No knitting

[igenlode]

I spent an incredibly frustrating hour at lunchtime trying to teach a woman how to knit -- I have never known anyone so utterly fail to *understand* the process before. I didn't realise that it was even possible to be so mind-blind....

It wasn't that she was physically clumsy as such; it may have been partly that her English wasn't very good. But I demonstrated again and again, breaking down the steps into the smallest parts. I tried illustrating the process with a crochet hook instead of a needle to pull the wool through -- I tried pulling it through the loop with my finger and thumb. I started the process off for her and then tried to get her to do the final stage herself. I did my best to analyse and break down all the movements I make almost instinctively, and isolate the ones that are actually significant from the ones that can be skipped to simplify matters.

But she just could not seem to get the very basic concept that you are creating a stitch by pulling a loop of wool through the loop that is already on the other needle -- it really doesn't matter too much *how* you do that to start off with, but the important thing is to draw that loop through by fair means or foul. She was just mechanically imitating the movements I was trying to show her without any apparent comprehension of what they were intended to achieve, like a small child who thinks he is 'driving a car' by twisting the steering wheel from one side to another. She kept sticking the needle through the loop on the other needle and then performing hopeful and complicated wiggling movements in case the stitch might magically appear, without seeming to have any comprehension of the intended outcome, though I had demonstrated it and explained it in all the endless ways I could think of -- and I just could not get through to her no matter how hard (or rather gently) I tried. She just could not *see* the basic principle of how it was supposed to work.

I don't think I've ever come up against a complete blank wall of basic lack of engineering comprehension before; it might be possible to teach her by rote that if she magically does A, B and C then knitting will somehow appear, but then as soon as she does something wrong the magic will mysteriously cease to function. (And in any case I didn't have any luck with that approach either.)

In the past I've managed to get people knitting almost immediately; the last one was busy knitting ribbing by the end of the session. I thought I was good at explaining things, even to people with poor English comprehension levels. But this was a complete brick wall... a lack of 3D visualisation, I think.

Comments

[watervole]

How odd. I wonder if she had eye problems, or some form of mental handicap.

[igenlode]

Some form of mental handicap, I would guess, although it's hard to be sure across the language barrier. She kept apologising and saying how she always needed to learn very, very slowly, so it's presumably an experience that she has had before in other contexts.