"Nobody else in my class likes

doing things like this," a child told me yesterday.

She had come with her sister and her mother to the knitting and crochet group which meets at the local library. Anyone is welcome to come to this group. We will try to teach anyone to learn or help anyone with a pattern or process. 

It's a good group, a very good group. G..., who teaches most of the crochet related things, is an outstandingly good teacher. She had her work cut out for her yesterday. There were the two girls, eleven and nine, and a young Chinese woman who had brought along a young man with obvious problems. He wanted to learn something but he just wanted to sit and watch for a while. There was also the mother of the two girls. She was also going to try crochet for the first time.

I am not much help with crochet. I know a good deal but I am a left pawed cat and that is not much help when trying to teach a raw beginner. It is easier if that person is an adult but I feel children should have a good example from a competent person if such a person is available and willing.

The new students all made progress. The eleven year old was almost silent with concentration. It was her mother who told me that coming to the group was "part of E..'s birthday present". The gift she had been given was a zipper bag containing hooks, yarn, tape measure and the like. These were the tools needed to start on what I hope will be a life-long venture for her.

It was at the end of the afternoon, after G... had rushed off to catch her train, that E... joined in the conversation as the rest of us were starting to pack our things away. She told me, "Nobody else in my class likes doing things like this." 

I asked her what they liked to do instead. "They like playing on their phones."

Oh. It is not an activity I see as "play". They are not creating anything, not even an imaginative game. I doubt they are learning anyting at all, let alone learning to socialise. Yet, it seems they "like" this activity.  Instead E... had spent a couple of hours starting to learn a new skill which, if she persists, will lead to a potentially life long hobby of creating items for the pleasure of doing so.

I spent some time trying to help a woman who comes occasionally. She is still very new at the craft of knitting. She said she had finished something with which we had been trying to help her but did not show us. Now she wanted to try something much more difficult. It requires advanced skills and techniques. Would I show her? 

She is impatient. "Just show me" and "I know how to do that so go on to the next bit". I tried but, unlike a child who really wants to learn, she is not going to succeed. I know she will think I am a bad teacher. I tried to make her undo the twenty stitches she was working on but she simply went on to the next row. Eventually, as we had to all leave, I suggested she look at a video on the internet. 

"You can stop and start it as you need to," I told her and she went off happily enough. Perhaps it will work for her but I looked over at the eleven year old who, on being asked if she wanted to come back for another lesson, said a very enthusiastic, "Oh, yes please!"

It was another moment which made me feel there is hope for the next generation.