Devon's words gave me cause for thought. Having worked in adult education and business training for a number years and also taught lace for linger than I've been a trainer, I have been surprised by the number of people who believe that because they are passionate about a subject they will automatically be a great teacher.
Having just run the first part of a train the trainer course yesterday, the syllabus reminded me that in order to teach or train a person in a skill, it is not just the skill that needs to be taught but also the accompanying knowledge and attitude. Traditionally I would use a method to deconstruct the activity called blooms taxonomy but simply this gives you levels of what you want to achieve and you compare you learner to ensure you only ever try to take them up one level at a time. Trainers often fail because they either try to teach too much or even too little. We've all heard complaints of how learners were forced to make yard after yard of work bandages for weeks on end and got disparaged by it and gave up. Or were told the thing they wanted to make was too hard and to forget about it until months hence. I recently watched a lacemaker show a have a go pillow to a group of my friends at a craft group (don't ask why I wasn't the one doing). She had set up the Springett snake and the ladies were having terrible trouble doing it. Now I've taught with this pattern since the early 90s and never had a problem with it. In frustration, one of the ladies asked me to show her. The pillow was set up with cotton for the passives - similar to a du cantu 30 and cotton perle 8 for the weavers. Try as I could, I had terrible problems getting the bobbins to move through each other and I couldn't tension them. The pattern also was just a photocopy pinned onto the pillow with no card. The ladies were very demotivated. To weeks later and I'm teaching lace using the same pattern but pricked properly and each newbie is using bobbins of similar weight along with cotton perle 8 for the passives and gold dust for the weavers (as per the instructions). 3 hours later and we had one snake finished and the other nearly done. So materials are important but as I told my delegates yesterday, sometimes it is not possible to teach so etching to a person because they are unable to grasp what you are teaching. They may think they want to learn but really they like the idea of learning, not the doing. I have a very high success rate both in lacemaking teaching and in business training but I was formally taught how to taught and every few years I refresh my teaching skills to ensure they are current and work. And yes, I do the same prep for a lace lesson as I would do for sales training with lesson plans etc so that if I teach the same thing twice I have all the prep work mapped out. Kind Regards Liz Baker > On 8 Dec 2013, at 16:38, [email protected] wrote: > > I know that I am not a successful teacher and the only people I ever tried > to teach never really understood it. I was surprised one day to talk to a > friend who has taught many, many beginner classes and she confessed that > she didn't think anyone she had started had ever gone on with it. > > So, if it is only two stitches, like knitting, why is it so hard to learn? > > Devon - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
