Learning to Finger Knit: Finding Teachers in Your Community

Ninna has been asking me to teach her to finger knit for ages. Until today, I didn't actually know how to finger knit. I knew it would be easy, and I knew if I just did a search on YouTube, I'd be able to find a huge variety of instructions, but I chose not to. I waited, over a month and a half, to be exact, until our schedules permitted a friend of ours to teach her.

In an age when we can learn so many things from a computer, I'd like the chicks to have plenty of opportunities to learn from real, live people. I'm not opposed to using the computer as a resource; I do it all the time, with and without the chicks. And frankly...I love the internet. I'd be lying if I said otherwise. At the same time, I'd like our use of it to be balanced with other, living, breathing resources.

Reasons to seek out "teachers" in your community:

**A living, breathing teacher can respond to mistakes and questions in the immediate situation.

**Teaching and learning within your community helps build and strengthen bonds.

**Teaching a skill can be used as bartering material; when one person exchanges a service for a lesson in something--be it finger knitting, html, baking bread, or tiling a bathroom, members of a community are valued and contribute to the greater good. And, better yet, there's less need to spend money (I see a post or series of posts on bartering in the future...)

**The learning experience is more meaningful. I'd much rather Ninna remember the day our friend came over and taught her to finger knit like a big girl while the little ones played and ate popcorn, as opposed to remembering the day mom turned on the computer and typed in "finger knitting" on YouTube.

**For those who are homeschooling, it provides opportunities for your children to experience different teaching styles.

And now for the exciting result: Ninna can finger knit, and she's really good at it! I'm so excited, and so proud. After our friend left, she knit several more cords that she's saving up to make into hair things, dollhouse accessories, and Christmas presents. Watching her, I saw so much of myself. Like me, she has a tendency to pull her knitting too tight. Like me, she doesn't like distraction; she asked Bojey to stop jumping near her because she couldn't concentrate on her knitting. Poor girl will, like her mama before her, be unable to do her homework at the coffee shop ;).