--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Who paid for it? For the posters and the ads and the cost > of the meeting rooms and the time spent teaching the classes? > We did, of course, "we" being the students of that partic- > ular spiritual path. We considered it selfless giving and > "paying it forward," because other students before us paid > for our first free talk and instruction session.
The Internet has been a great place for people to teach for free. I'm continually amazed at the people who make an avocation out of teaching and counseling gratis online. Since going online in 1995 I've read educational pieces for sex, appliance repair, grease cars, meditation and more. People do it, apparently, because it's fun. It may aggrandize the ego - "I know more than you" - but often the impulse seems selfless. In Waldorf Education circles, it's acknowledged that the impulse to teach arises from within the soul, and cannot be denied. Neither can it be sold. True teachers cannot *not* teach. Waldorf teachers consider their teaching to be a gift they give, and encourage parents to consider their tuition payments to be gifts as well, rather than fees for services. The problem with this teaching-as-a-gift model is that it's not sustainable.
