LOVE IN TEACHING
Many years ago when I was a boy I taught how to bend glass in an open flame. Seemed quite dangerous to me but my students did not agree. I nicknamed one of my students Joan of Arc as she set fire to her jumper. Not a big problem except that she was wearing it at the time! Reason was that as she heated glass, she noticed the glass dirty and so took it out of the flame to wipe the hot glass with the bottom of her jumper. Easy done and I am sure we have all done that – not! Fifty years later not much has changed.
I love teaching and love teaching hot glass working. I think when it’s the only thing you can do then its natural to feel good passing on your skills. Mind you some people I have trained really are in another World. I was working with an artists who place her sketch book next to the flame. This book had drawings of her designs relating to what I was meant to make. Her insistence to take over from me wore me down and I reluctantly handed over the hotel glass to her whereby she promptly place the hot glass on top of the sketch book resulting in a small bonfire. Oh how I laughed as she cried out. She asked me why did the paper burn and was the glass hot. I explained about flames and temperature and then she wanted her money back as I apparently didn’t warn her of the consequences of working with hot glass.
For the benefits of political correctness when I say “she” I could mean “he” but the “s” is silent in “he”. I don’t label people and that’s why when I teach I couldn’t care less whether students are left or right handed. Lampworkers are ambidextrous so favouring one side or another is a time consuming destruction. I also don’t talk too much and stop working. Maybe I am rare amongst the male species but I can do two things at once. I can talk and work glass in the flame at the same time. What I cant do is blow glass and talk at the same time. I was asked on a course whether I put my glass in my mouth to blow and I was surprised at me answer. I told the student that sometimes I put glass in my ear to blow but that’s just for suckers! What I really wanted to say that sometimes I put the glass up my backside to blow but my lack of control means I blow too much. I mean really what do they teach kids these days?
I see myself these days as more of a mentor but that’s just a wee bit conceited as I still teach glassblowing but only if someone is willing to learn. I ran a course once where one student told me they didn’t want to be on the course as they hated glass. I gave them a drink in a wine glass then took it away and poured wine all over their hands. They loved glass after that. Yep, it’s all about perception and I love teaching standing up as much as laying down. I can teach the basics but its harder to teach why anyone would want to learn in the first place. The hardest thing to teach is mistakes but after a little bit of practice I seem to have perfected it and pleased to report that some of my classes have excelled in this technique. How to address mistakes and cope when things go wrong should be the no one subject at all schools.
All crafts are easy to teach if one as a tutor is an expert but of course not every expert has the skills to pass on the knowledge to the next generation. Heritage Crafts recognise that scientific glassblowing is an endangered craft by definition that there are not enough people to train others in this particular skill set. It maybe that if the number of scientific glassblowers were doubled there still wouldn’t be enough people to pass on the sills. Teaching a person to make a glass item is one thing teaching them why they need to make it is another.
I have had students walk out of my classes. I have had people cry, scream and shout and that’s not just when they burn themselves. Some people think they can learn a technique in a few minutes by just practising for a short time. Nothing could be furth from reality. Teaching someone how to handle hot glass in the flame is very similar to teaching music. Just because you can do it one day doesn’t mean you will be bale to do it the next. After over fifty years of practising, fiddling and making mistakes with hot glass I know from that experience that teaching is easy! It’s the learning that’s the challenge!!
Yes, some serious humour apparent here and I can understand why. It’s true about teaching people that want to learn is one hundred percent preferable though, and why I admire teachers of secondary school; I simply would find teaching students that were reluctant to learn too much of a challenge. This could possibly hold implications related to whether I’d be a worthy student of something that was beyond easy to learn too. I think learning a new language is difficult but the fact that the art of glass making/crafting is a dwindling skill set, should encourage many to learn