Broken Record

Blogger gives statistics on page views and I frequently find it interesting which posts from the past are being read.

As I scroll through I am somewhat dismayed - at times - to see how frequently I address the same things over and over again.

When I chose the title for this post it suddenly occurred to me that the phrase 'broken record' will be meaningless to a large swathe of the population.  Because in order to understand the reference, folk have to have experienced an actual 'broken record'.  The vinyl pressing that a certain age bracket (mine) used to listen to for their music (and poetry and audio books/plays).

Over the years I have learned that people need to hear the same snippet of information over and over again before it will stick in their foundation of knowledge.  I developed short sharp sentences to focus on principles:  Never use a knot where a bow will do; a thread under tension is a thread under control, and so on.  In class I repeat these things over and over when something happens to illustrate the concept.

Recently someone who is educated in how people learn commented that people learn something in a linear fashion and until they learn step A, they can't learn step B. (I paraphrase.)

This is something I have noticed in my own practice.  And so, in a classroom of mixed experienced students, I find that it may take multiple repetitions of these principles before the ah-HA! moment for each arrives.

And why I keep stepping up onto my soapbox and repeating the same principles over and over again until I begin to tire of hearing my own voice.  And why I wrote it all down, to the best of my ability.