Teaching Spinning Lesson 1: Patience and Laughter
Patience and Laughter
While this beautiful lady has her eyes and heart set on my gorgeous cherry Schacht Matchless (shown here), she is learning on a Bluebonnet Honeybee.
I've discovered that this first lesson is always filled with anticipation and nerves, on both our parts. The student thinks, "What will this teacher make me do? Will I be spinning right away? Does my wheel work? Can I do it? How does she make it look so easy?"
The teacher thinks, "How fast will this student treadle? Will she have the patience that is required? Will I be able to teach her? Will she devote the time and enjoy the process?"
When designing any of my lessons, crafting or music, I am always reminded of when my oldest son brought his first violin home from school. I thought he would be excited and eager to show us what he learned, but no. There was silence. Hours later, I heard the muffled sound of a tiny violin string -- plink, plink, plink. I investigated and finally found the source -- my son was behind closed doors, huddle over his violin, gingerly plucking the strings.
When I asked him why he wasn't playing, his response broke my heart, "Because my teacher said I can't play it yet. I can only look at it."
Wow.
Way to suck out the life and joy faster than a dementor!
Our students, no matter what the age, want to try their hands at their goal right away. This is crucial to their engagement and future success. Making any student wait to play -- or, in our case today -- spin fiber -- casts a shadow on their excitement.
Therefore, my goal with this young lady's first lesson today was to have her spinning fiber, no matter how chunky and no matter how pig-tailed, quickly.
Of course, we need to start with the basics -- understanding your wheel, practicing treadling, learning the magic of the Scotch tension -- all are critical. But to devote an entire lesson to these things without placing those fingers on fiber and treadling is, in my opinion, like telling a student he can't play his violin. A big mistake.
So, my student learned her wheel. She treadled and stopped, treadled and reversed, treadled and stopped.
While I won't go into the details of my teaching method here, I will say that this young lady was spinning fiber halfway into her lesson.
Was she trying to spin as thin as her teacher? Well, of course.
Was she succeeding? Well, of course not.
Was she spinning! Why, yes. Yes, she was!
Did she leave the lesson as excited as when she arrived? ABSOLUTELY.
Why?
Because she didn't get frustrated when she was holding onto dear life to the fiber and it was twisting to the very end of her draft. She didn't cry when the fiber broke. She didn't grumble when her feet went faster than her hands would allow.
She listened and followed my number one priority for all of my lessons: Have patience in the process and LAUGH.
I look forward to my next session with this delightful young woman!
Signed,
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