Mesh hat for a student

I like teaching. I have taught at universities before and after I left academia, I taught crocheting lessons so that I can continue teaching. Teaching a skill is a bit different from teaching ideas and concepts alone. It's a new challenge and I love it.

I advertise my crocheting classes on www.Skillbuddies.com, and that got me a student who asked me to show her how to crochet a hat. I was so thrilled. I hadn't taught a class in a couple of months and I had really missed the process. It was late spring, so no one else had shown much interest in craft activities.

It happened that she wasn't a real beginner and she was very dexterous. I showed her double crocheting stitches and how to increase, so that she could make a real hat. I was impressed to she her "get it" so quickly. Interestingly, she finds it rather difficult to adjust the pattern to get the right fit. Interesting because that is the part I find easiest - I struggle to stay with the pattern as I get imaginative while crocheting and start to modify it as I like. I suspect that it may be me that made the adjustment process harder for my student to understand - it is harder to teach something you do by feeling; I wasn't using any objective measurement (like counting stitches) to determine when I needed to adjust. Next time I crochet out of pattern, I should pay more attention to what I do so that I can teach better than the Let-your-inspiration-guide-you! step....

Anyway, a couple weeks after that class, she asked me if I could teach her how to make a mesh hat. I had never crocheted mesh patterns, so I consulted my Crocheting Bible book, got the mesh pattern, calculated the increase and voila! I had my mesh cap.
Well, teaching that wasn't so easy. Modifying a mesh pattern, from what I figured, involves changing the stitch numbers of every mesh; a single change has a global consequence. So making any adjustments involves a lot of planing ahead. I did a lot of calculation, and still had to adjust here and there as I went. When I was teaching this process to my student, I realized that it is a lot of brain work - possibly too much - for someone who is still learning the new stitches and the basis patters to pay attention to all the possible alternatives while crocheting. So I learned something: when I teach a new pattern/new stitch, I should use a fixed pattern that does not require on-the-go adjustments. It should make the learning process easier.

Last crochet class

This was my course plan:

Class 1: beginning knot, chain, single crochet

Class 2: slip stitch, crocheting in rounds, increase

Class 3: crocheting in rounds 2, rounds with finger-wrapping beginning, doubles, decrease, pattern reading

I don't know how obvious it looks to you, but I had way to much to teach in my last class. I was hoping that a lot of the things we had covered in the first two classes would come together in the last class and it all would make sense, but well, in the end, the class felt rather rushed. Somehow, it felt important to me to cover all that topics so that my students would be able to go on their own and follow patterns and make what they wish, but maybe it would have been better if I covered less topic and focused on really understanding these techniques. Doubles and pattern reading might have been unnecessary.

I asked my students to send me a picture when they have completed a project themselves, so I am going to wait and see.

Note to self: Flexibility is important in teaching.

crocheting class again

This week was part 2 of the 3 class-course. My students have practiced single stitches across, turning chains and came back to the class with nice rectangular patch of crocheted fabric. It was time to show them crocheting in rounds. It went smoother than the last class. Their stitches have become more stable and they are able to count their stitches. We started with 4-chains, then tried slip stitch, and crocheted eight stitches into the round. We did three more rounds and practiced increases for the rounds. It was wonderful. My students can now make circles!!! Circles are great because with that, you can just modify teeny bit to make hats. So they are ready to make things! I am going to teach decrease and long stitches (doubles, trebles) next. I hope the next class is going to be as fun as this one.