The Folk School is continuing to work hard to offer our classes in safe ways, which during the winter mostly means online, with some variations depending on the class. For example, for one class we briefly reviewed the needed tools with students when they came in to pick up their materials kit.
We deeply appreciate the innovation of our instructors and the willingness of students to be part of an experiment. As a result, we’ve been having some great classes, based on the student evaluations they get.
As spring approaches, we plan to do outdoors, in-person, small-sized classes whenever we can, using some outdoor heaters as needed. We’re continuing to develop other ways to engage people who want to continue to learn interesting things, including:
- Innovative online courses, some with kits and other prepared materials so you can work along with the instructor. (If you have any ideas about how to make online classes more engaging, we’d love to hear from you!)
- Kits that you can buy and create on your own, sometimes with accompanying instructional videos.
- In-person classes, if we can do them in well-ventilated spaces that allow social distancing and other pandemic best practices. This may include outdoors classes that explore the world of Interior Alaska, such as Snow Sculpture for Amateurs. And sometimes we can make a hybrid class–partly online or video, partly in-person–work.
- More products in our online store, many created by our very creative and talented instructors, as well as other artists of various kinds in Fairbanks.
We are deeply grateful for the financial support of our wonderful community during these difficult times. It’s because of you that we can keep operating. Thank you! We are also pursuing grants for both operations and programs that will help us keep pursuing our mission: to perpetuate the joy of hands-on learning.
For earlier updates, please see our Blog page. And please: remember your mask!