I took an afternoon class from a lady when I started tying. She had a totally different approach to teaching tying that I think worked great. She taught me no fly patterns. No wooly bugger, no dry flies, no specific patterns at all. What she did teach was various tying techniques. Things like the following:

Starting thread
whip finishing
tying materials on in various ways
spinning deer hair
palmering hackle
tying on tails
etc
etc

In the end I had a bunch of hooks with various materials applied, but no flies to fish with. What I took away was the knowledge of how to apply various materials to a hook. I found that I was able to tie a lot of different fly patterns just by applying the techniques I learned. I thought this was a great way to teach!

Wayne