A Teaching Handbook for Wiccans and Pagans (7 page)

For a couple of different perspectives, I asked Christopher Penczak and T. Thorn Coyle how they handled taxes and licensure. Christopher draws income from more than one source, and he told me about his situation (a DBA allows you to do business under a name other than your legal one; it means “Doing Business As”):

I am a sole proprietor for my main business of teaching and writing and private sessions. I run a 501(c)3e temple that pays me a percentage of the income I bring in, as if I were doing a split with a local store or center, and I pay taxes on that income. I have a publishing company that is established as a LLC. I don't have a DBA, as Christopher Penczak is my legal name. I do have insurance at my office, more liability if someone falls, but I do have protection if someone wants to sue me in general. But most of what I do falls under my ministerial work—spiritual healing and counsel. I don't set myself up as a medical professional.

Thorn's situation is somewhat different:

I taught as a self-employed person for many years, paying my own social security and all the other required taxes, filing quarterly, and everything else required to run a business in this way…. Currently, I am the one paid minister of Solar Cross Temple, which is a nonprofit religious organization founded by myself and two others.… Any income that used to go to me from teaching classes, writing books, and one-on-one spiritual direction now goes to the temple organization, which pays me a small salary.

If you can manage it, I highly recommend that you get an accountant if you are going to get a business license. It sounds expensive, but it doesn't have to be that bad, and the grief the accountant will save you is well worth the money. When I ran my sole proprietorship, I used an accountant only to do my taxes—I handled the books myself. She
specialized
in taxes for sole proprietorships, worked out of her home, was reasonably priced, and sometimes would do trades for certain services. It didn't cost me that much, and I had the peace of mind of knowing that my paperwork was done correctly.

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Chapter 3

Finding and Screening Students

In his answers to my interview questions, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart offered his version of a saying you've probably heard: “When the teacher is ready, the students will appear!” It's true that if you are ready—if your will is aligned to teaching—then you're more likely to attract people into your life who want to be taught. But, like most things, it's not as simple as it seems. Obviously you can't camp out in meditation on your couch like a guru at the top of a mountain and hope your chanting and positive vibes draw people to you. A big part of finding students is marketing. And although many Pagan teachers find that idea dismaying or distasteful—even me, and I work in marketing—it doesn't make it any less true.

In any marketing campaign, you need to know who your desired audience is so you can pinpoint your marketing plan. If you know something about the kind of person you would (ideally) like to teach, you can tailor your class to that kind of person, or focus on your particular strengths and skill set and market them to attract the kind of person who would benefit most from it.

If you're teaching a one-off class, doing a podcast, or making a presentation somewhere, this might not seem very important, since chances are you won't be developing any long-term personal relationships with your students. And, of course, in certain teaching situations you have no control whatsoever over whom you will be teaching. But even in those cases when you have limited interaction or no say about whom you are teaching, it's good to think about what kind of student would benefit most from your teaching style, if only so that you can buffer up your less-developed skills in order to meet the needs of a wider range of people. Students are more successful if they're learning in the right place, at the right time, in the right format, and with the right teacher. Even if you have little control over some or all of those factors, thinking about them will help you craft a better class. Here are some areas to explore.

Potential
S
tudent Demographic

Younger or Older Students?

Would you be more effective with younger or older students, or a mixed group? If the average age of your group skews higher, the class is likely to have different needs and a different feel than if it skews lower. There's more information about age and learning styles in
Chapter 4
. And think about a related question: are you willing to teach minors? How would that change how you teach?

Beginners or More Experienced Students?

Beginners are often very eager learners, which can make teaching them seem easier and more fun. Their enthusiasm can be infectious, which can inspire you to be more enthusiastic too, especially if you've been studying the material you're teaching for a long time and it's not fresh for you. Their enthusiasm can also make them very willing to meet an inexperienced teacher halfway by overlooking nervousness and being more forgiving of mistakes. In addition, beginning students are also more likely to be “clean slates,” with fewer preconceived notions about the material than someone who has studied it before from a different teacher or a different angle.

Some teachers like beginners because they feel less threatened by them; if you always teach beginners, chances are you always know more about your subject matter than your students. (I wouldn't encourage this mindset because I don't think it's healthy in the long term, but it's fairly common and very human.)

Teaching beginners might not be for you if you get frustrated by questions and repetition. Beginners will have a thousand questions, which can be invigorating at best but can also be frustrating and put you on the spot if they come up with a question you didn't anticipate. (It will happen, trust me!) They also need repetition to retain skills and concepts, so if you teach them, you'll be saying the same things over and over again in different ways. And if you add new beginners to an established group, you will find yourself explaining the same concepts even more often.

Working with beginners might not be appropriate for you if you are more interested in engaging intellectually with peers than in building someone's skills. By “peers” I mean people who know the same or a similar amount about the same things as you do. Some teachers teach because they are looking for others to discuss and debate Pagan topics with, to further the knowledge of both student and teacher. This is a legitimate way to teach, but it's not a great way to teach beginners.

Teaching more experienced students also has its pluses and minuses. On the plus side, you are more likely to be able to have in-depth discussions and debates. All students teach their teachers, but experienced students can enhance your knowledge in ways beginners can't. Experienced students often have a better idea of what they want or need from a teacher, too, and can ask more specific and detailed questions and narrow down the ways in which they need your help. And if you have a mixed class of beginners and experienced students, the beginners can learn a lot from the others.

Of course, experienced students tend to come to your class with higher expectations. If they had great teachers in the past, they will hold you to those standards. If they had terrible teachers, they will be worried that you will be terrible, too, and they might withhold their trust until you prove that you're not.

Experienced students can also be a little more set in their ideas and less flexible, although this is hardly universal. They might also make assumptions that you need to work around or through. Sylva Markson told me about being in this position:

There was a guy who came to us looking for training who had been practicing a tradition that he thought was very similar to ours for quite a number of years, and he came to me expressing, “Well, I feel since I've kind of been doing this all these years anyway, I might as well be official and get the title and the whole shebang.” And I'm like, “Oh, dear; here is a guy who thinks he knows everything about our tradition already.” So the question to me is, “Is this someone who is teachable or not? Is this someone who is going to be able to shed some of those preconceptions?” So I threw out to him a couple of examples of things that are very common misconceptions about our tradition, and his reaction was, “Well, maybe I don't know as much as I think I do.” And then I thought, “Okay, this is someone I can probably work with, then, if he is willing to set aside what he thinks—what he knows in his mind for all of these years.”

And obviously, if you're going to teach more experienced students, you need to know your material thoroughly—not just at the beginner level—so you have something to offer them.

Your Biases as a Teacher

The word
bias
often has negative connotations attached to it, but let's face it: we're human, and we're not objective. We all have preferences or leanings; we're predisposed toward certain things. And it helps to know what these are if you are going to teach. For example, my husband and I teach Wicca from a fairly shamanistic viewpoint. Therefore, we incorporate a lot of shamanistic practices. People who aren't comfortable with or interested in shamanic practices would probably be less happy or successful in our group than those who are. Similarly, we're not as interested in magic, so although we try to give our students a solid foundation in the basics and practice in using the magical rites and spells our tradition provides, we don't go much beyond that unless someone asks. A person looking for in-depth magical training would be better off with different teachers.

Sarah Davies talked about understanding her own biases:

I think that I require a lot more creation. I want people to write their own rituals and come up with their own meditations, as opposed to “here's a meditation; go home and do it.” I also come more from an academic background, so I'm a little bit more structured about the curriculum, as opposed to “well, what do you want to know? I'm here, I'm your fountain of wisdom, ask me questions.”

Your biases and inclinations can often be used in positive ways. Melanie Henry told us about making use of her particular leanings in working with students:

I can deal with both dark and light energy, which is not unique by any means, but it is more rare than I first thought it was…. There are a lot of people who are more comfortable with one or the other, and there aren't that many people who kind of straddle the line, and I do that.

Your Communication Style

Are you assertive? Passive? Do you speak quietly or loudly? Do you rely on body language to get across the full meaning of what you're trying to say? Do you listen or interrupt, or both? What kind of student would benefit most from your teaching/communication style? Brian Rowe commented on trying to find students who could mesh with his and Sarah's teaching style:

And we have looked at potential students that we've decided are not right for our particular communication style and our expectations, and in talking to them we try to be very clear that we're not saying that they're not necessarily right for the path, but they wouldn't necessarily be a good fit with our group and our dynamic.

Your Material

Different people want and need different things from a Pagan class. What kind of student do you think could benefit most from the kind of material you teach?

Ellen Evert Hopman told me a story about what she teaches not meshing with what a particular student wanted:

I had another person who was working with me; she asked me if I would foster her so she could go through her initiation. I said sure, but I don't know why she asked me, because I'm so into teaching the ancient ways. I want people to know the depths of what we do and the span of who we are and how our tradition goes back for thousands of years and the richness of it. All she wanted to do was her own thing. She wanted modern robes. She didn't want to wear anything that looked at all ancient. She wanted her tools to look modern. She said she wasn't interested in the ancient stuff, she was only interested in modern ritual. It finally got to a point where we just couldn't work together because we just didn't see eye to eye.

Your Tradition or Path

It sounds unfair, but the truth is that not every path is right for every person. Some people make, for example, better Druids than they do Alexandrian Wiccans because their natural skills, inclinations, interests, talents, energy, or whatever resonate more with the former than the latter. What kind of student would be most fulfilled on your path?

S
o
me Ways to Meet or Find Students

Finding students is relatively easy for some Pagan teachers and much harder for others. For some it is a matter of logistics; there might not be many other Pagans where you live. As Sylva Markson commented, if you find yourself in this situation and you want to teach in person rather than online, you might have to adjust your expectations accordingly:

I live in a small town—I don't live in a big metropolitan area—so there are not a lot of Pagans around here, let alone Pagans of like mind. And the consequence of that is that I have a very small group, and we're not able to meet as often as we would like because we don't all live right next door to each other, but you make of it what it is.

Pagan students and teachers who are isolated can now at least find like-minded others on the Internet. Online teaching and learning aren't for everyone, but at least it's an option, and one that I think Pagans in the 1970s and 1980s would have given their athames for. But whether you're teaching entirely in person, entirely online, or somewhere in between, the better connected you are—both in person and on the Internet—the more chances you have to meet students. Networking and advertising—two more evil, soulless marketing terms—really are the keys.

Networking and “Advertising”

Chances are, you will need to use multiple networking techniques to find students, not just one. Here are some of the networking and “advertising” (I use the quotes because they're not necessarily advertising that you pay for) techniques that have been most successful for me and many other teachers I know.

Use Witchvox/The Witches' Voice.
It's hard to overstate the impact the Witches' Voice (or Witchvox) website has had in both education and networking in the Pagan community. In fact, every single one of my current students met my husband and me through a posting we had on Witchvox.

If you post a listing for a class or group on Witchvox, describe what you're offering clearly, and don't give out too much personal information—even a great site like Witchvox can attract some creeps. Provide an email address so people can contact you.

Put the word out on email lists.
Email lists can be good forums for you to get the word out about your teaching services, and you can also learn about other events going on in your community and possibly network with other teachers and event organizers. If you don't have a local list, check out the Pagan email lists in Yahoo Groups and other list services. When you join a list, be sure to follow list rules; some list owners do not want people promoting goods or services on their lists. Ask the list owner what the policies are if you can't find the information easily on the list website.

Use word of mouth, in person and online.
Tell your friends and anyone else who will listen about your class. Word of mouth works pretty well in the Pagan community. Every Pagan you know probably knows others you don't know. Like I said, all of my current students came to me initially through Witchvox, but everyone in the coven I was a member of before that was there because of word of mouth. They knew someone who knew someone who knew someone.

Consider asking people who organize Pagan events in your area to mention your class or that you are looking for students. Some people will be more receptive to helping you than others, but it's worth a try. Be gracious, not pushy, and you might be surprised at who will help you.