Words are easier once you recognize that the official title of a person, product or organization actually communicates very little to people outside of the organization.<p>Working in communications, I've seen many instances of groups using acronyms and catchy titles to brand (or rebrand) themselves. For example:<p>- After much deliberation, a health care center decided to call its members "HARP," which stood for Health Advocacy Resource Personnel, to emphasize that they were focusing on preventative care.<p>- A law enforcement unit changing a job title from Community Outreach Officer to Street Worker in an effort to show that they were concentrating on gangs in high-crime neighborhoods.<p>Not surprisingly, no one outside of health care ever found out what "HARP" meant. And former gang members didn't build relationships with the police because some of them were called Street Workers.<p>My point is this: changing a title can entice someone to learn more about your organization and its members, but the title itself cannot - and will not - communicate all the nuances of a position. That's the responsibility of a messaging campaign.<p>I like that Hacker School has distilled the nuances of its members' roles into a blog post. The next step should be to develop focused messages that paint a picture of these students / hackers / developers / HackerSchoolers and what makes them unique.
A persistently missing name is often a sign that the concepts haven't been fully worked out yet. In you guys' case that could be exciting. It could mean that what you're doing is newer and more emergent than you've yet realized. If so, your job is not to name the thing, but to follow it as it emerges and let it teach you what it is. Names come almost as a corollary. Until they do, lack of official names for the core concepts (what could be more core than "student" and "school"?) is an asset, not a liability.<p>You probably already have a laboratory running natural experiments in this area: the conversations of the people in your groups. If they lack official language for what they're doing, they have no choice but to make something up. Those can be good creative conditions. If I were you, I might try to get them to tell me what the names are, by listening closely to the words they use in conversation and to which formulations feel easiest and most alive. This often works better when people aren't consciously trying to come up with names but do it spontaneously when talking about something else.<p>By the way, maybe you shouldn't be down on "school" for what you're doing. It's true that people have a lot of preconceptions about school. But it's also true that your usage is historically deep. "School" didn't originally mean "child processing factory" or whatever it is now. Here's what Etymonline has for it [1]:<p><i>"place of instruction," Old English scol, from Latin schola "intermission of work, leisure for learning; learned conversation, debate; lecture; meeting place for teachers and students, place of instruction; disciples of a teacher, body of followers, sect," from Greek skhole "spare time, leisure, rest ease; idleness; that in which leisure is employed; learned discussion;"</i><p>That seems pretty close to what you're doing. Historical meanings often have resonance and sometimes make comebacks. I wouldn't relinquish this one if I were you. Imagine if you are part of a resurgence of the original meaning of schools. How cool would that be?!<p>[1] <a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=school" rel="nofollow">http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=school</a><p>p.s. You might consider "mentor" for what your web site calls "resident", and then "resident" instead of "student"...I think "resident" could go either way.
For those who dug this essay, check out Wiio's Laws: <a href="http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/wiio.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/wiio.html</a>
In one way, words are hard because it's difficult to communicate all the ways your program is unique just through its two word name. In another way, words are easy because in just a few hundred words, you did exactly that.
I feel like you're already using the right term, just applied to the wrong group of people in your organization.<p>When I read your post, I thought about Resident Advisors in college and it seemed like an apt comparison. When I was an RA, I wouldn't say that my residents were my students. They learned things from me, but I also learned things from them too. I had some wisdom, but it didn't really come from a place of power. We were mostly peers, just I had the keys to their rooms when they were locked out and mediated disputes.<p>I feel like you should call your current residents advisors and your participants residents;residents of the hacker school
Hey, hackers of hackerschool, can you help me out? I'm trying to populate opinions about the school here: <a href="http://schools.techendo.co/schools/hacker-school" rel="nofollow">http://schools.techendo.co/schools/hacker-school</a><p>It will help out others to decide where to attend and offer some advice from an insider's perspective on these types of schools.
I like the word "workshop" instead of "school" as mentioned in their FAQ under "Experience" (src: <a href="https://www.hackerschool.com/faq" rel="nofollow">https://www.hackerschool.com/faq</a> ). However, that implies something like a makerspace, which doesn't seem to be the type of thing they're going for.
Apprentice, journeyman or fellow, and Master<p>edit: The real question is, how do you get this far without knowing you are running an Apprenticeship? <a href="https://www.hackerschool.com/about" rel="nofollow">https://www.hackerschool.com/about</a>
You never explained why you need to refer to them as anything. So they can feel part of a team? To refer collectively to them easily in meetings? Why not just use:<p><pre><code> Participants
Attendees
Customers
</code></pre>
But really you should just refer to them as people. The people who take courses with you are just people. Not hackers, or students, or WildCats or Urban Achievers. People. People and customers. Customeople.<p>As for the school thing, if what you think you're running is a school, call it a school. Words aren't hard, marketing is hard.
If someone is participating in your program you can always just call them a participant. It comes with a light load of connotation and while boring, is descriptive enough to indicate the relative equality of the relationship.