"Those Who Cannot Do, Teach?" Questions About Making Courses

[Devampre]

Cheesy thread titles aside...

1. Do you think it's wise to make and sell a course for profit when you haven't gotten the exact results that you advertise?

2. Do you think there would be drawbacks in making such a course, even if you use an alias?

I have seen many people make all sorts of courses. And with the growing popularity of youtube channels exposing such ""charlatans," I wish to understand what separates a good course from one that it simply repackaged information from another guru. Or better understand when such a course is seen as predatory rather than helpful. Is it simply the ethics regarding the marketing/sales tactics? Or is it something else?

I appreciate the feedback and opinions of those that have made courses, those who have bought courses and everybody else that may have some unique take on this.

 

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[The-J]

1. No.

2. Yes. People will say you ripped them off, and you could be out of business, or worse: sued.

Why do you want to misrepresent your expertise? Do you have no integrity? Do you care what happens to the people who spend their money in search of a problem? Of course charlatans can make a lot of money, but they do so at the expense of their ethical code. This is a slippery slope. Ask Jordan Belfort what happens when you start to go against your own moral code of ethics a little: you start to justify further breaches of that code.

Repackaged courses are engaging in theft. Plain and simple. Thieves can get rich. People justify it by saying they're providing value, but really they're scalping value off of the original writer of the course.

This isn't very complicated. I don't even see it as worthy of discussion. People who do this are chasing the money and not seeking to provide unique value to the marketplace.

 

[Here]

"Those who can't do, teach" is true offline, where teachers need to be local and can only teach a limited number of students. The teaching profession is looked down on (in the US, anyway) and so the schools need to take what they can get.

Online is a totally different animal. The courses are optional and students enroll for a very particular purpose. If you're not qualified to teach the course, you'd have to lie in order to gain students. Is there anything wrong with lying? Morally, yes, for most people. Legally, yes, in most countries.

 

[lowtek]

I sell courses. I market them as "I will teach you how to program X thing" and "I will teach you how to implement academic papers related to X thing". Both courses deliver on their promise.

I don't promise students that they'll get a better career, or that they'll be able to run out and do the next unicorn startup (though I do say that the skills I teach would be helpful in such a context).

That's the extent of my promises and so I feel comfortable selling them. This is in contrast to the largest youtuber in the space who literally made a course called "Make Money with Machine Learning". It was revealed to be a scam. It was repackaged material with poor production quality (well below even his average youtube video) and a good chunk of plagiarized code. It blew up in his face.

I don't believe I fall into the "those who can do..." colloquialism, as I have to be able to code something up to teach it. My code is relatively unique (within the constraints of convergent solutions, sometimes there is only 1 best way to do something) and so nobody can point to it and say that I took it from someone else.

I have purchased numerous Udemy courses on programming and one on AdWords. All lived up to their promises of "I will teach you to do X thing". I then leveraged all of those skills to make money for myself.

Other positive experiences with courses: My wife enrolled in the training program of a prominent ecom member here, and it was quite pricey. Despite the high price to entry, it was worth the money, as he delivered on the promises made and was available for 1 on 1 consultation when help was needed. This was a direct counterpoint to the whole "those who can do, those who can't teach" as the person has indeed made a small fortune doing what he taught.

Bottom line is to check the claims against reality. Anything promising to make you wealthy or teach you some secrets that somebody doesn't want you to know, is almost certainly a scam. Courses marketed towards teaching a particular skill are often times legit. Price isn't a differentiating factor. I've paid small amounts and my wife has paid large amounts for information, and in both cases we were happy customers.

 

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[Rabby]

If you believe you are not competent at something, and you charge people to teach them the thing you're not competent at, you're just defrauding people.

"Those who can't do, teach" is a slur. It's not some universal truth, but an insult to teachers who are competent. Why aspire to be an incompetent charlatan? Surely there's something you know enough about to teach well? Or something you can learn enough about to get others started, or get them to the next level.

 

[BellaPippin]

If I look at it in the context of art, art is subjective, so just because I'm not in the Louvre doesn't mean I can't teach you drawing and painting principles.

Now if you're teaching people to build bridges and you're not an engineer that's another story.

I think in the case of making courses isn't about teaching 100% but packaging the information in an efficient and effective way, as well. So while I might not be a graduated biology teacher I might be able to research the information enough to put together a good course that prepares someone for a particular exam, for example, to better their grades, if the conventional way of studying isn't working for them.

 

[Devampre]

I appreciate the replies so far!

The title was not intended to be a discussion in of itself for the thread. However, I don't mind hearing the responses to that as well. I will clarify (just in case), I don't believe all teachers are incapable of doing that of which they teach.

Also, I understand that for some, this thread and the questions may seem to hold little to no value. I however, feel it may be valuable to some people, even if that happens to be a very small minority.

There is a lot of good information and a lot of misinformation out there and sometimes communities like this can make all the difference from people making costly and/or avoidable mistakes. I don't believe we all share the same common sense or morals.

 

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[ChrisV]

"Those who can't do, teach" is a slur. It's not some universal truth, but an insult to teachers who are competent.

I absolutely despise this saying. It shows such a lack of gratitude to all your former teachers.

What happens many times is someone has a successful career and then when it's time to retire they work on their legacy.

Attorneys do this, psychiatrists do this... hell, even MJ did it. He started his successful business, sold it, then decided it was time to teach people what he's learned.

Teachers are great people.