Education plan

This is a draft of a new or in-progress document, and is likely to have a few people specifically working on it. You may wish to check in on the discussion page to see what the purpose of the document is and who's working on it; then feel free to give this article love and attention if have extra of those things.

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Intro

How will Free Geek's Education Program change over the next 3-5 years so that Free Geek can better fulfill its mission and live up to its principles?

State of the program

Currently, the Education program is run in a rather ad hoc manner under the direction of the Knowledge Bees committee. There are three sets of classes that are kept going on a regular basis and are really quite successful at their purpose: The Adoption Class, the Command Line Class for Builders and the Advanced Linux Class.

In addition, there is some educational aspect to everything else we do, from Tech Support to Recycling, but especially in the Build program, but there is little overall coordination of the education aspect of these areas.

Current and past issues

We have had an overall problem finding and keeping volunteer teachers. The most successful classes are backed up with a staff person, who may end up being the teacher for weeks or months at a time. We have and have had some excellent volunteer teachers, but cannot depend on them to be regular enough to cover all classes. Further, we have had enough last-minute cancellations that we do not dare schedule a class without a paid backup teacher.

Note: put in something about coders. Where it's worked and failed for us in the past.

Trends and predictions

It will explode. The new Education Coordinator will add structure and consistency to the program. Existing work will be more educational. There may be more classes offered, and we may be able to offer classes that don't directly benefit Free Geek.

	Good (for Free Geek)	Bad (for Free Geek)
Internal (to Free Geek)	Strengths: Strengths are advantages we have that are internal to Free Geek. (Good things we do.)	Weaknesses: Weaknesses are problems we have that are internal to Free Geek. (Things we do poorly or not at all.)
External (to Free Geek)	Opportunities: Opportunities are advantages we have that are external to Free Geek. (Good things that will or could happen to us.)	Threats: Threats are problems we have that are external to Free Geek. (Bad things that will or could happen to us.)