A Teaching Handbook for Wiccans and Pagans (8 page)

If you are on good terms with any Pagan elders in your community, they might pass along the information for you. I have found other Pagan teachers to be one of my best resources not only for finding students, but also for getting information about troublesome people in the community whom I might not want to take on. And if you have connections with other teachers and you find a great student who isn't a good fit for your teaching style, you can refer him or her to another teacher you trust.

In addition to telling people in person, tell them on
Google+
, Facebook, Twitter, a blog, or whatever other social networking tools you use. Also see if you can get others with blogs or websites to mention your class. If you're not doing social networking, start now!

Go to public Pagan events, and don't be shy.
Pagan events—classes, open rituals, Pagan Pride, camp outs, conventions—are some of your best bets for finding potential students. These events are often full of new or even experienced Pagans looking for teachers; in fact, that's the primary reason some people go. And sometimes these events include forums for teachers to meet students, and vice versa.

Whatever event you choose to attend, see if you can get on the docket and do a presentation or class for greater visibility. Remember, though, that it's not appropriate to shop for students at all events. Some groups frown on people “poaching” their attendees, and some groups hold events for the specific purpose of finding students or members themselves. Tactfully ask around beforehand if teacher-student networking is okay.

Make flyers.
Yes, flyers are old school, but they work. Give flyers to friends to pass along, and ask the leaders of Pagan organizations in your area if they'll do the same. Also try distributing them at places like these (but ask permission first):

• Pagan-friendly stores or coffee shops
  
• Irish pubs
  
• Colleges and libraries
  
• Music or art festivals
  
• Comic book shops and science fiction events
  
• Renaissance festivals, Highland games, and historical reenactment events
  
• Craft shops (as in arts and crafts)
  
• Co-ops (or, as my Glenn Beck–loving dad would say, “Anyplace you nature-loving hippies hang out”)
  

Build a website.
Check out other Pagan teachers' sites to see what kinds of features they have. Create a basic site with an introductory page, a page about your class(es) or teaching, an “about” page describing yourself, and student testimonials. Post any articles or podcasts you've done, too, so people can get an idea of your background and philosophy. Link your site to your Facebook, Google+, and Twitter accounts, and ask owners of other sites, blogs, or email lists to link to your site. You can also offer to put a notice on your site about someone else's services or products in exchange for them doing the same for you.

Actually advertise.
Consider placing an ad about your services, either in a free publication or website or in a paid one. There are still some great Pagan magazines, and some communities still have local Pagan newspapers and newsletters. You could also create a Facebook ad and limit how much money you want to spend on it (you pay according to the number of hits you get).

Screening and C
h
oosing Students

Screening—systematically examining your potential students to see if they have or don't have certain qualities or abilities that would make them a good fit for your class—is completely unnecessary, impractical, and impossible for some teachers and absolutely essential for others. If you are teaching in a situation where you have no control over who shows up, you can't screen, and you have no need to. Some examples of these situations are:

• Online classes
  
• Presentation at a Pagan event
  
• Public class at a bookstore or other venue
  
• Guest-speaking engagement
  

However, the following situations can warrant screening:

• Holding classes in your home
  
• Long-term classes where you're likely to get to know your students well and/or where group cohesiveness is vital
  
• Teaching an initiatory tradition or a tradition with levels that people need to be mentored through
  
• Leading a teaching coven or grove
  
• Teaching material that is very specific or advanced
  

In these cases, you will want to know more about your potential students before you take them on because they need to fit in well with a group, have previous experience, or you might work with them over a long period of time or become very involved in their lives.

Screening can be as simple as making sure students meet some basic prerequisite requirements so they'll understand what you're planning to teach (for example, understanding basic energy work before you teach them more advanced magic) and as complicated as interviewing people in depth to determine if they're a fit for your class or teaching group in terms of their skill level, temperament, preferences, and overall personality. Unless you are unbelievably psychic, can foresee every possible problem you might have with anyone and screen for these problems accordingly, or have your own polygraph machine, no system for screening that you come up with will be perfect, and you will not be able to truly tell with absolute certainty how your students are going to work out before you really get to know them. Anne Marie Forrester talked to me about this:

I've also found—much to my dismay—that you can't always predict when you first meet them. There've been people I thought were going to be awesome who turned out to be full of B.S., and then there was a student of ours who we were initially not sure about, but the longer she's been with us, the more awesome she becomes. So it's a hard thing to predict who's going to work out.

That said, screening can help you make a solid, educated guess as to whether or not someone is a good fit. It's certainly better than taking on strangers you met online just because they express interest or going solely with your gut (although your gut reaction is important too). Screening can help you determine if a potential student:

• Has enough previous experience to understand your material
  
• Is otherwise ready (maturity, has finished any prerequisites, etc.) for whatever you're teaching
  
• Appears to have needs and goals in sync with what you're offering
  
• Might benefit from your teaching style
  
• Might fit in well with your existing group, if you have one
  
• Is someone you're willing to allow into your home, if you're teaching at home
  
• Is someone you're willing to spend time with and you think you can get along with
  
• Appears to be ethical
  
• Is noticeably insane
  

One thing I'd like to point out here: you
do
have the right to choose
not
to teach people you don't want to, or who you don't think would work out in your situation. There are some people in the Pagan community who seem to believe that you must take on any poor soul who crosses your path, and some who seem very critical of teachers who don't teach everyone who asks. But we are educators, mentors, guides, and leaders—not saints. Taking on the wrong person for the wrong reason can be a waste of their time and yours if your teaching and learning styles don't mesh or if you clash personality-wise. It can be disruptive to your other students too.

Some Things to Screen For

So, when you screen, what are you looking for? Since every teacher's strengths, interests, situation, personality traits, and material will be different, different teachers screen for different things.

Here are some of the main things teachers screen for:

History and Previous Teachers

Knowing what Pagan subjects or traditions your potential students have studied in the past can help you tailor your teaching to build on the foundation they already have and fill in any gaps. And knowing who taught your potential students before can give you further insight into the students' background and mindset, particularly if you know their former teachers personally or by reputation.

Another benefit of finding out about a student's past teachers is that, if it's appropriate, you might be able to contact them and find out where the student left off, so you can pick up from there. You can also contact their former teachers for references. This can give you valuable insight and also help you avoid taking on a student who has caused trouble for another teacher in the past.

Commitment and Willingness to Do the Work

If you as a teacher are going to put in all the work to create, teach, and follow up on a class or lead a group, then you want to know that the people you're teaching are committed to the degree you need them to be. Melanie Henry's group is a tight-knit family, and commitment is very important:

To enter the inner grove, they have to be known to us for a year and a day and have to be accepted by everybody else in the inner grove. It's a big commitment because it means that you'll be doing ritual on new moons, full moons, and sabbats potentially for the rest of your life. You can go on leave of absence, but the assumption is that you are committing to doing this indefinitely. There's a little bit of a problem in that people want to join up without fully understanding what that commitment means in practice. Although that's one of the reasons it's good to have people stay in the outer grove longer—until they're sure—because if you're in the outer grove, it's like you're dating us, whereas if you're in the inner grove, it's like you're married to us.

Not every class or group requires that kind of dedication, but it is important to find out if your potential students are willing to make the level of commitment necessary for your particular situation. Nothing will take the wind out of a class's sails more quickly than a group of students who are not willing to do the spiritual and intellectual work you set out for them.

Brains and Competence

Your students don't need to be rocket scientists, but it helps if they have intellectual curiosity and are competent enough to grasp the information you're going to present. Sylva Markson commented:

I don't think that you necessarily have to be a genius to be a Witch, but I think, for myself, in the kind of Craft I practice and want to practice, there has to be a level of experiential exploration as well as intellectual exploration.

Goals

In long-term or intimate teaching settings, it's vital to know what a student's goals are in studying with you so you can determine if your teaching might meet their needs, and you can help them meet those goals. It's also important to find out if a potential student's goals are completely out of line with what you're offering or if they have goals you don't approve of.

One example of this is “initiation hunters”—people who study with a teacher only long enough to acquire a title or degree, just so they can say they have it, and then move on to another. These people aren't worth your time and energy. Anne Marie Forrester told me a story about one pre-initiate student (a student studying toward initiation) she worked with briefly who was more interested in the title of “Witch” than in actually being one:

A couple of years ago at a large community event, one of our pre-initiates came in with a gaggle of her friends, and our coven was sitting at a table in the big main hall.… From across the room she points at us, and I could clearly hear her say, “That's my high priestess, and I'm in her coven.” And she puffed up with pride, and everybody appreciatively ogled us from across the room, and then she sort of shushed them into the dealers' room, which was out another door, and she never came over and said hi to us, and she never came over and spent any time with us.

Later, in private, we asked her, “Why didn't you come over and say hello to us?” And she got all embarrassed and upset. So we talked it through and mutually agreed that she needed a month off to reevaluate her commitment to her studies and our group. But after that evening she never came back; that's the last we saw of her. I think she wanted the title and the pride of title more than she wanted to actually be part of our coven or do the work.

Why They Want to Study with You

Asking a student why they want to study whatever you're teaching, and also why they want to study with you in particular, can give you a lot of insight. Asking them why they want to learn the content of your class can be very helpful in tailoring the class to their needs. It can also help you determine if you are the right person to teach that particular topic to them; there might be a better teacher for them out there. For example, my husband and I had a woman approach us about teaching, and we asked her what kind of group she was looking for and what she hoped to learn. She was interested in a lot of things, but she kept coming around to magic; she had a deep interest in it and a lot of previous experience. Our group, however, is not magically focused; we're a teaching coven. Magic isn't high on our agenda. So I sent the woman to some other
people
in town I knew who offered a more magically oriented study group.

Speaking of magic, it can also be helpful to ask potential students how they plan to apply what they've learned. Do they want to learn about magic to create positive change in their lives or to hex their ex-lovers? If you don't agree with the way they are going to use the information you give them, you might not want to teach them.

It's also good to know why they want to study with you in particular. Is it to work with you, or do they just want to hang out with their friends, who happen to be in your class? It's helpful to know what they've heard about you or what they think you can offer them so you can determine if you really have the qualities they think you do. If you don't, it's good to get that information out on the table right away.

It could be that you're the only teacher in their area, or that you're the only person teaching your particular tradition or topic. This can make you very popular by default. My husband and I were the only people of our tradition teaching in our city for a long time, and it felt like every seeker in town who was even a little bit interested in our trad talked to us at one point or another.