work of art, and the worst one “wins”. This leads to people saying things like “that looks too good, you need to try harder.”
Really, there is no true failure unless someone gets hurt or there is significant damage to the building. In that case, all my craft classes are successful, and yours can be too!
