Before This Year Ends… A Question from the Heart 💛

As this year comes to a close, I find myself reflecting…
All the courses we’ve poured our heart into, the lessons we’ve shared, the students who’ve trusted us with their growth… it makes me wonder:

Which moment this year truly made you feel, “Yes, this is why I teach”?

Was it the student who finally understood a tricky concept?
The heartfelt message thanking you for making a difference?
Or maybe a quiet moment where you realized your work went further than you imagined?

I’d love to hear your stories. 💬
Let’s celebrate the small victories, the life-changing moments, and the reasons why we keep doing what we love.

Because teaching isn’t just about sharing knowledge it’s about touching lives. 🌟

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Comments

RonErez

I teach because I enjoy sharing and I sincerely do my best to explain things well. It is nice when a student appreciates the effort. For example a week ago I received a very nice thank you note from a student. However this is not the reason why I teach, although it is nice to be appreciated. Most of these thank you letters come from students who I teach in person. Udemy is great and I respond to every question and every review. However I have a much deeper personal connection with students that I see in person, who ask questions after class or come to office hours. On Udemy I have received messages from students saying my course is great or they like my teaching style or they appreciate the quick response to questions. All of this is great but it’s still not the reason I teach. I teach because I enjoy sharing and when I teach in person it even feels like I’m performing which is pretty cool.

SivakamiS2017

I immensely enjoy teaching the subjects I do, and also enjoy creating online Courses.
And yes, the fact that so many students enjoy my Courses and post amazing and detailed reviews keeps me going … despite the occasional horrible review !

Art_by_Benjamin

My reflection went a different way. I love to hear the great stories from my students about how a course impacted their lives, I read them a few times a week in the reviews they give. It's heart warming. Unfortunately it doesn't pay the bills anymore. With all the price cuts and changes on Udemy sales are down… a lot.

I released a couple of new courses this year, they're the best I've ever created and students do agree, they only have 5 star reviews. Yet contrary to previous years when releasing new courses meant a nice boost in sales, my sales are only getting less and less. Normally the last 3 months of the years are really excellent, this year it's just peanuts. Adding onto that the news about the merger, well really a takeover and it only talking about tech courses, which I don't do, my reflection went in a different direction. Regardless of all the great reviews, I'm not only making courses for that purpose, it's part of a business model and I can't pay bills from a few 5 star reviews. Those reviews used to generate sales, but that time is long gone.

In all my reflection I reached a simple conclusion, time to stop creating courses and move on and do something different with my life. Creating a good course takes time and being an art teacher ai doesn't help me much and I don't want to use ai for teaching anyway, I want them to glean from my experience and knowledge, not from a stupid emotionless machine. It takes me a couple of months to create a good course on art and the couple of dollars I now get in return don't justify all that time spend.

With the constant hammering on about tech courses by Udemy, I get the message. When reflecting on all of that I concluded it's time to quit and return to creating art instead of teaching it online. Once the merger with Coursera is done I'm pretty sure new art courses aren't welcome anymore anyway. It's not that I don't have inspiration for new ones, I do, but my bills are stacking up and I can justify spending months on creating new content.