Teaching adults

is not the same as teaching children. Teaching teenagers is not the same as teaching small children or adults. Teaching people who want to learn something is not the same as teaching people who do not want to learn.

I went off to teach something yesterday. It had been planned for some time and I did not want to let them down even though I wasn't feeling in the least bit like teaching anything to anyone.

I am glad I went. I have worked with this group before. It's a very small group of women who belong to a "community" church. There are usually no more than six or eight of them. The primary function of the group is to provide companionship while they repair garments and make garments that can be passed on to others in need. Some of them knit and crochet but they normally do that elsewhere.

At the same craft fair I attended earlier this year one of the women had bought a book of Japanese knitting stitch patterns. I also happen to own a copy of the same book. It has a wonderful collection of seemingly complex patterns. (The friend in the US who sent it me described it as "real eye candy".) Using the book, even in the English language edition, needs a bit of knitting knowledge.

The Japanese seem to have the ability to do things in a very orderly manner. The book is like that. Each stitch pattern has a graph and a picture of the pattern knitted up in yarn. The graphs use symbols and the use of those symbols is consistent. If you are used to graphs and symbols then using the book is not difficult but it does require some thought, some design skills, some calculations. Many less confident knitters are not comfortable with those things. My task was to give people a little guidance so that they could make something simple. I suggested small bags. If they want to try something more complex later then yes, I will help.

So, I went along. They had a visitor, the visitor is profoundly deaf. The group's leader, realising this woman is very lonely, thought she might like to come along and observe. She comes from Canada and has had the courage to come out here for two years with her husband. Communicating with her is very difficult but it is not impossible.

"I hope you don't mind Cat?" I was asked.

I understood why I was being asked but it didn't bother me at all. We had actually met before - at the craft fair. Her face lit up when she saw me. She signed a greeting to me and I signed one back. Canadian sign language is different, even the way they spell words out is different. Both of us know that. It is very hard for her to lip read any of us - and yes, we have to remove masks in order to do that. Mask wearing has added to her difficulties in communicating with others. We make allowances for such things - sometimes.

But yesterday I hope this woman felt she really was participating in what I was trying to teach. I tried to be aware that every so often I had to stop and hope, with a few common signs and gestures and some finger spelling, she was following what I was telling everyone else. When I had set the others to work I gave her a little extra help and, being a very intelligent woman, she was soon working on her own project. She smiled at me as she worked - you can't sign and knit at the same time - nor can you listen to the conversation in the same way. 

I know the other women in the group felt awkward about this. Just one of them tried to spell something to her but it was easier to write the question down.  At the end of the afternoon though I suggested to this lovely woman that the two of us might teach the rest of the group a few very basic signs in what we call "Auslan" here - the sign language of the deaf - so we did just five signs. They are just polite every day social signs so she won't be ignored or always have to rely on her husband. I hope it makes a difference.