Isn't that pretty? It's a picture of all the scarves (and some of the hats) KD's dorm suite knit for charity last year. I'm using it to remind me to take deep breaths and focus on a bigger picture than one small elementary school...
My husband, who is a teacher, told me last week that one of the agenda items on an upcoming faculty meeting was what to do about the fact that several of the middle school students have taken up knitting, and knit during recess.
I stifled my knee-jerk response and asked questions. Was it that they wanted the girls to be more active during recess? No, the playground has always been literally split between those who want to race around and blow off energy, and those who want to sit, stand, or walk, and just chat. (FWIW, I've always thought this was a good idea, because people - grown or not - relax in different ways.) They're all out breathing fresh air and making sunshine into vitamin D.
Was it that they were worried about the presence of large straight needles? That seemed likely, so I lent him an indestructible 10.5 plastic circular to demonstrate an alternative. And if that failed, I offered to teach the young knitters my daughters' patented - at that same school, albeit years ago - method of knitting a scarf using two bic pens.
Silly me. The meeting was today. They banned knitting. Outright. Not on straights, not on circulars, not on pens, presumably not on fingers (I've tried that in desperation, and it's not worth it - although KD taught herself to knit backwards doing it).
There are limits to what I am willing to do about this, given that I haven't even had children in this school for years. I decided that my first priority was to the knitter-neophytes, so I have extended an invitation to take them to next week's gathering of knitters at the local library, where they will be petted and praised for their talents instead of scolded and forbidden.
I have a reputation for trying to see both sides of a situation, but this one has me stumped.
2 comments:
I'm so glad that you're taking these new knitters under your wing and inviting them to a knitting group. I don't know what the school was thinking -- is it, indeed, a safety issue? Pointy things combined with other children running about? Not a lot of supervision during recess except from a distance? (I wonder if they would object to crochet hooks, cross-stitch needles, any kind of craft that would involve a pointy thing?)
L's school has a teacher who started an after-school knitting group. They knit for Dulaan and I think for their friends as well. I wonder if anyone at R's school might be interested in doing something like that -- still supporting their knitting while assuaging whatever fears went into this decision.
That is insane. *shakes head* Honestly, it doesn't make any sense to me as to why they would do it.
It makes me sad that a school would decided that knitting would be banned. Given you said the recess area is split into two with the active & inactive kids, I don't see how that could be a safety issue.
It is great that you are willing to help them. I would suggest having the students who want to knit talking to their parents. Their parents should to talk to the school.
I seem to recall a while back the Yarn Harlot had something on her blog about this sort of issue. I vaguely recall some study that showed that knitting and other activities of this sort actually help people in a number of different ways.
Heaven knows, I listen better while knitting. I have knit during meetings during conference and recall *more* of what was said during those meetings than I do at ones when I don't knit. I know a school would never allow it during class. But I am fairly certain it should. I bet it would help with retention!
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