The truth must be told… My name is Suz and I am a basket addict. It’s been two weeks since my last basket and I’m already having withdrawal symptoms.
I made my first willow basket a few months ago at the Greenwood Centre with the lovely Rachel Evans of Wheatcroft Willow and the group agreed to start with a more advanced type of basket, an oval shopping basket rather than the easier round basket. At first I didn’t understand the pattern at all. I felt a swell of frustration rise up but persisted and under Rachels’ fine tutelage she got me past the first hurdle and I left the weekend with a beautiful shopping basket.
It is a sign of an excellent teacher to be able to guide eight or nine people in making a full blown oval based basket, especially as some of us were first timers, and then have them go away with something decent. I know this because, since the course, I have had a go at teaching and although I understand the technique and can make a reasonable basket shaped object myself, teaching others to do the same takes some skill.
My first attempt was to run a bramble basket making workshop at the farm where I often visit. Everyone was eager to learn this skill, and cut back the ever encroaching brambles, and with only four others it was fairly easy to get the basic techniques across. However, my second attempt, at the crafty Treehouse Festival, things became a little more tricky. Firstly, we were using pieces of willow from a tree that hadn’t been pollarded in a while so all the lengths were trimmed from this years growth meaning they were short and branchy. Secondly, everyone wanted to make a basket! I kept the group down to seven but that was still a tough amount of people to work with, especially as I was keen to make my own basket as well.
The art to teaching is to keep calm. It requires projecting confidence onto your students and giving them the patience that they need to give themselves as they learn a new skill. It requires empathy as one remembers ones own frustrations and keeping them focused on moving forward. It requires the right language and turning that language into visual instructions. No one will understand what you mean if you say ‘now this bit goes into this bit’ – as I soon discovered. It also required a never ending enthusiasm to answer the same questions over and over again. But with all that said, I loved every second. Some people even went away with something that looked very much like a basket. Both of these opportunities were invaluable and were great steps towards doing something I really love to do – to teach.
