Mikhail’s post about the ability of a blog to provide static and interactive content in the same post, complete with a playable Space Invaders, reminded me of a photo I saw recently on a favorite site.
That’s as good an introduction as I’m going to get to discuss knitting in academic settings. Some may find it rude when someone is knitting while listening to a keynote speaker at a conference, or to a lecture in a large class. Most knitters (and crocheters, too) find that working on a simple pattern helps them focus on what they’re listening to, rather than distracting them. I find it particularly useful to knit or crochet when I’m listening to something that doesn’t have a visual element, because my eyes don’t wander in search of something to focus on, which would in turn distract me from listening. Others find doodling helpful to occupy themselves visually while they focus on listening. We acknowledge the benefit of white noise to drown out ambient noise when we need to focus. If we occupy our ears with the sound of a fan, for instance, when we need to concentrate visually, why not focus our eyes and hands on something when we need to concentrate aurally? These posts on knitting and public politics and knitting in class provide interesting insights to the issue, as well as readers’ reactions.
I suppose the other message of my post is to encourage speakers to incorporate visuals into their presentations such that the audience becomes engaged both aurally and visually. I have just received a copy of Edward R. Tufte’s The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within and am encouraged that PowerPoint might, in skilled hands, be reclaimed as a tool for visually engaging listeners.
Great post, Jody. I remember bristling when I first saw people knitting during a presentation. It does make sense — knitting as davening.
Reply to Mikhail
Wow, I want those socks.
As a non-knitter coming from a long line of Serious Knitters, I must admit that even though I grew up around yarn, it took me a while to understand how someone could knit and still pay attention. I think the problems with knitting in a classroom setting might have to do with something else. Don’t you think that it may be the non-knitters in the class who will be
distracted and in turn, distracting, because they will be curious and interested in paying attention to the knitting going on around them?
Reply to Agnieszka
How would a teacher react to classroom containing a knitter or knitters? Would the teacher consciously or subconsciously change his or her style and deliver a lower quality learning experience?
Why would a teacher react any differently to a knitter than to a student with an open laptop or one fiddling around with a cellphone? This is a more practical matter in my classrooms and frankly, I don’t like it.
Communication is always bidirectional and I believe we need to consider the situation from the point of view of the teacher. Teachers need positive reenforcement no less than anyone else. Laptops, cellphones, knitters, those nodding off or otherwise lost in some nontopical fantasy do not, it seems to me, provide this encouragement.
Turn it around. Suppose you went to a lecture where the teacher sat in a rocker knitting while delivering the lecture. How would you feel?
Reply to James Drogan
There is a fantastic exhibit at the Museum of Art and Design, titled Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting. The pictures at their website look amazing (www.madmuseum.org) and this morning Leonard Lopate interviewed the curator and one of the artists on this radio show on WNYC.
It seems that knitting and crocheting has emerged again in the 21st century from the antiquated classification as mostly female activity, and a craft rather than art. It is now often perceived as a feminist, subversive act, or as a political activity, as a form or art, and of course as a lot of fun. Internet has helped in connecting the international knitting community. One of the exhibit pieces invited the audience to sit and knit and engage in a dialogue about war, another is a video installation about sweetshop labor, and then there are those tiny weenie little gloves, probably less than a quarter inch in size, and gigantic installations made with industrial equipment.
Check it out.
I must make a plug here for a Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz, who is well know as a pioneer of working with texture, sculpture, fabric and yarn and art made out of “organic” materials. She worked with fibers long before artists ventured into this territory and apparently her work inspired some of the international artists featured in the exhibit mentioned above.
Reply to Agnieszka
There is a fantastic exhibit at the Museum of Art and Design, titled Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting. The pictures at their website look amazing (http://www.madmuseum.org) and this morning Leonard Lopate interviewed the curator and one of the artists on this radio show on WNYC.
It seems that knitting and crocheting has emerged again in the 21st century from the antiquated classification as mostly female activity, and a craft rather than art. It is now often perceived as a feminist, subversive act, or as a political activity, as a form or art, and of course as a lot of fun. Internet has helped in connecting the international knitting community. One of the exhibit pieces invited the audience to sit and knit and engage in a dialogue about war, another is a video installation about sweetshop labor, and then there are those tiny weenie little gloves, probably less than a quarter inch in size, and gigantic installations made with industrial equipment.
Check it out.
I must make a plug here for a Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz, who is well know as a pioneer of working with texture, sculpture, fabric and yarn and art made out of “organic” materials. She worked with fibers long before artists ventured into this territory and apparently her work inspired some of the international artists featured in the exhibit mentioned above.
Reply to Agnieszka