Juggling

 

Someone new to teaching on line did a recap of their experience which kind of made me stop and think about teaching generally, and teaching on line specifically.

I taught my first workshop in September of 1975.  I knew very little about spinning (which is what I was teaching - I know, kind of shocks me, too!) and no training in how *to* teach.  

But I knew a little bit more than those who could not (yet) spin and in the end, my co-teacher and I managed to get the small group of wanna be spinners started.

As I threw myself into learning how to weave, it seemed more and more feasible to teach weaving, too.  Over the years I started doing more workshops, then was invited to travel to other groups in my region to teach there as well.

As I taught, I learned more about teaching and continued to learn more and more about weaving.

To say that teaching is challenging is an understatement.  Teaching adults has it's own particular challenges and over the years I learned a lot about how people absorb information, and how I, as the teacher, needed to adapt what I was doing, how I was presenting the information.  The longer I taught, the more I saw how differently people can be in terms of processing information.

Teaching in person means you can immediately give feedback.  You also 'see' a lot out of the corner of your eye, you get good at reading facial expressions and body language.  You adapt what you are doing and saying depending on the reaction you get in real time.

Moving on line removes much of that feedback so teachers are left to their own devices in terms of their previous experience of interacting with students.  Teachers on line have to anticipate where someone might falter, or miss something because they were busy processing information and didn't catch the next couple of sentences.

Add to that the camera angle, which may - or may not - show the view the student needs to see.

At the end of an on line presentation, after juggling all of the information that needs to be conveyed, after trying to anticipate questions and cover that material, answering questions in ever increasing detail, the 'standard' level of exhaustion is surpassed.  I find teaching on line far more exhausting than doing a presentation live and in person.

In part I think in person I get the feedback of the student's enthusiasm and excitement, something which is lacking on line.

But we are still in the midst of a pandemic and my current state of heath and age means that my ability to teach in person is going to continue to shrink.

So with what energy I have left, I have determined that I am going to do the very best I can to record what I know and leave that as part of whatever I can to assist weavers to navigate the complex world of taking yarn and turning it into cloth.

Things got even more complicated with shingles, but after a month of dealing with it, I can say that I am finally beginning to function - for certain levels of function.

Between my writing (numerous magazine articles for 40 years), two self-published books, numerous workshops/classes for guilds and conferences, videos on You Tube, Zoom meetings and now the School of Sweet Georgia, I hope that people will find answers to their questions.  Even if they just determine what their questions are, then go on to find a teacher who can answer them.  Because if you don't know you don't know something, you don't know you need to find answers.

Today the sun is shining.  I have a loom that is ready to be woven on.  And I think I feel well enough to start weaving.  I'll begin slow and try to not over do things.  It's been a rough four weeks, but some lovely sunshine and a warp ready to go feels like progress.