Hi everyone,
Putting some numbers under this:
- 281 people have taught Software Carpentry at least once
- 251 people are now badged instructors
- 164 people who are badged instructors have taught
(Yes, that means only 2/3 of our badged instructors have taught so far,
but that's because a lot of people have received their badge since July
1 this year and haven't yet had a chance.) More importantly:
- 127 people who have taught started as learners or helpers
- 154 people have taught who *didn't* start as learners or helpers
That 154 is almost certainly an over-count: we're good at tracking
instructors, but much less good at tracking helpers, so I'm willing to
bet that some of the people in that group actually did help before
teaching. Even if you move some of those 154 people to the "started as
learners/helpers" group, though, more than a third of the people who
have taught for us came in the way Rémi did: they had relevant prior
teaching experience and wanted to help their fellow scientists.
So yes, on the one hand people should see how we do things before they
teach - as James Hetherington pointed out in conversation earlier this
week, what's really distinctive about Software Carpentry is our method,
not our content. On the other hand, I don't want to turn away people
who can't easily get to a workshop but want to start running them -
having grown up in a small town in the middle of nowhere, I know what
it's like to *not* be in a major center.
Mentoring is definitely part of the solution; I think demo lessons like
the ones Damien Irving posted a while back are too. What else can we
do, and who'd like to do it?
Cheers,
Greg
--
Dr. Greg Wilson |[email protected]
Software Carpentry |http://software-carpentry.org
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