Teaching a Class

You've got it, stay away on how to use a point and shoot, they have their manuals.

Teach Photography, basic rules etc. your plan is very good, go with it.

LOL, I love it.

I don't honestly think I will get too many camera related questions.  I hope.  I also hope they don't ask me what to buy.  I mean, what's a good point and shoot?  I don't even know, certainly there are buyer's guides they can read...

Give them this link: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sidebyside.asp

You might want to have some copies of links to free resources that you can pass around.

Where are you going to be teaching it?  Inside the church?  Outside?  Is there something somewhat scenic or interesting you can use as a background?

My suggestion would be to have them as active during the class as possible.  Have them taking pictures rather than just talking about taking pictures the whole time.  Sure, you're going to have to talk a little.  But you don't want to setup a 2 hour PowerPoint and only lecture.  Lots of example shots would be good too.  If you could show them the difference in a lighting in an image at 6:45am and straight up noon it would mean more than just telling them that the light is harsher at noon.  Maybe print out the shots of thread from Travis's post a few months ago to talk about direction of light. 

The idea to keep it as general as possible is a good one.  You don't want to get too locked up discussing a specific camera that 95% of the people there don't have.

And teaching is a great way to learn.  There's a statistic that says we learn around 20% of what we hear, 50% of what we do, and 80% of what we teach.  I'm sure I'm not remembering those percentages correctly, but the idea is there.  You learn more by teaching than by any other method. 

Thanks everybody, I knew everyone here would be full of good stuff.

Ryan, my guess is they won't have their cameras on them.  We will be inside the church.  It's not my church although it's my religion, and once a month the women get together for a "family and home enrichment night" thing where you learn different skills/talents/whatever.  Apparently they passed around the signup sheet for my class and it was so popular they are splitting it into two classes... I guess that's good.

On the phone with my mother this morning I whined a bit about being roped into this and she said "I know it's church, but think of it as a marketing tool, even if you won't be selling your business you can sell yourself as an authority and someone just may have a daughter getting married or need family pictures and they will think of you because they will remember what a great photographer you were."  Hearing that and Ryan's thing about learning what you teach I am feeling happier about this. 

From where I work I am going to borrow a really nice projector and show a lot of examples.  I think since we won't be actively doing anything, lots of pictures will make it more interesting.

Great points
I did debate all through school.  My event was Oratory, it's a 10 minute memorized speech usually on a theme that is political, moral or social.  During the phase of writing my speech my coach would tell me:

Tell them what you are going to tell them
Tell it to them
Tell them what you told them

LOL, totally the same.  I am glad to know debate taught me something besides how to talk a lot.

Ironically I was just talking to someone via a private message and I realized that I can type an awful lot and get very little across.  I am amazed by people that can get their point over in few words.  It's a talent I do not have.