Be careful what you wish for. The wish might just come true. How often have
you heard that?
Crochet with me is an addiction and
it makes me sad that there is no one who wants to learn the craft. Not in my vicinity, anyway.
Well fate and the Education Board
seem to be on the same wavelength. The
latter have decided that crochet and knitting are fundamental requirements for
young ladies about to graduate from school. I quote (faithful to the original):
“Crochet and knitting has (sic) been very popular in Europe and Japan. It has
also been very popular even in India, where it is being practised for the last
200 years. These two arts have always
complimented (sic) each other. It is
being popularly practiced by women both in urban and rural India. Woolen clothes are particularly used in
places where the climate is extremely cold.
Those who excel in this art have been able to earn substantially from
it. Earlier the crochet needle was
called a hooked needle. Crochet is done
by the hook of the needle, whereas knitting is done by two needles. These needles are prepared from light metal
and plastics. ….Variety of attractive
items can be prepared by crochet and knitting for e.g. torans, sweaters,
shawls, table mats…. These forms have seen many innovative adoptations (sic) in
new styles…”
Yes, the Education Board for English
Medium, Government aided Secondary schools either needs to revisit English
language basics or learn how to make use of spell-check and grammar-check on
their computers.
But we are talking crochet.
The Principal needed a
‘teacher’. I know crochet (I really
do). Put the two together and I now have
120 14-year olds who have to learn how to hold hook and yarn and produce a
square handkerchief, a circular handkerchief, a small purse, a doll and a strip
of lace by the end of the year. They are both optimistic and enthusiastic. I hope I catch the contagion.
It is years since I stepped into a
classroom and experienced the noise level at close quarters. It takes some getting used to as is the:
‘Miss, please may I go to toilet’, ‘Miss, please may I drink water’, ‘Miss, I
have to keep my appointment with the Counselor’, ‘Miss, she’s pinching me’,
‘Miss, may I come back into the room’!!
After years of just doing one’s thing and not interrupting the speaker’s
flow, of cautiously leaving the room and re-entering, of being independent in
thought and action, it is strange to find a roomful of persons chained to
‘authority’ (mine) and ‘permission’ (yes, mine again) . But I cannot circumvent school rules even
though my inner voice urges me to tell the girls, ‘just go!’
Strangely enough, I find other
school lessons coming back to me. Faced
with chubby thighs and short skirts (yes, the mind boggles), I feel the need to
tell them how to sit like young ladies: skirt over knees, knees together,
ankles crossed. The slump at the table
is corrected with a sit up straight and I tell them how we had wooden
foot-rules shoved down the back of our uniforms to ensure that
straightness! And then the thunder on
the stairs is muted by asking them to walk on their toes rather than the flat
of their feet.
The girls regard me with amusement
and I am not surprised. At 61 I am a
species of dinosaur. The nice and friendly kind, I hope.
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