One of my favorite hobbies for the past 4 years has been knitting. I really enjoy making useful and pretty items for myself and the people I love. A couple months ago I had the chance to finally teach two of my friends how to knit. They both told me that I did such a good job that I decided to see if I could spread my knowledge to the rest of my community. As luck would have it, I called my city's Parks and Recreation Department on the day of the class proposal deadline. I had a chance to talk to the coordinator of the department and now I am teaching 6 students how to knit. My first class was this week.
The interesting thing about teaching this craft is turning what is a tactile experience for me into a visual one for my students. One of the ways that I did this is by providing written instructions on what we would be learning. Last night's class included visual, auditory, and tactile learning, so I hope that I communicated the concepts in every way that I could.
I am happy to report that I think that all of my students are going to do well, and I am sure they will be creating beautiful things in no time. I am also happy that I felt respected as their teacher, and I didn't sense any awkwardness because of my blindness.
What do you think it would be like to learn from someone who couldn't see you? How do you think the learning experience might be different?
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Identification by Color, Not for Me
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by Donna J. Jodhan
When I had sufficient vision, I used to depend heavily on colors to help me
identify things. I could remember that when I was growing u...
4 days ago
Alena,
ReplyDeleteYou go girl. I was taught how to eat by blind people at Gibson, if I was blind.
Your Daddy.
I was very thankful for your knitting lesson. The past few months I've been knit-crazy because I enjoy it so much. I'm glad you've decided to teach more people. Just a little bit extra consideration on your part makes your lessons so much richer and easily understandable. Different learning styles is something more teachers of all kinds of subjects should incorporate in their lessons.
ReplyDeleteLena
I'm currently working towards my teaching qualification having tuaght German for around 20 years. From September I'll be branching out, I hope, into teaching knitting. Last night I decided to practise on my 18 year old daughter, who is partially sighted. Within an hour and a half she was knitting - and hooked! What a fab experience. I totally relate to your use of all the senses to teach someone to knit and I hope this will make me a better teacher come September, and come the students who may. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteSue
I came across this post while looking for information on how to teach the blind to knit. My Aunt is blind and a very proficient knitter, she was taught when she went to school for the blind as a child... I am hoping to also teach hand spinning as well... muscle memory is an amazing gift! If you have any resources to share with me I would be very grateful. I am starting to pursue a path in braille transcription, to also be available to transcribe patterns as well.
ReplyDeleteHeidi
Hi --
ReplyDeleteI hope you read comments on very old posts. I was fascinated by your being able to teach sighted knitters. A friend who has had a visual impairment since childhood is losing what's left of her vision. She is an active member of our weekly group of knitters, crocheters and spinners. She crochets well, and is learning to knit, but does not read Braille and is having difficulty finding accessible information and patterns. Do you know of any sources for audio materials on basic knitting, and for patterns? Or do you have any tips for how I could record information for her in the most helpful way?
I would be very grateful for any information you can provide. My e-mail address is emck13@yahoo.com -- E M C K 1 3 at symbol yahoo dot com
Best wishes,
Ellen McKinney, Indianapolis Indiana
Hello, I am not sure you will receive this. I would like to ask you a few things about knitting for blind people. My grandmother is blind and I am her carer. Do you have an e-mail??My name is Evi and I am from Greece.
ReplyDelete