Teaching and Learning

my "determined to learn to weld" face...
Awesome workshop... Scared me EVERY DAY...
and I felt like a superhero by the end.

I'm kind of a class and workshop addict. I like taking them. I like teaching them. I like the sleepy anticipation as the group finds their seats and looks around for who they might want to talk to later.
I like the friends, the moms and daughters, the fathers and sons, the siblings who signed up together.
I like the curiosity, the creativity... I like people who simply want to make something... People who crave the "how".

I like the hand outs, the stack of supplies, the fumblings, and questions.

But my favorite part is the moment that the new skill grabs you. The few minutes of first understanding when the curiosity becomes REAL potential. When the ideas and skills that you came in for, mesh with your ideas and skills. You might not be great at it yet... but it opens up what you can do... and you are somehow bigger than when you got up in the morning.

I love it as a student and I love it even more as a teacher.

I have a young sewing student... She's a natural. Precise, careful, detail oriented and so into the textures and colors of the fabrics. So far she has made PJs, a pillow case and a zippered bag. Every lesson she finishes her project...and the minute it comes together: the zipper zips... the hem goes in... the pj's fit.. She lights up. She can do something new, and it is magic.

What else is there, in this big, bad, world, that could possibly top that?