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QUINCY, ILL. -- Jen Teter has been teaching ceramics at John Wood Community College since 2009, but the last few semesters her schedule has been freed up.

"We've tried to fill in the last three semesters, but we haven't bee successful," Teter said.

Teter thinks there's a simple explanation to why the class isn't filling up.

"Well, maybe they just don't know about it so we're just trying to get the word out so that people know it's available," Teter said.

Ceramics 1: Art 106 is a beginners ceramics class that introduces students to the ceramics process with handbuilding, wheel throwing, glazing and firing a kiln. But Teter says, one of the most important aspects of the class is the relationship you build with mother earth.

"Clay actually comes straight from the ground, you can dig it up," Teter said. "Rock formations actually breaking down made clay. The glacier movements actually deposited clay and so there are so many years that have gone by and so what's in this clay that we're touching? Who knows."

And you don't need any fancy tools for this class.

"You can actually sift it yourself and you can actually fire it in a wood-fire kiln," Teter said. "You don't need any kind of high technology to work with clay."

That doesn't mean the class is going to be easy.

"In the class,there's going to be certain specifications and things to problem solve and I'll give you challenges," Teter said.

If you're still on the fence about the class, Teter says ... "You just got to try it. Once you get on the potters wheel it's so addictive and it's so immediate gratification that you just got to try it."

Ceramics 1 is worth three credit hours and needs at least seven students to be taught. It's a semester long course but once you take, Teter says you'll want to form clay for a lifetime.