Take a class with a range of specialized teachers in exchange for basic items and services. Secure a spot in a Trade School class by meeting one of the teacher's barter needs. How can something so singularly awesome exist?
It all started in late 2009 because three of the five co-founders of
OurGoods were given an opportunity to work with
GrandOpening, and had a wild brainstorm session about many possible barter storefronts. They decided that “barter for instruction” had a lot of potential.
So, from February 25th to March 1st, 2010, Trade School ran at GrandOpening in the Lower East Side. Over the course of 35 days, more than 800 people participated in 76 single session classes. Classes ran for 1, 2, or 3 hours and ranged from scrabble strategy to composting, from grant writing to ghost hunting. In exchange for instruction, teachers received everything from running shoes to mixed CDs, from letters to a stranger to cheddar cheese. They ran out of time slots for teachers to teach and classes filled up so quickly that they had to turn people away. This made them think, “we should keep doing this!”
Though Trade School is based in New York, there are now Trade Schools in many parts of the United States (Los Angeles, Virginia, New Haven, New York) as well as across the globe (Milan, Singapore, London, Paris, and Gaudalajara so far).
How it Works
1) Teachers propose classes and ask for barter items from students. For example, if you teach a class about making butter, you might ask students to bring heavy cream, jars, bread, music tips, clothes, vegetables, or help with something like finding an apartment.
2) Students sign up for classes by agreeing to bring a barter item for the teacher.
The Trade School network is made up of self-organized barter-for-knowledge schools across the world. It started in 2010 with a small group of friends in New York and spread to Virginia and Milan in 2011. In 2012, we built a better version of our barter-for-knowledge web platform so that we could share it with organizers elsewhere. If you want to organize a Trade School in your area,
go here.
