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Kebbakwáh Skool didn't crash and burn so much as the fire never even got lit. And that's okay.

If you're not one of the people who was interested in Kebbakwáh Skool, allow me to explain. Kebbakwáh Skool was a project to study (Québec) French over the summer while we had relatively fewer obligations. Five people, myself included, were tasked with studying some French throughout each week, then convening on Sundays to talk about what we learned and teach each other new concepts. I think this is a great format in theory!

But it only lasted about 2 weeks.

Let's talk about what went wrong, and what I would do different if I did it again.

Why it failed

None of these reasons will be surprising, but they will be informative. Let's start with what I consider the biggest one.

Lack of interest

Studying a language requires intense dedication and perseverence. To be dedicated to a language, you have to have some motivation. "Learning French would be useful and cool I guess" is not a motivation. "I am moving to a place which requires French knowledge to get by" and "I just happen to be very fricking interested in French" are great motivations. I think most of the members of Kebbakwáh Skool fell into the former group. This isn't a bad thing! I'm not blaming anyone for the project's failure. We just didn't have the true motivation that it takes to dedicate oneself to studying a human language. The project was dead on the table before we started.

Assuming we could find that spark of interest and gain the motivation, there was still another big problem.

Lack of time

Although it was summer break, most of the members of Kebbakwáh Skool were still very busy with life. Some took summer classes. Some had jobs (can't relate). Some were planning a wedding (can relate). Ultimately, finding the time to meet every week was hard enough, let alone setting aside French study hours.

There's one more issue I can pinpoint, and this one's squarely on me.

Lack of leadership

Kebbakwáh Skool was intended to be a collaborative effort, but it was still organized by myself. I believe I had at least some responsibility to encourage the other members to study and participate in weekly discussions. But because of reason #1, I didn't do that. I simply didn't have the motivation to study the language much myself, which meant I also didn't have the motivation to get people excited about weekly discussions.

Before any Kebbakwáh Skool participants say "JM no u didnt do the bad thing stoep it" yes I know. I'm not saying I singlehandedly brought down Kebbakwáh Skool. All of us worked very hard to see that nothing came of it. And again, that's okay. We didn't fail anything. It just wasn't meant to be, in my opinion.

How to make it better

Why would I consider running a project like this again? Because I think it's a super cool idea that could be done right with the right group.

On my end as an organizer, it has to be a language I'm genuinely passionate about. I'm simply not that interested in French, hate to say it. If I were instead running something like a Finnish summer learning group, I expect that I'd do a muuuuuuch better job keeping up with self-study and encouraging members to share and learn together.

However, as already said about three times, the members also need to be genuinely passionate about the language. I don't know anyone else who's really excited about the prospect of learning Finnish. But if I did, I'm sure we could make huge strides over the course of a summer break. Maybe someday I'll find that group.

I'm not upset or disappointed that Kebbakwáh Skool didn't take off. It is what it is. I'm really happy that we tried to make it happen! I got to brag about it to a potential employer, who did offer me a job. Correlation = causation. If I do end up in a position to try this format again in the future, I wouldn't hesitate. I'd love to try again. Til then, if you were part of Kebbakwáh Skool, thanks for wanting to be a part of it, even if nothing much happened. It made me really happy to develop for y'all.