In a message dated 16/09/2003 22:35:38 GMT Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> Hi Liz, > > I can sympathise with your indignation! > > I was talking to a couple of well-respected and very well-known > author/teachers a coupleof years ago, and was horrified to be told that I > was not teaching my students properly! They both maointained that a > successful teacher aims for "bums on seats" in the classes, and that a tutor > should *never* tell a student how to start or finish a piece of lace, as, if > they don't know that, they *have* to keep coming back to classes! Needless > to say, I still teach my students how to start and finish, and how to go > about the middle bits of ther lace too! Spiders, My day job is as a college tutor and before I did this I was a training in a large bluechip company. In company training there were two schools of thought as to how you trained. During the 80s and early 90s everyone used "facilitators" who would stand at the front of the class and 'tell' you how to do something - maybe even showing you as a demonstration, how to do it. You then did the thing and most likely did it wrong. Towards the end of the 90s, as CBT (computer based training) became fashionable, the 'facilitator' would 'tell' you how to do it and then you would do the same thing through the CBT - trouble was, most CBT is very limited and does not replicate real life - for example it would ask you how to do something and then only let you do the right way - if you tried to do it the wrong way it just wouldn't let you. Then at the end of the 90s it became fashionable to actually teach people how to do things - the idea being (big revelation here) if you taught them the ideas behind doing the thing then they were more capable at trouble shooting in the field. The principle behind this type of 'teaching' is 'I do it once, I do it slow, we do it together and off you go' - but it doesn't teach you why you do it or how you work out that you need to do it - only how to do it when asked to. However, too many people still 'teach' using the facilitation method where they plonk you infront of a pillow, quickly show you a stitch and leave you to it - no wonder some people are still making worm bandages after all those years. I have to say that I suffered from this type of lace teaching when I started making lace - the lady teaching was a very good lacemaker but no teacher. She would show you something and then it was up to you to survive. After a few months when I had mastered torchon through simply making lace in all my spare time, I wanted to move onto Beds and she was horrified that I thought I knew better than her and believed I could do this 'complicated' lace after such little time. I tried to explain to her that I had actually put in many hours in order to master the technique but she was adamant that she would not teach me - so I bought a good book and the rest is history (it's also why I have a stack of over 4ft of books on my floor now). I even taught myself how to do honiton. When I wanted to learn to play the piano I got a tutor book and spent 4 weeks continuously practising - OK, I'm no concert pianist but I can play good enough for me - I did the same when I wanted to learn to touch type - now I type at 80 wpm. Now here is something interesting - I later joined a lace group where they officially didn't teach, however, one of the members was a teacher (ie she teaches children in a school) and she had also taught lace. She is a natural teach and just can't help herself - if you are doing a piece of lace and look perplexed she quietly has a look at your lace and will either make a simple suggestion or better still, ask a question which causes you to realise how to put it right. Now that's the type of person I love. Strangely enough, I am both a teacher and a facilitator - at the moment I mainly teach people life skills and job hunting skills (I also teach computer skills, business studies et al) but I also trained as a facilitator but not to teach. As a facilitator I run meetings as the chair so everyone else gets an opportunity to talk and discuss the issues. A key part of facilitation is to ensure that everyone contributes to the disucssion and noone feels left out. Something that people who teach by facilitation don't seem to be able to do as I have seen on this list the complaints about that type of teaching being exclusive and people feeling that they have no power to decide what they make. Regards Liz Beecher I'm <A HREF="http://journals.aol.com/thelacebee/thelacebee";>blogging</A> now - see what it's all about To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
