Learning together: Adult education's new approach

Over 1300 Wellingtonians have now signed up with Chalkle, a new form of adult education that’s less about formal qualifications and more about sharing knowledge and skills with the community.

Founders Silvia Zuur and Linc Gasking brought the idea to life over a cup of coffee at Wellington’s Ora Café in June 2012. Linc, an Australian website start-up entrepreneur, and Silvia, who has a background in environmental and social enterprise, consider themselves life-long learners and believe that other people are in the same boat.

“Many of our friends were curious to continue learning outside formal education and wanted to pick up practical, real-life and creative skills,” says Silvia, who met Linc through Enspiral, a collective of social entrepreneurs.

It took only a few brainstorming sessions in the café before Chalkle was launched. The intention was to supplement – rather than replace – the current education system of schools, universities and traditional community classes, and also strengthen the community at the grassroots level.

Silvia believes that the stronger and more connected communities become, the more open they are to living in sustainable ways.

“Creating resilient communities is so core to what we do,” she says.

“Connected communities are more likely to share with and trust each other.When you look over the last ten years we have become more and more disconnected from our communities and more reliant on importing goods and services. But connected individuals are more likely to head down the road to ask someone they know to fix their bike, for example, than go out and buy a whole new bike.

“I hope Chalkle helps strengthen communities that are empowered to live a more sustainable future”.

How does it work?

Chalkle classes can be taught and attended by anyone. The system recognises that everyone has something to teach – be it astronomy, worm farming, computer skills, bone carving, cooking, bike maintenance, or how to write your last will and testament.

“The community has amazing skills already in it, they just need to be accessed, and that’s what Chalkle does very well,” says Linc. “We’re not flying in experts, we’re finding them locally.”

The classes are accessed through www.chalkle.com and Chalklers can sign up to receive notifications based on their interests.

This means that the system is very adaptable, and classes can be added or dropped based on the needs of the learners and teachers.

Most of the classes are free, or for a donation. The rest tend to be around $15-$20 per person for an hour or two, but the price, length and time varies depending on the people involved. If the teacher wants to charge, Chalkle lets them set their own pay rate, but will market the class and process the transaction for them.

Chalkle was kick-started last year by a $12,000 Wellington City Council grant, and is currently funded by a small commission from the classes that charge. The Chalkle team currently employs eight staff.

Keeping it fun

A huge variety of people have already signed up – from students and professionals looking to up-skill, to people with a particular skill, like web-development, that they enjoy themselves and would like to share.

So where does all this learning take place?

“Anywhere! So long as it’s not a classroom!” laughs Linc. “For example, we run ‘real life’ Spanish classes by meeting at a restaurant or park.

“The first time we did that we went to the railway station to buy a train ticket in Spanish. We were standing by the ticket office and a tourist from Spain came up, so we had a chance to practice on him! You wouldn’t get that type of experience in the classroom.”

Silvia says that she thinks of going to a Chalkle class as speed dating for your brain.

“You have the social element, the ‘try before you buy’; there’s no long-term commitment, there’s curiosity, and fun, and to some degree, mental stimulation!”

Some of the most popular Chalkle classes are those that use a fresh setting or unconventional approach.

For instance the Chalkle Space Camp has been a big hit with families, with about 200 people having taken the class already. Held at Paekakariki Beach and its adjacent holiday park, the camp is a hands-on weekend of learning about rocket launches, night photography, astronomy, and Mars rovers.

Also popular was the zombie survival workshop, which used the slightly silly idea of surviving a zombie invasion as a way to teach some handy survival tricks.

Linc believes this class highlights a growing trend of people who are interested in regaining basic skills from a craftsman era.

“It’s about understanding how to use your hands to make something, rather than always resorting to your keyboard and sitting at a desk.”

It certainly helped Wellington architect Mike McKay get out from behind his desk. He attended a zombie survival workshop as a bit of after-work fun and learned how to make a start in archery (and kill some zombies) using scavenged modern materials. “I would never have dreamed of making a longbow out of PVC pipe,” he enthused. “What a great idea!”

Where to next?

The founders are now looking at expanding to other centres around New Zealand. Chalkle launched in Horowhenua in April and Silvia and Linc are looking for partner organisations to create new ‘channels’ – networks of people on Chalkle who have similar interests.

Silvia and Linc are also keen for people to get in touch with ideas or questions, especially from those who’d like to see Chalkle come to their area – if you’re interested you can reach them through www.chalkle.com.

The pair agrees there has been an overwhelming response in support of their idea from all quarters. “It’s meant that we’ve been able to go places that we couldn’t have otherwise,” says Silvia.

Which just goes to show how powerful a catch-up over coffee can be.

Have you taken a Chalkle class? Tell us about it by commenting below.