Submitted!

Ah, finally.  I just submitted my teaching hours for certification.  I was afraid I wouldn't have enough; I thought I needed 30 hours for Level I in my course, then another 30 hours for Level II.  Turns out I only need 15 and 15, and I just submitted 32.5. :-D  Logging the hours was the last thing needed for my instructor certification, and I had to write to the CYC to find out where I could submit them.  Apparently, I've got a sheet to do that with my course work somewhere, but I'm glad I can do it online, instead.  Much faster that way.

I'm almost finished Level II; still need to write up some patterns and type up my notes from the lessons.  The final project is a garment that needs to be blocked after assembly.  I'm going to be doing a child sized garment so I can finish it faster. I don't have to come up with my own pattern, so I'm on the lookout for an appropriate commercial pattern.  Turns out not very many of them require blocking.

I'm quite happy with how my hairpin lace scarf turned out - I'll take some photos of the finished scarf to post later.  I made a short scarf for the sample, but I like it enough I might look into making a much longer one for actual use.  Not any time soon, though.  Too many other projects waiting to be worked on as soon as the course is finished.  The samples are small and quick to make, but some lessons require completed projects that can take a fair bit longer.  Writing out the pattern and a lesson plan to teach said project takes longer. 

The question that bugs me the most is when I'm asked to describe how I would teach a technique, list common problems and suggestions to avoid them.  How the heck do you answer that?  Students can be so very different; what one finds difficult, another might find easy.  I've also encountered challenges I simply would never have thought of until I got a student that had to deal with it.  I don't think "fly by the seat of your pants" counts as an acceptable answer in my course, but sometimes, that's exactly what I find I have to do!  Half the fun of teaching is getting to know the individual student and figuring out what works best for them.  Sure, some things are a more common challenge then others - like how to hold the working end of the yarn - but even that is often a problem for very different reasons.  It can take a bit of detective work to figure out exactly why each individual is having the issues they are, sometimes with surprising conclusions. 

Not the sort of thing that's easy to describe succinctly in my lesson, though.  I'm not too worried about it, though.  My instructor is pretty awesome. I haven't had to write to her often to clarify things for me, but the few times I've had, she's been a great help in getting me to understand exactly what they need from me.

Oh, what's that sound coming from outside?  Our co-op's accessible garden beds are being built.  Time for me to head outside and get some more photos and see how things are progressing!