Recently I agreed to spend an entire teacher workday (there are only 3 per year, when the students aren’t there and teachers catch up on paperwork and post grades) listening to a presenter discuss the intricacies of yet another standardized test our school is compelled to administer. This topic is exceedingly boring to me and something I could have easily grasped in half the time by reading the manual.
In order to not go stark raving mad and to guarantee that I was able to listen to most of what the presenter was saying, I brought along some mindless knitting. Nothing fancy or complicated; just something to quiet that part of my ADHD brain that would otherwise be engaged in obsessing over the grades I had to get done. Without the knitting, no doubt I would have been trying to read papers surreptitiously, which would have meant I followed nothing the presenter said.
Today I hear that the facilitator was offended that I “sat in the back knitting and not participating.” Mind you, this was not a cooking class or tae kwondo lesson. This was a lecture. Pure direct instruction, with occasional audience feedback. And there were only four tables, so I couldn’t really be accused of sitting anywhere but right in the middle of everything.
This arrogance of non-knitters (and of people whose thoughts don’t flit around like a hopped up hummingbird) really pisses me off. I abhor people who criticize things they don’t understand, or who assume they know my motives without bothering to get my input. It’s self righteous and smug. I HATE smug.
Dear Smug:
For your information, experts in ADHD recommend the following:
Many people with ADHD do their best work when they split their attention: knitting while listening to a lecture; jogging while planning a business meeting. If this system suits you, know that it’s fine to use it!
If you want me to fit your mold of what a “professional” looks like, I can abandon my knitting and play ‘Bejeweled’ on my cellphone while you drone on. Would that look better?
Sincerely,
Chastised in SLC
In other news: the Braided Cardigan is coming along quite nicely. Much of it has been knit during in-class silent reading while I commune with Carl Sagan’s imaginary ghost.
Valentine’s Day footnote: In one of my classes today, a young man brought two dozen long-stemmed roses and presented one to each female in the classroom. Including me. He even asked me if I’d prefer red or white. (I chose white. In my experience men who send red roses seem to lack romantic imagination.)
In another class, I received a hand-made valentine from a young woman that read, Your like a book; fascinating but sometimes hard to read. What she lacks in spelling ability she certainly makes up for in wit and chutzpah!
Comments 9
“Your like a book; fascinating but sometimes hard to read.” How adorable!!!
Hilarious rebuke from the in-service presenter. If Smug was in a regular classroom, he/she would be the ones criticized for not making his/her lesson more interactive/captivating and for poor classroom management. LOL I suppose when you are teaching teachers, you are exempt from all good teaching practices.
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 8:30 am ¶Your students are so interesting. I think that is due to the teacher they have. You should write to the lecturer and tell him/her just what you think. Maybe it’s time they learned a thing or two.
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 8:56 am ¶Having knitting all through all classes from middle school onward, I got this ignorance quite often. Usually it was an annoyed glance and a glare at first, but then I’d head it off by having something brilliant and insightful to say. I’d look the instructor straight in the eye and keep knitting while asking my question or stating my opinion. There was always a slight pause while they took in that not only was I listening and paying attention, but that I could knit without even looking at it. And then the class would continue and there would never been any more scornful glances.
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 6:10 am ¶Hey, I actually knit during a funeral. It kept me from becoming a pile of goo on the floor.
You do what you need to do.
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 9:30 am ¶I can SOOO relate! I have heard these comments too. I can’t remember the magazine, by Perri Klass (a respected pediatrician, college professor, and KNITTER) addressed this same anxiety recently, and commented on how it has become socially acceptable to text message on the Blackberry or play cell phone games but not knit - gimme a break! My answer a few times, when the meetings were going slowly or too heatedly, was that at least I was getting someting accomplished!! Can you tell this raises my blood pressure?!
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 10:58 am ¶If only elementary school teachers would get this clue also. Overflow behavior. You can’t stop it. Please allow kids to channel it appropriately so that they can pay attention. I don’t think it is just a knitter/non-knitter thing, but an erroneous belief that there is only one way to show respect for the lecturer — sit still eyes forward — and that showing respect to the lecturer supercedes the listener’s need to assimilate the material.
Some kids get instructions written into their IEP allowing them to chew gum. And there’s a school chair designed with quiet springs prescribed for kids who really must wiggle. Wouldn’t it be great if at least some of these kids found that knitting worked just as well?
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 11:42 am ¶What a self-important moron. Has he never seen video of the Bundestag? All the Green Party members in their Birkenstocks and hand knit socks sit and knit during debate. Great way to run a country!
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 12:45 pm ¶My DD and I also have to keep an undercurrent flowing in order to concentrate. I actually knit better if I read a novel at the same time. We’re ADHD-I. Usually, when people object, I stand there talking to them, looking them in the eye, and knitting at mach speed, and they have to concede that it does appear that I can concentrate *and* knit(!). Sigh.
Good luck converting the infidels. A good comeback line is, “Oh, he’s just jealous because this scarf isn’t for him…”
Posted 18 Feb 2007 at 7:39 pm ¶Meh, muggles just don’t get it.
By the way, your blog looks great!
Glad you figured out the header.
Posted 20 Feb 2007 at 8:14 am ¶