Courtesy Corvid College SF

A meeting of a Corvid Boston.

On Saturday, religion teacher and rogue academic Christian Greer, presided over a “hoedown” at Mission hacker-space Noisebridge.

But the event had little to do with country line-dancing—or hacking, for that matter.

About 25 would-be students of Corvid College were meeting professors for the first time, in order to sign up for classes in everything from zombies to Situationism.

Greer, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and Boston University in his late 20s, has been organizing nontraditional classes since 2008, both on the East Coast and now SF.

“We’re like a mix between a knitting circle and bike gang,” said Greer cheerfully.

In creating the Corvid College, whose San Francisco classes start in early January, Greer and other educators were drawn together by a shared frustration with higher education. They believed bureaucracy was driving a wedge between teachers and students, were frustrated by insurmountable student debt, and wanted to offer classes that aren't found in traditional academia. (A student of Corvid dubbed the hurdles set up by the university system the “Hassle Castle” and the term stuck.)

"Bureaucracy distances the teacher from the student and the student from what they're there to do, which is to live the life of the mind and relish the simple joy of accumulating knowledge," he said.

Theirs is not a unique gripe: student debt and frustration with rising costs of public and private education have been a big discussion within the Occupy movement.

And Corvid is just one example of several new experiments in egalitarian alternatives to formal education. Last February, poet Alan Kaufman launched The Free Univeristy in the basement of antique shop, Viracocha, offering free five-week courses taught by volunteer teachers. Anyone with access to the internet can take advantage of websites like Skillshare and Khan Academy that offer online courses in everything from ice cream making to algebra.

The impetus for the first iteration of Corvid College, named for a family of birds Greer describes as non-hierarchical, was a 2008 email from Eric Buck, of the Boston Anti-Authoritarian Movement (BAM), who wrote that he was looking for radical educators to try an experiment with education.

Over long chats and glasses of wine (glasses of wine feature prominently in the Corvid model), Greer and his collaborators brought down the walls of the Hassle Castle: anyone who submitted a plan for a class, and attended a new teacher orientation, followed by a hoedown, could teach.

In the very first class, teachers outnumbered students: Greer and Buck taught one student together. These days, there are about 15 teachers at Boston Corvid and they have somewhere between 80-100 students taking a number of different course offerings. Students range in age from 19-80.

There are no grades or tests, and teachers divise their own criteria for attendence and payment—one would-be teacher in Boston tried to teach a law class and charge $5,000 a head. No one bit. 

Greer “retired” from Corvid in May 2011 in order to travel and wound up in San Francisco by way of Burning Man in October. At first, he had no plans to bring Corvid to the city; he was continuing his academic work and started an underground supperclub. It was after several wine-soaked dinners that he decided San Francisco was the perfect venue for a sister college.

The course names and topics are unorthodox: "Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!," "Wine, Hashish and Adventure," and "The Wild Within Us" are three courses offered by Corvid in 2012.

Greer caps his classes at 15 students, and is also serious about attendance; practicing something he calls Reverse Bribery. He charges $200 up front and refunds $20 every time a student attends class. If a student doesn’t attend, he spends the $20 on wine and snacks for the rest. He has also bartered for things like homebrew beer. At the end of a course, since there are not traditional ways of tracking progress, Greer’s students complete a project.

Classes can take place anywhere (Greer may teach on his porch) but Corvid SF has partnered up with local booksellers like Green Apple and Dogeared to host classes. In exchange, Corvid students will buy their books from the retailers.

Although he thinks that colleges need a shake-up, Greer doesn’t see Corvid as replacing higher education.

“Historically, when things replace things, it doesn’t always go so well,” he said.

But he does see Corvid as filling an educational void felt by both students and teachers.

“We are really inspired by what Sufi’s call a heart to heart relationship—people physically sitting around a table and sharing food and conversation," he said. "Education always has a place in human civilization. What I don’t think should be normal is unending debt and authoritarian models.”