The Brooklyn Brainery is an organization in New York City that hosts “collaborative learning classes.” “Abandon all hierarchical learning ye who enter here!” they tell visitors to their site.
Put simply: take or teach classes on pretty much anything you want. Like making microwave candy. Or typography. Or tea.
Classes are cheap ($10 or $20-ish) and you don’t necessarily need to be an expert in the field to teach a class. Just pick a subject you’re current obsessing about and share it with others. It’s kind of like starting a blog, but in person, with actual faces looking at you.
While there are places in most communities where you can take (or even teach) classes, I suspect there’s a bit more formality to the process. What I really like about the Brooklyn Brainery is that they’re unlikely to say, “No, that class doesn’t fit our mission statement” or “Sorry, we don’t let inexperienced teachers lead a class.” And that’s pretty cool. Get the community together, share neat stuff with each other, and drop the pretense. I like it.
(Even their suggest a course page is pretty nifty.)
(via Metafilter Projects)
Posted in Miscellaneous