When the Time is Right

I remember when I was young, my mother tried to teach me to sew, knit and crochet, but it just didn’t stick. I’m not even sure at that age that I even wanted to learn it. But she felt that I needed to learn it. At the time, I never really understood why I needed to learn these skills and my parents never

Now that I’m retired, I find myself knitting, crocheting and I’m just learning to sew. I wish I had paid attention to my mother when I was a child because she is no longer here to help me. I love knitting and crocheting things I can wear or give as gifts. I want to sew and make some things I’d like to have. In my earlier years, I didn’t have a need or a desire for these things.

When the time was right, it all came back to me. I’ve heard people talk about “It’s like riding a bike. It will come back to you.” They are right! I may not be great at the skill but some of it comes back into my memory. I might need to refresh my memory and sharpen my skills, but the basics are still in the back of my mind. I found out that I had muscle memory from learning to knit and crochet as a child.

I feel like teaching my students basic skills that they might find boring or not motivating is still necessary. They need to know the basics in order to learn more complex skills. They may not find it useful at this point in their life but later in life, the time may be right for these skills to resurface.

I also need to do a better job of explaining to my students why they need to know these basic skills. I need to have concrete examples of why and when they may use these skills when they get out in the real world.

I need to show students that the math skills they learn will be used in the lives in many different ways. Some of the situations may include finances like budgeting, saving, spending situations, cooking, gas mileage, landscape design, home décor, fashion, building construction, and travel.

Learning to read will help them gain information for learning or for fun. Reading instructions will be helpful to them for their who life. They may read newspapers or magazines to learn new information. They will read websites or even information with interactive games. Reading road signs will be important when they drive. Reading is a survival skill that will improve the quality of life.

History is important because if we learn from the past, we learn not to make the same mistakes. We can learn how to improve on the foundations laid by people before us. We can learn to make connections with others by knowing our history.

Science is important to learn why and how things work. We can also learn why and how things work together. We can use science to create new things.

These are just a few real-life explanations of how we use the skills we learn in school. Each topic can be broken down into more specific skills and explained in more detail.

How do you explain why you teach certain skills? Please share.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash