Teaching sewing

How about learning to teach? Knowing your subject is one thing, teaching it to others is totally different. Do you know how to plan a course for prospective students, and how to maintain control of the class so that they get where they want to go? What are you aims and objectives for the course as a whole, and for each lesson? There will be slow sessions and sessions where things go wrong: what are your contingency plans?

Are you aiming to teach complete beginners or those with some experience? Do you want to teach general sewing or specific areas (like costuming, corset making, patchwork, whatever... )

Where are you going to teach? Teaching in a properly equipped sewing classroom with a collection of machines all the same and properly maintained is very different from teaching people using their own machines. Are you familiar enough with all the different machine types to be able to get them out of trouble when they get stuck? Stuck like broken needles, knotted thread requiring surgery in the bobbin case area, tensionectamies, and the extraction of fabric from the needle plate... I had a classic knotted bobbin today, that took needle nosed pliers, scissors, a screwdriver, and 10 minutes to resolve. I was teaching in an improvised sewing room - a spare classroom with 5 of my own machines, and all materials and equipment supplied by me. If you want to do *that* kind of sewing, you need to have enough scissors, needles, machines, etc. to set up in odd places. Are you prepared for an hour long session taking and hour to set up physically, and an hour to pack away, and do you have the storage facilities for all the stuff?

I've just done a course for kids: there were 12 of them. Some have prior experience and some have none. We need extra time to complete their projects, and they need individual sessions to get them done. How are you going to cope if you have this experience? In my group of 12 there are some classic attention seekers, one with disprxia, one with an as yet undiagnosed learning difficulty, and my son! ARGH! ALL the kids are equally delightful, and have struggled and done well, but they suffer from vast areas if chaos, and we have quite a bit to do in pair sessions tomorrow. I found this happened even after teaching for over

20 years, and after qualifying at one of the best teacher training colleges in England.

I've taught similar sewing courses with other groups of kids this age, and with mixed adult and child groups (family learning sessions).

Teaching adults is usually a matter of teaching the willing, but *how* you teach them is very important. And just because your adults are paying for their lessons and really want them doesn't mean that they don't have just the same collection of attention seeking behaviours and learning difficulties that a similar sized bunch of kids has!

Good luck - teaching is very rewarding and great fun. Just do it eyes wide open!

Try your local senior centers I know out here in california the senior centers offer a lot of classes (like sewing, quilting ect) and they are always looking for instructors

You could advertise locally and start off by having 1 or 2 participants in a one day class, Saturday from 10 - 4 for example, and then build on that foundation to bigger classes. Learn as you go along. "Robin Guess" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@storefull-3115.bay.webtv.net...

Do you have friends or family that you could practice teaching? You probably wouldn't want to charge them, but it might help.

As Kate was saying its one thing to know how, but entirely another to teach. I couldn't imagine teaching anyone! I am just not so brave!

Best of luck!

Michelle Giordano

Me either. I mean, even if I was accomplished, I can't imagine teaching. What I'd like to find are some friends who sew, then set up a little club where we could all get together once a week and sew.

Then maybe I'd be more diligent about it.

A